September 15th, Andra and I set out on our most ambitious adventure of the year. Our most ambitious trip is matched by our most elaborate web update and I hope you enjoy the 94 photographs selected from the 455 we took on our nine-day vacation.

Friday the 15th we headed straight from my office to Lee Vining. We stayed the night in a hotel to help us get an early start at the trail and to assist us in acclimating to high altitude. Nearly all of the hiking on this trip lies above 10000ft and the trailhead starts at 8700ft. The plan was to spend seven days backpacking in the high country, followed by two days recovering in Curry Village. From the permitting station, we picked up the trail, took the western fork (Rafferty Creek Trail), and headed towards Vogelsang Lake (10300+ft). With seven days worth of provisions, our packs were the heaviest we had ever carried. I figured if we got tired before reaching the lake we'd just camp the first night along Rafferty Creek. If you mouse over the map below, you will see a zoomed-in version of the map showing the Vogelsang area. We wanted to explore this area and then return via Lyell Canyon.

It might be interesting to note that Waugh Lake in the lower right hand corner is only 1.5 miles north of Thousand Island Lake (our July trip).

The black dots on white, are the tracks (trail of breadcrumbs) recorded by my GPS. Our total hiking distance was about 42 miles.