Tuolumne County Highpoint Trip Report

Dates: July 2-3, 2008
Author: Kathy Wing

I did a solo 2-day trip out to Mount Lyell. I backpacked from Tuolumne Meadow to 10,500 feet near where you leave the John Muir Trail to head to Lyell on July 2nd and then on July 3rd I climbed Lyell, returned to camp, and backpacked back out to the trailhead. There was lots of snow out there - patchy snow right after camp and then I was on snow most of the time from 11,000 feet to just above the Lyell/Maclure saddle where I picked up the ridge and headed up to the summit.

On the way down I dropped off the summit ridge earlier and hit some steep and icy snow at the top of the glacier - the snow was much better down by the saddle where it was soft and sun-cupped but consolidated enough that I didn't post-hole.

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