Shannon had to wrap up a couple of things at work in the morning so we ended up leaving just before noon, zipping across the Central Valley in light traffic, and then up Old Priest Grade headed for the forbidden land of Yosemite National Park. After dealing with the necessary paperwork at the entrance gate we continued on for Tuolumne Meadows passing an impressive number of construction vehicles along the way. It seems the park has decided to repave every parking lot along Tioga Road this year for some reason (these were not exactly rough roads beforehand). Even the parking lot at the Tuolumne Meadows Ranger Station was closed. We had to park down the road at the Dog Lake Trailhead and walk back to the Ranger Station – the roughing it had already begun!

The air quality was quite awful in Tuolumne on this Saturday, probably 150 or 200. When we got to the ranger station, we asked the ranger if we could change our entry permit, either to start up the Cathedral Lakes trailhead which we expected to be easier, or to start on a later date when we hoped the smoke would clear a bit. He said there were no modifications permitted even though we knew that all of the trailhead quota wasn’t being used on this and subsequent days. Unfortunately, the new permit process in Yosemite is really inflexible, making it much harder to plan a trip here in variable conditions. So we picked up the permit we had and drove back to the Cathedral Trailhead to head up Bud Creek.

At the trailhead we had a snack and shouldered our heavy packs and headed up the trail. About half a mile up we branched off on the trail up Budd Creek. This is the use trail that climbers use to access Cathedral Peak so it is pretty impacted and easy to follow. The creek was completely dry as the ranger had warned us it would be.

Unicorn Peak and Cockscomb across Budd Creek. The smoke was getting a little bit better as we climbed up out of Tuolumne Meadows, but we were still a bit frustrated by it.

Cockscomb through the trees.

Echo Peaks as we got closed to the pass above Cathedral Lakes. We saw one group heading down from Cathedral Peak and a couple more on the route, but otherwise it was quiet.

The south face of Cathedral Peak to our north. It doesn’t look quite as imposing from this angle!

We crossed the saddle dividing Budd Creek from Cathedral Lakes and dropped down to Upper Cathedral Lake. We walked around to the south and then west shore of the lake, searching for a somewhat secluded spot. There were maybe six or eight other groups camped at the lake, some of them less than twenty feet from the waters edge.

Cathedral Peak above Upper Cathedral Lake.

Sunset colors were muted by the smoke, though it wasn’t terrible where we were.

I stayed up a little bit and took some photos of the stars over Cathedral Peak, a couple of them even turned out well. I had to crop out the (illegal) campfire someone built just across the lake from us.