Traveling with the Munschs: Yosemite Pictures

Whew, it's been a while but hopefully I'll be able to get caught up the next couple of days. I'm sitting at our campsite in the Tetons now and surprisingly have ok 4g signal. We left the great basin on our way to Yosemite or actually Oh! Ridge Campground at June lake which is outside of Yosemite on the eastern side of the Sierras. It was a normal long drive through the desert and while we were no longer on the loneliest road in America you could have fooled me because the drive through Nevada was empty, nothing but desert for miles. We hit the point where it said no gas for 120 miles or something crazy like that... they tell you after the last gas station but give you a chance to turn around... well the truckster said we had 180 miles worth of gas so gulp here we go. We made it without issues but there were quite a few mountain passes where I didn't feel real great about our buffer. Everyone was anxious/nervous/scared the whole day about the big overnight hike that we were doing the next day. But we pulled into June lake and it was early enough in the afternoon that we hit the beach to take our minds off it before we had to get our packs ready. It was a beautiful mountain lake and cold as all get out. Lake Superior style cold, which after our tour around the great lakes we gauge all water temperature against. We're pretty sure this was colder. We got bags packed that evening and tried to get a good nights rest.

In the morning we got up early and set off to get our back-country permit and head to the trail head. We were hiking to Ten Lakes basin, in the high Sierras of Yosemite. It's a 6.3 mile hike out and then 6.3 miles back with about 2000ft elevation gain. It was brutal, started out pretty good and spirits were high. Less than a mile in Sam couldn't handle the weight of his pack, we had him carrying one of the tents and he did good with it on our practice hikes but those didn't have any elevation or thin air so we lighten his load we threw it on top of my pack and kept going. That helped his mood improve dramatically and only damped mine a bit. After about 4 miles there was a nasty set of switchbacks that just kept going up, I would have swore that was all the elevation gain but coming back the next day it was more apparent how uphill the whole trail had been. Anyway we got to the top in one piece but coming back down from the pass to the other side into the basin things started to fall apart. Becky was done and with the end in sight (a mile and 1/2 away) she soldered us on without taking a much needed break. We got into the basin and dropped stuff at the first campsite we came across by the big lake. That was it we took a rest and setup camp, then laying down for about an hour. The kids bounced back quickly and started to explore and climb rocks while Becky and I boiled water to make supper. We gathered wood and had a small fire to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Then had to play jenga with the bear barrel to fit everything scented we had into it. I figured the trash would pack down a little better than it did but Becky man handled it and got everything inside. Our campsite and the lake were beautiful, you felt completely isolated. There were a couple of campers down the lake from us that we could see along the shore every once in a while but I've never felt so removed from everything in my whole life. Becky was having a little more trouble seeing the beauty after the ordeal we had just gone through. The night went fine with no bear encounters or anything other than a few deer mulling around. Not a great nights sleep but it felt good after that hike. We got up had some instant coffee and breakfast and hung out for a few hours until everyone was up and ready to head back. The kids were playing on this huge bolder and we warned them multiple times to take it easy so they didn't get hurt. No one got hurt on that rock but coming back to camp to start packing up Samus jumped on a small little rock and turned his ankle. It wasn't a bad sprain but you could tell it was hurting him and hampering his movement. We wrapped it up good and he walked out on it without much complaining... he was a trooper. The walk out was better than in we had 600ft of switchbacks to get out of the basin and they seemed steeper than the ones on the other side we went up the day before. Sam and I took up the rear, I really struggled getting up to the pass but after that it was all down hill and we marched on. The last mile or so is always the worse we thought we had to be almost done, always just one more turn and we have to be there... and then finally as we gave up hope and resolved that our lot in life was to walk with heavy packs on our backs... we were done. It was a great feeling and a great accomplishment. No one wanted to think about hiking anymore and pretty much wrote off doing the other overnight that we had planned, I thought give them time and they'll come around. The other hike is here in the Tetons and yeah it's probably not going to happen. The next day we recovered and got some groceries talking in the Mono Lake visitors center. Then our last day we drove the 2 hours to Yosemite Valley to take in the touristy side of the park. It was a good drive but the valley had a ton of people in it. Parking was tough but we finally found a place by the hotel. We walked along and took in the sites, ate lunch, did a quick hike to the lower falls and then head back over to campsite along June lake.