We crossed over Donohue Pass today and entered Yosemite National Park. We found ourselves in an impromptu Pilates and yoga class this morning, not something I had on my PCT bingo card. We were at camp until about 11:30 am, so just climbed over the pass and down to the other side to make camp after 6.5 miles, 10.5 km.

I woke up fairly early this morning and had breakfast before the others were up. While I was packing, the others woke up and began talking about doing Pilates and yoga to start the day. I hadn’t been expecting to do such things on trail but figured there’s no harm joining in. We spent an hour out on the grass moving and stretching, by the time we’d finished I felt like I’d already walked 10 miles.

We left camp quite late, at 11:30 am, and began the short climb to Donohue Pass. An hour into the walk, Fast Molasses and Chapless had another surprise, they’d found a bunch of daisies and figured it would be funny to stick them in mine and Holiday’s scraggly beards. We spent the afternoon trying to talk as manly as possible to people coming the other way, without laughing and making tiny flowers fly everywhere. We had a wager on too, whoever had the most flowers left at the end of the day would get a beer in Tuolomne Meadows.

Climbing up to the pass wasn’t hard, but I spent a lot of time talking to so many people coming the other way. The views from the top, especially on the side looking into Yosemite were fantastic.

The trail descends quickly into Lyell Canyon, where the Tuolomne River flows. I found a good campsite near the river and settled in for the night, still with 34 wilting daisies sticking out of my beard. Hopefully that’s enough to get me the beer tomorrow in Tuolomne Meadows.