5 day backpacking trip.. route suggestions?

[Craig]

Hello I'll be in Yosemite from 6/9 to 6/16 and I'm having a bit of trouble planning a backpacking trip. The first and last night will be spent in the backpacker staging camp on the valley floor so the trip is 5 nights in the back country. I'm an experienced backpacker and in great shape and I'm bringing a friend who is new to backpacking and in decent shape but not great (she has handled all day hikes with me quite well).

I'm trying to plan something that will not be incredibly hard on my friend and I'm having a difficult time with it so I'd love some suggestions. We'd really like to see Merced Lake but I don't see a good way to continue the trip from there as I think that going up through Vogelsang might be to much of a difficult hike for my friend. We'd also like to see the Glen Aulin area but I'm at a loss on how to incorporate that into the trip. We'd prefer to start and end the trip in the valley if possible but we're open to other ideas. Basically it's hard for me to plan the trip as I don't really know the difficulty of these trails, I'm just judging by looking at the map and elevations.

Any advice is greatly appreciated

[balzaccom]

Why not go from Merced Lake up to Sunrise and Cathedral Lakes? That way you could add on a hike to the top of cloud's Rest, which has some of the best views in the park!

[Craig]

Thank's for the suggestion. I've been wanting to see Cloud's Rest for years now actually.. Probly a good year to do it with the light snow pack