A somewhat different day for us on the PCT.

The night was chilly, and in the morning we had a bit of frost on our bear canisters. The tents and the rest of our great were not affected. We waited a bit for the sun to reach us, and then started our hike down towards Tuolumne campground.

Some deer in Lyell Canyon
Some deer in Lyell Canyon
The Lyell River
The Lyell River

The hike was a bit steep at first, but soon enough we reached the valley floor and had a long walk on completely flat terrain. We met a lot of JMT and day hikers, the closer we got to the campground. We finally reached the store at 12:30. Idan was already there, just finishing getting us into the permit lottery to climb Half Dome in two days. I hope we win. The PCT does not go down into Yosemite valley, but the JMT, which Yair is hiking, does. Besides, we are so close, we might as well hike down and see the sights.

And this is the Tuolumne Meadows camp store
And this is the Tuolumne Meadows camp store

At the store we met a load of other PCT hikers. Big Boots was there. He just got his Half Dome permit for tomorrow, so he was heading down the valley today. We also met Globe Trotter (who did the Israel trail two years ago) and Salsa, Lucky Winner and Chris (who are hiking a big PCT section, and are not going down to Yosemite), and several others.

This bird kept trying to get to our food, while sitting near the store
This bird kept trying to get to our food, while sitting near the store

We were supposed to get a resupply box we sent ourselves, at the store/P.O.. The guy manning the Post Office kept telling us to come around later, because he was busy “sorting”, or something like that. After almost two hours of waiting, we finally got to ask for our box. It wasn’t there - it got to the P.O. down in the valley. We were bummed, but we got our resupply from the store. So no worries.

While waiting there, we did eat some nice food from the snack bar. I got the standard veggie burger, and also a veggie chili. So we didn’t waste all of our time waiting.

We finally headed out at about 16:30, to start hiking down to Yosemite. We made a stop at the visitor center to figure out if we’d have room in some lodge, when we get down there in two days. It doesn’t seem so.

Our plan is to climb Clouds Rest tomorrow, and then camp just below Half Dome for the night, and do it on Friday. So today we just hiked out of Tuolumne about 4 more miles, and camped near Cathedral Lake.