Beginning our descent from 10,000 feet the second day. Eighteen miles and 6,000 feet left to the valley floor. Sitting in my car, Mike and I use a map of Yosemite to hastily plan our trip. Mike begins to boulder up some granite near Evelyn Lake. A selfie, a dry meadow and granite mountains behind me as we hike up to 10,000 feet. Mike draws water from a river near the Tuolumne meadows trailhead before climbing high into the dry backcountry. Our tents along Evelyn Lake, at 10,300 feet. A stream that flows into Evelyn Lake , 10,000 feet up in the Yosemite backcountry, remains partially frozen in the chilly mid-morning air. Mike poses in front of a burned out tree that was part of the recent Meadow Fire near Little Yosemite Valley. Building a fire along Evelyn Lake in the evening. The overnight low was the teens or low twenties. The view of Evelyn Lake from above.

The recent trip that my friend Mike and I took through Yosemite National Park was not thoroughly planned or researched. We simply wanted to get into the park and hike as much as we could in three days.

As a starting point we chose Tuolumne Meadows. Unbeknownst to us, however, there is only one road that goes through Tuolumne and it’s closed to overnight parking in the fall. That meant we spent the first night on the eastern side in Inyo National Forest and hitched back the next morning to start our ascent.

Standing at the gate trying to get out of Inyo, car after car passed us with our thumbs up, the drivers frequently raising their arms and shrugging their shoulders before driving past. Eventually a banana­-yellow Scion with an Idaho license plate came through and I thought, “here’s our ride.”

The Scion did indeed stop, but it wasn’t driven by an Idahoan. It was a rental, piloted by a young Scottish woman just out of Edinburgh University who’d been traveling around the American West since August. She agreed to give us a ride, and along the way we had a friendly 20-minute chat about national parks in Europe and America. She marveled at our use of the word ‘hella’.

The beginning of our adventure took us up an eight mile climb to Vogelsang High Sierra Camp. Groves of pine trees gave way to sprawling alpine meadows that were bordered by vertical granite walls. This was the driest part of the driest year in recent memory so the grass crunched underfoot and many of the scrubby pines in the high elevations looked more dead than alive. Bridges crossed dry creek beds littered with logs and boulders. My lips chapped and cracked in the cold air.

We eventually made camp along an alpine lake and set about scrambling up the granite in search of the best views. The evening was crystal clear and a crescent moon sank slowly into the lake while shooting stars and the Milky Way reflected off the water. The water began to ice over by 6 pm, and overnight the temperature dipped into the upper teens.

The following morning we began a 20-mile descent to the famous Yosemite Valley. The trail switched back and forth, dove into steep granite canyons, flattened into forest floors and meadows, before descending even further.

On this part of the hike we constantly ran into bear shit on the trail. Fortunately we never came face to face with the real thing.

As it was growing dark on the second night we made camp on a granite slab in the middle of the Merced river, a spot that would be under water in a wet year. The weather was milder here because we were 3,000 feet lower so we decided to sleep outdoors on pads nestled into small bowls in the granite.

On our third day we began the full transition back to civilization, which is always a surreal experience even after just a few short days of solitude. First we ran into a few day hikers on the trails, and then eventually families speaking French or German lower down and closer to the parking lot. Walking toward the pavement, I couldn’t help but think about the different ways people experience a place like Yosemite. I’d guess that 95% never get beyond the tour bus or their cars, which means they’ll never glimpse what we’d just seen.

It took us another 45 minutes of thumbs up to get a ride back toward my car. This time we got a lift with a family from Shanghai who were touring States. It was hard for us to clearly communicate about our trip, but once they understood where we’d been I think they finally realized why we smelled so bad.

Looking at the map when we were done, Mike and I realized that even though it felt like a lot, our trip had only covered a tiny portion of the park. We hadn’t had enough time to explore the mountain and lakes we’d seen off in the distance and quickly made the decision to come back.