Tucson, AZ and Mammoth to Yosemite

I took some needed vacation time this last week since Sunday, 8/14.  But, since I last blogged on Thursday, 8/11, I still walked 27.26 miles.  On the mapped route to Washington D.C., that brings us into another major city, Tucson, Arizona.

While I was on vacation, I did some hiking on real trails, up and down in the Sierra Nevada.  First, we drove to Mammoth Mountain, which is a gateway to many back-country Sierra trails.

We took the shuttle bus down to the trail head for Devil's Postpile, an unusual igneous rock formation created when lava cooled quickly, cracking in hexagonal columns.

 After that, we walked on the Pacific Crest Trail.

 We eventually made it to Minaret Falls.

When we left the falls area, we encountered a California Conservation Corps crew that was repairing wooden bridges used for crossing Minaret Creek, which roars in the Spring, but is a pussy cat in August.

Finally, we drove through Yosemite.  We didn't linger in Yosemite Valley, because of the crowds.  Instead, we drove South on the road out of the Valley and toward Glacier Point, where we parked and hiked to the top of Sentinel Dome.  Yes, that's the same dome that I climbed a year ago that is the cover shot for this blog.