Day Two

After a good night's rest we began the climb to Upper Lyle Base Camp and soon arrived at the crossing of the stream coming from Lyle Glacier. That water is cold! On the other side of the stream we took a short break before our final climb to Donohue Pass - about twelve miles from Tuolumne Meadows. Arriving at the pass, we had a short period of rain combined with hail, which continued for the next mile or so. Dropping to the Marie Lake trail, one of us had her usual difficulty with crossing above running water, although she always makes it one way or the other! Continuing on, we dropped to Rush Creek crossing where the trail began climbing to Island Pass. At Island Pass we first glimpsed Banner Peak and Mount Ritter, boldly appearing above the many ponds that dotted the landscape. Then we headed down to Thousand Island Lake where we turned left onto the PCT headed to Agnew Meadow. After about two miles we saw a good looking campsite and so we decided to stop for the night even though we had more daylight remaining - this turned out to be a BIG mistake!

Setting up our hammocks, we prepared and ate a good meal, after which John tied our Ursack with half our food (the other half being in a Garcia bear canister) to a nearby tree. After a too short sleep we had visitors - a mama bear and three cubs - who commenced to wreck havoc upon the Ursack! Being Yosemite bears they could not be driven off, and so eventually chewed through to our food - naturally the tastiest we had! We finally gave up attempts to chase off our persistant visitors and went back to bed - or at least John and I did, Llona being too terrified to sleep.

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