Amelia Earhart Climb

Photo Album Page 1

The First Day of Hiking

Five of us started out Tuesday, August 3, from Susan and Wayne's house in Walnut Creek. (Photo by Susan; image #040803-001)

Mary Jane started from her boyfriend's house in Sacramento and ended up just a few minutes behind us on Highway 49 so we waited for her. (image #040803-003)

This is a famous shortcut up steep hairpin curves that cuts off several miles on the route from San Pedro Reservoir to Groveland. (image #040803-004)

The six of us rolled into our reserved sites at the Tuolumne Meadows for our car-camp at the roadhead. We dropped off our gear and headed to Tuolumne Lodge for one last fancy dinner that wasn't freeze-dried. (image #040804-007)

Wednesday morning, we saddled up to head out into the back country. (image #040804-008)

Maurie with her little Kelty Pack with about 20 pounds in it. (image #040804-009)

Mary Jane packed up. (image #040804-010)

This is my new Lembert-Dome vanity license plate. (image #040804-011)

Jon, Deanna, Michael, Maurie, Mary Jane, and Wayne. (image #040804-013)

Unicorn Peak and Cathedral Peak. Cathedral Peak is the type locality of the third and largest member of the Tuolumne Intrusive Series. The geologic descriptions I use in this story are from mapping done by Paul Batemanm Ron Kistler, Dallas Peck, and A.J. Bucacca and published in Bateman's Geologic Map of the Tuolumne Meadows Quadrangle. This is a medium-grained hornblende-biotite granodiorite that contains conspicuous blocky megacrysts of potassium-feldspar 2-3 cm across. U-Pb zircon age on this rock formation is 88 +/- 2 million years (Cretaceous). (image #040804-014)

For the first five miles, we hiked up the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River; the trail gains almost no elevation at all that entire distance. (image #040804-015)

This is Jon loaded down. He should be used to this since he just got back from a mountaineering class on the Palisade Glacier the previous month. (image #040804-016)

This rest stop along the river offered a great view of the Kuna Crest: the ridge across the river to the east. We left the Cathedral Peak Granodiorite about here and entered the Half Dome Granodiorite. This unit is the second unit of the Tuolumne Intrusive Series (the Sentinel being the first, outside unit). The Half Dome consists of two facies: the Porphyritic facies that we encounteded here and the Equigranular facies where we camped the first night. The Porphyritic facies is a medium-grained porphyritic hornblende-biotite granodiorite with a seriate texture. Biotite and hornblende commonly occur in euhedra. Megacrysts are generally smaller than those in the Cathedral Peak Granodiorite, are tabular rather than equant, and commonly are a little more than 1 cm across and 2-3 cm long. (image #040804-017)

Every time we stopped, out came the cameras. (image #040804-018)

Maurie started her rest stop sitting on this log... (image #040804-019)

... but it soon became a full-blown nap. (image #040804-020)

Mary Jane perched. (image #040804-021)

I took this shot with a 20-mm wide-angle lens. (image #040804-022)

The first time I hiked up this river valley was in 1966 with Joe Tysl when we were 18. (image #040804-025)

I went up here again in 1968, 1976, 1980 (twice), 1991, and 1993. (image #040804-026)

Our first-night's camp was where Ireland Creek flows into Lyell Fork. This is about five miles from the car and gave us a second night of sleeping at altitude before we ever did ny significant elevation gain. This camp was situated in the Equigranular facies of the Half Dome Granodiorite which is a medium-grained equigranular granodiorite. It is characterized by euhedral hornblende prisms 1 to 3 cm long, biotite books are as much as 1 cm long and the unit contains conspicuous sphene. (image #040804-027)

The Second Day - Hiking Up to Ireland Lake Base Camp

A common view of Maurie: reading. (image #040805-028)

Mary Jane in her latest sun hat. (image #040805-029)

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