Day #39 Granite Heaven

John Muir Trail Part 8/11 – From Tuolumne Meadows to Lower Cathedral Lake (.. Miles)

Sunshine woke me and I rolled out of the tent to see Carla already busy with breakfast preparations. Within 20 minutes there were coffee with hemp milk, a delicious plate full of hash potatoes, scrambled eggs with spinach, guacamole and salsa on the table. What a way to start the day!

After packing up and saying good bye to Carla I went back to the trail where I left it yesterday. The next 6 miles where exhausting. I did not enjoy hiking through sand and granite steps leading up towards Cathedral Lakes. After many breaks and admiring huge granite domes that appeared to my right and left, I arrived at Lower Cathedral Lake.

It is absolutely stunning what centuries of glaciers did here – the almost white granite slabs are completely polished. I took a nap at the lake shore, swam a very short round to clean the dust and sweat off me and ate lunch. I hiked around to find a campsite and picked one in the middle of a granite hill. It‘s so peaceful here except a few annoying dayhikers yelling and testing the echo of the walls.

I had the typical dull pain in my stomach again so to feel better, I ate some dark chocolate Carla gave to me. Then the surrounding granite hills were calling me to explore them. I scrambled up an easy, smooth slab and got an excellent view into the valley of Tenaya Lake.

Then I noticed the walls to the left of my campsite. It looked climbable so I decided to take a closer look with my climbing shoes in my hands. It was a steep slab with some flakes running up the walls.

I chose the easiest way up, carefully choosing holds for my hands and feet, as the rock was both firm and crumbly, some parts were covered in black lichen.

Free soloing is lots of fun as you‘re totally in the moment, even more than with protected climbing. My fear of slipping and falling down was not constricting me at all, instead it was a useful guide, like a sixth sense. Whenever moving straight up didn‘t feel right or seemed impossible, I traversed to a better looking place and continued the way up, trusting tiny crystals to push myself onto the next ledge.

On the top, I was extatic – everything went fine and I was alive! The 360 degree view was surreal – a place so different from everything else I‘ve seen in my life until then. To my far left, I recognized a familiar shape – a round dome cut in half. I checked on my navigation app and the direction was correct – if I‘m not wrong, I saw Half Dome from my small summit!

Yosemite is so close now, I‘m in overdrive. I crave climbing so much when I look at the big walls surrounding me and start to imagine what it would be like to spend a night on a portaledge.

From my camp I have a good view of Cathedral Peak, and although I want to solo climb it, it seems distant, steep and uninviting. Also it’s not clear to me how I’ll get up to the crag. I‘ll see how I‘ll feel tomorrow!

The sunset has left everything in a beautiful soft rose light. I‘m cuddling with my plush animals in my tent against the cold, thankful for every second of this experience.