I left Mammoth at 0830 and was on the trail by 0910. A fellow hiker, CatWater, was getting a ride to the trailhead from her sister who was visiting for a few days and they gave me a ride. It was a nice, mostly sunny morning and everything was freshly washed from the recent storm. A lot of vegetation was still wet and it smelled good.

It was pretty much climbing all day up to the pass. The clouds would build and threaten, and then dissipate.

Don’t know why, Yogi’s guidebook? but I’ve been waiting for this handsome mountain.

I started drinking the whiskey around two (to lighten the load), which improved my outlook greatly. Unfortunately, I neglected to take into account all the sobriety checkpoints. By that I mean raging, icy streams, with stony banks, that are crossed by walking over some wet, skinny log. Like, six of them. But I made it.

Hit the pass (entered Yosemite NP) around 1730. I didn’t go too far after that. Just down enough to get back to treeline. I might have gone more but I saw a bunch of tents down there.

After I was all set up and dinner consumed, a thunderstorm came over and rained and hailed some, but it didn’t matter much to me.