Day 1 - Tuolumne Meadows to Lyell Canyon

Day 1 - Tuolumne Meadows to Lyell Canyon. 7.4mi, 448ft incline, 222ft decline.
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Jonathan, Kathleen, Brian and Sean all ready to embark on the adventure. Kathleen and Brian are the recent grads.  The Plan  The start of our adventures on the John Muir Trail to Lyell Canyon. : John Muir Trail  Brian, Kathleen and Sean on the bridges over the Lyell fork of the Tuolumne. Rivers over granite are stunning. 
A view up canyon (east) looking towards the Kuna Crest.  Crossing Rafferty Creek, a pretty stream we'd see way more of on our way home.  The trail tries to skirt the meadows along Lyell Canyon, but some places just get trampled no matter how hard the trail tries to avoid it.  A few miles in was our first agility test, the limbo log. Kamp clears it old-man style. 
Kathleen uses her natural shortness to her advantage.  Sean thought the limbo log was no prob.  Brian makes the limbo log look challenging.  Our first view due south on the trail looking towards snow-covered Donohue Peak in the far distance. The U-shaped glacially-carved profile of the canyon becomes obvious to even the novice geology enthusiast here. 
Having a lazy (flat) seven miles planned for the first day of the trip easily allows time for a water refill along the river. I still find it hard to imagine 220 Million gallons+ of this river get shipped to SF every day for drinking. Not to mention our use of the water through TID & MID irrigation of crops.  One of my favorite spots on the trail and the only place I've ever been asked to show a fishing liscence in the wilderness. This pool is over 10' deep, but on this day I saw no FoRS (fish of remarkable size). The Kuna Crest (granodiorite ~90Ma) makes the ridgeline to the left (east).  Donohue peak gets a little larger while the trail gets a little deeper. River alluvium gets pretty compacted and tracked-away on the bottom of boots when the trail is mucky.  We had to take the high road in several boggy areas doing our best to spread out and walk on solid rocks. 
Glacially polished rocks in the foreground, great Lyell Fork of Tuolumne River in the background.  Kamp admires the view. It was very serene. In fact, we only ran into two other day-hikers the entire trail in. I couldn't believe we had the place to our selves. Note Potter Point just right of dead center.  Glacial polish on the Half Dome Granodiorite that is exposed in this area. The last glaciers in this canyon probably vanished about 8-10K years ago.  Brian gets his groove on... actually I tought him to feel the micro grooves of the glacial scouring to get a general direction of the glacier's flow. BTW, scouring hapens when small sand and gravels get embedded in the base of glaciers and act like sand paper, polishing the rocks from the glaciers basal slip flow. 
Jonathan, Sean, Brian, Kathleen with Donohue Pass in background.  Sean and I scout fishing opportunities for later in the evening. What a river. Potter Point to the right.  A cool little avalanche chute.  RJH3960 
The bright pile of sediment in the middle of the photo is what appears to be a small glacial drumlin. A view from google earth also shows this area has a cut-off meander.  Frost wedging! A great example of what happens when small cracks in a rock get filled with water and undergo freeze-thaw cycles.  Another great shot of the results of frost wedging.  A cool little cascade diverted by the jointing in the Half Dome Granodiorite. 
A standing wave!  Brian walks out on one of the dry fingers created by the jointing in the rocks. He's not totally surrounded.  Potter Peak is getting close!  The trail junction we'd be taking the following morning. 
Camp! We were low enough in elevation to have a fire and found a pre-existing fire ring ready to go for us. It was right on the borderline 100' away from the trail and Ireland creek but the spot was already so well-used we decided no to spoil another spot. Note all the glacial till we were camped in!