Up and Over Donahue Pass

View Back Down Lyell Canyon from Donahue Pass
It's a long climb up Donahue, our first pass, we are rewarded with great views back over Lyell Canyon. There's a bit of a snow bank towards the top, we traverse it without a problem.
There are gorgeous meadows on the North of the pass and we choose one for lunch, and then more as we go down into the valley, most of them have wildflowers too.

Just before the Rush Creek Trailhead we come upon a Mule Pack Train with a very friendly looking Black Mule Driver, he's looking for a place to park the mules and camp for the night, the party of slackpackers has yet to catch up.

Elena on Donahue Pass
A bit further south and we see a lovely little lake off to the side with a couple of guys checking it out so we decide to take a break for a few minutes. It's a bit buggy and the two guys look a bit uncomfortable with the bugs. As we chat for a minute we find out they're with the mule train and they start asking us questions, the Ladies in the group apparently have a change of clothes every day and these two are very curious to know how many changes of clothes we carry and what we sleep in, the answer of course is none and the same ones we hike in during the day.

Resting on Donahue Pass
To top it off, they're now getting very annoyed by all the mozzies biting and ask us if we have any deet, of course we do and it's striking that these guys have about 8 mules carrying 150 lbs. each but didn't think to add a small bottle of deet which weighs about 3 ounces, instead they have to bum it off backpackers who have to lug everything on their backs into the wilderness.

We're headed down to Thousand Island Lake, it's late in the day and we look for a campsite above the lake since it's a no camp fire zone, it's a no go for us, the area is slopey and rough and the water is not all that close.

Beautiful Meadow off Donahue Pass
As we go further down we pass a group of NOBO hikers and one almost falls, late in the day tiredness I guess, and then we see 2 hikers in bright clothing near the lake figuring they're planning to stay the night, they take off towards us and they look very tired and ask us how far to the next campsite, seems a bit surprising, maybe they're on a tight schedule.

We see lotsa campers away from the JMT, spread around the lake and there's a trail leading off in that direction, there are restrictions on camping near lakes and there's a map at the trail junction showing the camping zones but it's upside down and almost impossible to read so we ignore it and take off along the side trail around the lake and take a wild stab at guessing how far we need to go to be in the camping zone, and find an OK spot not too close to the water.

By Thousand Island Lake
Two hikers arrive at the trail junction near the lake outflow and we realize it's Justin and Patty from last night, they got

off to a very relaxed start but hike later than us and have caught up so we wave to them and they come on over and manage to find a spot close by. We have some company for the night which makes
up for the lack of a campfire. It's windy and cold during the night with the tent fly flapping in the breeze to keep us from a really deep sleep.

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