Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Yosemite NP – Cathedral Lakes Hike

Sept 25th - On Saturday, Fred, Laura, Dave and I drove up to Tuolumne Meadows – a 1.5 hour drive to the High Sierra’s in the upper area of Yosemite - with breath-taking scenery all along the way. Our destination was the Cathedral Lakes trailhead - and a 7 mile  round trip hike, with 1,000 feet elevation gain -  to upper Cathedral Lake. I am not sure of the starting elevation for this hike, but we guessed it to be around 7,000 feet.  We were all feeling the effects of the higher elevation - a bit of light headedness and increased breathing with less effort. But, up we went…..and as we continued, we began to feel better.

The trail progressed up the mountain without any really spectacular views………

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Until we got to the Cathedral Lake – That’s Cathedral Mountain in the background……..

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Well named….as you can see…..

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Cathedral Lake was beautiful….pristine…..and we were there, by ourselves, to enjoy it……

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We found several nice boulders to settle on and enjoy our lunch……. and stretch our toes a bit……

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As we were enjoying the view, we spotted (with the binoculars) several climbers WAY UP on the very top of Cathedral Mountain. How they got there…or how they get down……was something to ponder….. I’m just glad that WE did not have that far to go to get down!  To be honest, the two days of uphill (and down!) hiking had taken their toll on all of our calves, legs, feet and knees…….

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