Waking about 5:30 a.m. Saturday Sept. 12 beneath a wet rainfly and damp tent wasn't nearly as awful as it sounds. As the early morning glow of another morning fought off the cold of night, I slipped from the tent and headed in to the forest in search of dry wood. But the same cold rain and hail storm that soaked our boots washed the dryness from the tinder beneath the canopy.

      After collecting what seemed like plenty of fuel, I headed to the fire ring. With a fire starter stick dropped inside the "log cabin," flames began to burn off the dampness and cold of the late summer morning. Kara and Tim were soon resting comfortably by the blaze, drying socks and boots from yesterday's inaugural passage into one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

      Sitting quietly as flames from the fire gave way to beams of burning sunlight, we ate breakfast and paused to detox from our urban lifestyles. About four miles from the Ostrander Lake trailhead, our camp fulfilled our first night's dreams of backpacking Yosemite.

      We talked with a couple of day hikers from Breckenridge, Colorado and San Francisco that camped in the tents several hundred yards down the trail. They kindly took our picture and we hit the trail.

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