Day 86&87 Donohue Pass to Yosemite Valley

Day 86

Start: 908.5 End: 928.1 Total: 19.3

I woke up around 6:15 and laid in my tent until around 6:30. I decided I would get up and go have a nice solo breakfast session in the hot springs. I grabbed my breakfast and coffee supplies and went up. I stayed for about an hour, alternating the really cold and really hot water. It was such a nice, relaxing morning and I drank my coffee and had my pop tart in the hot springs. 

When I left the springs Kiki, PB and Dora were having breakfast and I stopped and chatted with them for a bit before packing up my things and heading out on trail. I took an alternative route back to the PcT that avoided any big river crossings. It was a pretty chill first 3 miles with a lot of downed trees and brush piles and passed through a couple of campgrounds that were not open yet. 

Once I got back to the PcT there was a good bit of climbing and I listened to some podcasts and music. I planned on having lunch around 1/ whenever I got to the top of the first climb. Right around then it started raining. It wasn’t super heavy rain but it was fairly consistent. I hadn’t eaten much that day and needed lunch so I just sat down and had one summer sausage and cheese wrap in the rain. I put on my pack cover and rain coat, filtered another liter of water and kept going. 30 or so minutes later it let up a bit and I sat down and had another burrito but it started raining again shortly after I sat down. 

I kept going and it let up another 20 or so minutes later but the sky still looked quite moody so I continued on as quickly as I could. I wanted to get set up before any big storm came. I approached a beautiful lake called thousand island lake and there were some really cool rock formations before it. The lake was awesome and I would’ve loved to swim to some of the islands but the sky still looked threatening so I pushed on. Sure enough it started raining again right as I started the ascent up past the lake. 

After the lake was a smaller pass called Island Pass, it wasn’t steep but the top was still covered in snow. As I got to the top the sky really started to darken and I heard another deep rumble of thunder as I picked up the pace. So far in the Sierras most of the thunder has been an empty threat but I couldn’t be too sure. I descended, forded a river then started to climb up. I arrived at Rush Creek about a mile and half later, forded that and set up camp right after. 

Kiki arrived about 20 minutes later and we had dinner, filtered water and had an early night to prepare for an even earlier wake up the next morning to go up and over Donaugh pass and into Yosemite valley 

Day 87 Donohue Pass

Start: 928 End: 944 Total: 16 miles

My alarm went off around 3:15 and I stayed in bed until a bit after 3:30. I drank my cold coffee I prepared the night before and ate my pop tart in my sleeping bag before getting out of my tent. The stars were so bright and you could see the Milky Way. 

Kiki and I broke camp, packed our things and were off. We had some snow free trail for less than a mile before the snowy navigation began. We created our own paths through piles of rocks and snow towards the pass.

It wasn’t quite clear where the pass was until we were directly in front of it so we checked our maps often as we traversed through the snow and rocks. It was a pretty mellow climb to the top and we got there in time to watch the sunrise.. We had a little dance party as Kiki is compiling footage of him and friends dancing at the top of mountains. As we crossed over Donohue pass we entered into Yosemite National park.

We began our descent down. Taking a short cut and scrambling over rocks to get back to the trail. We had a couple of stream crossings and a steeper descent on switchbacks before hitting the valley floor. We then had 9 miles of super flat terrain to cruise through. 

We passed three other hikers and then before getting to the road we took a dip in tuoloumne river along with one of the hikers we had just met. 

We got to the road, walked a bit further down to a better hitching spot. I stuck up my thumb but I was at a crosswalk so this big rv stopped but didn’t want to give me a ride, just wanted to let me cross. I then went further down the road to join Kiki and we stuck up our thumbs again and the first car pulled over. She was a super sweet middle aged woman who was very chill. 

We chatted for 20 minutes or so before conversation faded off but it seemed like she was okay with that. We woke up so early and I began nodding off, trying so hard to stay awake but eventually succumbing to my sleep. I was so thankful she was so trustworthy and nice, she had no problem with us sleeping. It was a long hitch about an hour and a half.

We got to Yosemite and she dropped us off at Curry Village where we got showers. We waited around until the evening, checked out the museum, charged phones, sat in different spots. Our friend Rocky, who I had hiked San Jacinto with and Kiki had met in the desert, was in Yosemite. She got a job as a nurse in the clinic that would start after the hike but she was helping out for a couple weeks before continuing her hike. 

She had made a paramedic friend who was going to let us stay in his apartment. When Rocky got back into the village we went to her friends house and dropped off our stuff. We then went and got ice cream before coming back to his apartment for the night.