John Muir Trail 2012 Day 1 7-14-12
Our trip started on Friday afternoon after a slew of issues threatened to delay or derail our departure. We got on the road and started towards Yosemite around noon with a car loaded down with gear. We had to make a couple of stops on the way for some items we forgot, but we made good time and hit the park around 4. We had left James annual pass back at home, so I bought one for myself and we entered to find a campsite. According to the board, every campground was full but Yosemite Creek. We made the drive out to the campground, the last 4 miles of which are on a nasty dirt road. When we arrived we snagged the last campsite available in all of Yosemite and settled in for the night.
We woke around 7:30 to temps in the mid 40's, I slept VERY well the first night. How great it is to be back in Yosemite sleeping under the stars! Mount Hoffmann was on the agenda for the day and we drove to the May Lake trail head to start our hike. The trail was pleasant and not too busy, and we carried a light load today. The trail leads to the May Lake High Sierra Camp, then skirts along the south side of the lake.
The trail follows the south shore of May Lake then climbs gently up to a high meadow above the lake. The views are nice and the climbing easy up to this point.
The trail goes vertical at this point, climbing a talus slope towards the summit. The views open up in amazing ways making the climb enjoyable. The wild flowers were out in abundance, adding color and joy to the trail.
After cresting the ridge, the summit become visible ahead marked by the antenna on top. There is a bit of class 2 scrambling on large boulders to reach the summit. This is a popular route and there were about 7 people on top when we got there.
The view from the top was awesome! Mount Hoffmann is the geographical center of the park, so the terrain in your view is varied and wonderful. The antenna on top is unfortunate, but easy to forget. We ate an MRE for lunch and spent about an hour on top.
We decided to have a bit of adventure on the way down and headed cross country to climb the false summit visible from the lake. We then dropped down towards the lake on steep slabs until hitting a sheer wall, then traversed over to the high meadow. It was an easy walk out from there, and we stopped in the High Sierra Camp for a postcard and lemonade.
Back in camp around 5, we had some beer and dinner. It was a great start to our trip, we got an easy climb under our belt and got some altitude acclimation. Around 8 pm we had some visitors in our campsite, John and John Michael were a father son combo that needed a campsite for the night. We welcomed them to our site, well aware of how close we came to being in that same situation the night before.
The total for our hike was:
8 miles
8 miles
Peaks Climbed On This Day:
Mount Hoffmann 10,850'
Mount Hoffmann 10,850'