This July we decided on an aggressive hike starting just outside Yosemite. We'd trek through the most remote parts of the park and back out. To pull this off, we needed two cars and a willingness to hike with full packs nearly every day. Our eight day, seven night plan started at Virginia Lakes (green dot or red flag) and ended at Twin Lakes (Red dot). Due to the sheer length of this trip (over 54 miles), the map above is zoomed back so far you can't really read anything. You can however, see the yellow dots (stops). Each dot is numbered 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, etc. Heaven only knows why the software adds the zero, but it does give me something to reference for discussion.

After sending hike details over to Dave, we decided this plan didn't seem completely crazy and Andra booked permits through the Bridgeport Ranger Station. On July 6th, we drove up and stayed at a hotel in Bridgeport to help acclimate to the thinner air. Bridgeport sits at about 6500ft elevation. The trailhead at Virginia Lakes is around 9600ft and driving from sea level straight there didn't seem like a great idea.

After a nice dinner and good night's sleep, we had breakfast and headed over to the Ranger Station to grab the backpacking permit. With permit in hand, we headed to Twin Lakes to drop off my car. The general plan follows:

7/7/07 - Hike from Virginia Lakes over the 11,100+ ft summit and back down to Summit Lake (stop 1-0, approx 10250ft elevation). Camp overnight at Summit Lake.
7/8/07 - Hike from Summit Lake to Miller Lake (stop 2-0). Stay one night.
7/9/07 - Hike from Miller Lake up over Benson Pass and camp for two nights at Smedberg Lake (stop 3-0)
7/11/07 - Hike from Smedberg Lake, to Benson Lake for lunch (Stop 4-0), then up over Seavey Pass to Stop 6-0, where we'd camp along Rancheria Creek. Yes, yes, you're thinking that senile old Mike forgot Stop 5-0. Not exactly. Stop 5-0 was just a place holder marking a place where we might find water should we have run out hiking over Seavey Pass.
7/12/07 - Hike from Stop 6-0 to Peeler Lake and camp in Kerrick Meadow (Half mile west of Stop 7-0). Stay two nights.
7/14/07 - Hike from Kerrick Meadow to air conditioned leather bucket seats where movement is propelled by a large V-8 with only light muscle flexing of one foot.