A truely wonderful day. Everything worked out.

I woke several times during the night to toss and turn, however, I did manage a good night of sleep and stayed in my bag until 07:00.

When I finally got out and about, I checked on Joel and Alyssa's green tent far, far below the cliff face. Something was there. I figured it was them.

There were already a couple people on the summit. Early risers from the high sites at Trail Camp, I surmised.

I ate and boogied off the summit. Arriving 45 minutes later under Mt. Muir, I shed my pack and climbed the class 3 loose dirt and scree to under the summit block. The block itself was a 60 foot high spire of mixed class 3 & 4 climbing to the top. What a fun little scramble to an airy summit. The roundtrip took 50 minutes which was surprisingly long, I thought. Where did all the time go? The detour was well worth the effort.

After Muir the hike was 9 or 10 miles of downhill broken occasionally by chatting with those on the way up. Glad I am not one of them. I met one JMT northbounder on his day 2. He said that he was ready to quit on the first day. Poor guy. He had only made it about 6 miles to Trail Camp. Still that was a lot of vertical.

To make a long story short, I made it to Whitney Portal, found the red 4Runner, talked to some hikers, and then saw Joel and Alyssa coming down the trail. Perfect! They brought me all the way to Yosemite west of Toulomne Meadow where they stopped for a climb. I was not feeling love from the motorists so I took many bad pictures of them scaling the wall before Karen the bus driver picked me up after her shift.

I arrived at the Bug Hostel in time to order my much dreamed about trout dinner. After my shower I enjoyed a celebratory bottle of wine, read some email, and posted my summits to SummitPost.

Tomorrow I hav some chores to do, but I will think about all that later.

G