Yosemite 2011 - California, United States

On the first day, we hiked out from the Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley  along the John Muir Trail until it splits at the start of the Mist Trail and goes up toward Clark Point.  We went up to Clark Point and continued along the John Muir Trail until it split again near Nevada Falls, heading south up the Panorama Cliff.  At that point, it was getting really dark and started snowing really hard.  Eventually, our trail was completely washed out and we camped on the side of the Panorama Cliff.  It was a pretty miserable night--we were on such a steep incline that I had to wake up every half-hour or so to knock the snow build up off of my tent.

We awoke the next morning to a veritable winter wonderland!  Our feet were soaked and we had not anticipated nearly this much snow.  So we hiked back down to Clark Point and took the path north, down toward the Emerald Pool and  eventually to Vernal Falls.  We had lunch there and decided to head back into Yosemite Valley to dry our socks and boots and take a breather at the backpacker's through-hiking camp before we tried again, this time taking a different route.  So we took the Mist Trail back west and the John Muir trail all the way to our original trailhead.

On day three, we headed along the John Muir trail again, up to Clark Point, then north again to the Emerald Pool.  Crossing the river there, we hiked up a very steep trail with the shortest and deadliest switchbacks I've ever done.  It was crazy.  It was like climbing a ladder of rocks at some points.  Our last picture, unfortunately, was a beautiful shot of Nevada Falls just before we made it to the top.  Our camera died, and we forgot extra batteries =/  Unfortunately, our photos are also extremely low resolution, because the camera was unknowingly on a lo-res setting.  Once we made it to the top of Nevada Falls, we continued onward towards Little Yosemite Valley.  We were surprised by a bathroom, and took a welcome break to explore the top of Nevada Falls before we got back on the John Muir Trail towards the Little Yosemite Valley Campground.  We camped there that night not far from the foot of Half-Dome and met an interesting engineer from Tennessee who let us warm up by his fire.

The next day, we wanted to try to visit Merced Lake, but we didn't have enough time and weren't too keen on running into snow again, which fellow backpackers had reported, so we headed out, back down the John Muir trail the whole way.  It was truly a wonderful experience, and my first real backpacking adventure in the West--hopefully the first of many!