Nursing a bit of an ankle sprain, my wife and party proceeded to the tarns via the May Lake Mystery Trail while I followed the pink bird on a rambling route to the same destination via the area north of Mt. Hoffmann, several unnamed lakes, and the South Fork of Cathedral Creek. After a wonderful swim, dinner, and balmy (for almost 10,000') night at the tarns, we birds and Larry returned via Tuolumne Peak (with an obligatory lake detour) while my wife and Old Dood proceeded directly to the swim-worthy Tenaya Lake.
Apologies for an abbreviated TR; it's a short week, and we need to pack for our next trip...
Climbing above May Lake:
Lake north of Hoffmann:
Sometimes you don't know if it goes all the way down, and sometimes you get lucky:
Metamorphic roof pendant goodness--in other words, rocks that don't look like they belong in Yosemite:
Chick-on, Larry, and me:
Crossing over into South Fork Cathedral Creek:
Looking across at the saddle south of the south peak of Tuolumne Peak, where we'd be tomorrow (the lake we visited is behind the peak to the right):
Another one of those "will it reach the bottom" descents. Spoiler: our luck held out:
The meadows at the headwaters of the South Fork. Not depicted: the hoards of mosquitoes attacking us. Still, a beautiful little valley surrounded by tall peaks just a few miles upstream from the trail:
Avalanche site and Tuolumne Peak's many summits:
This was the subject of a photo ID challenge awhile ago, a nice small tarn just before the trail drops into South Fork (heading west):
View from camp: clouds forming at sunset. We stayed warm and dry:
More sunset-view-from-camp-goodness:
Next day: the Tuolumne Meadows area from Tuolumne Peak:
This is what we went down the previous day:
New lake. You just know we had to touch it:
The buck didn't stop here:
Small tarn, south summit of Tuolumne Peak. This is the saddle we looked across at the previous day:
This lake was too cold for swimming:
Cathedral Peak, Clark Range... lots of Yosemite goodness. Stay tuned next week for some close-ups :-)
Obligatory dome shot:
May Lake Mystery Trail. Not on any map:
Oh, May Lake HSC is open, has been around since 1938, steak is for dinner, and water usage is restricted:
The HSC guests may have had a better dinner, but our view was much better...
More Pictures
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2013 08:50PM by basilbop.
Seriously, though...that whole area looks absolutely beautiful and kudos on capturing it so wonderfully in pictures...really wonderful! Thanks for sharing!
