Day 75: Tuolomne Meadows - Yosemite Park

Date: 21.06.2018 Miles hiked today: 16.4 Miles Total Mileage: Mile 942.5 It's 5am and my alarm clock is ringing. What? I've just fallen asleep, that can't be! How about if we leave an hour later? By all his thinking I'm now awake. Ok let's do it, move your ass. We are ready to go at 6am. As per my phone app the trail looks quite steep. There are three uphill climbs on our agenda today. But it's only about a 16 miles hike to our camp site. We will pitch our camp less than a mile before the last junction for half dome. From there it's about 2 miles to the top. So we start hiking, it's a beautiful day again. It's cold in the morning though, all the gras is frosted and there is steam coming from the rivers but the sun is coming out soon. The first uphill hike is small but steep. The second uphill hike is longer, but also has some as I call them receovery sections in between, which are not that steep. We stopp for breakfast but there are so many moskitos that we just stand and eat and make sure to soon move on again. We pass some John Muir Hikers which just started their hike today or yesterday. The permit which allows us to hike half dome is aligned with the John Muir trail. And by hiking this section we have all completed John Muir Trail fully as well. The John Muir trail JMT starts in the Yosemite Valley and ends at Mt. Whitney, passing the same trail through the Sierras as the PCT does. But the PCT actually does not include the climb of Mt. Whitney and all of the JMT in the Yosemite Valley. But we will do so and can then say we fully hiked the JMT. The third uphill is coming up soon. But all of the uphills are actually not as bad as I previously thought they would be, by looking at the elevation profile. It's only 11am and we are on the top of the last uphill hike for today. We are actually higher in altitude then we will be tomorrow when standing on half dome! I suggest to rest here for a while. It's only 5 more miles to our camp site plus it's dry and high up here so there are not that many moskitos around. Time flies and whoop 2 hrs passed! Time to move on. On our downhill hike we pass a beautiful view point, where we can see down to the yosemite valley and it's beauty. We have no stress so we enjoy this view and suck it in. Being pack on the trail we pass a big group of hikers. If we have seen the bear, they ask us. No! Where is he?? A little less than a mile up the trail, shortly after a creek crossing. I have not seen a bear so far and was complaining about it today. I want to see at least one bear here! So we decide to go back and leave our backpacks here. And really, I spot the bear straight away because i know he must be around here somewhere. But I would have never seen it from the trail! He is laying on a sunny rock, all for legs spread out, as if he is hugging the rock. So cute!! All this takes so much time we only arrive shortly after 5pm at the camp spot. I've slept very bad last night and hoped to get to bed early today, also because we want to climb half dome before sun rise. However it's already after 8pm by the time we are bed ready. Alarm is set for 2:15am, so in a little less than 6 hours - again a short night!