by AlmostThere » Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:38 pm
I would take 4 liters and hope it was enough. I wouldn't go from WW - when I went from TM to WW in a normal snow year in the first week of August, I nearly passed out going up from Pate to White Wolf after running out of water. it was 90+F and there was one tiny patch of shade. My friend had to go ahead and find water at Morrison and bring it back to me.
This year, in a drought, with temps already soaring, I would start at TM and no matter what I would not be on those switchbacks between 11 am - 5 pm. I would stop in Pate and get up at 4 am and get up those $$%^&*^%##@@ switchbacks before the sun rose. Or I would get to Pate late in the afternoon and start up as the sun was setting. I wouldn't go through Muir Gorge in the middle of the day, either. In fact, if I had any plans to do this route at all this year, I'd have already gone up the instant Tioga Pass opened. In late summer I intend to be above 9,000 feet as much as possible, hike from lake to lake to get water, and wear long sleeves, my big brimmed hat, my long pants, and slather on the sun block regularly throughout the day. But that's just me - I really do not like heat exhaustion, as it comes too close to heat stroke, which you absolutely cannot treat in the wilderness and if you end up there you will probably not be evacuated in time. So us heat sensitive fair folk who burn need to be really careful. Folks who are acclimated to hiking in 90-100F range will do better, but it's already warm out there and the creeks will be drying up the later it gets.
Snakes love river canyons. A three foot rattler blocked us in Muir Gorge until I annoyed him enough with pebbles to get him to quit sunbathing and leave the trail. Campsites are few in the gorge and the wind event of 2011 knocked over a bunch of trees in some, the fire of a few years ago torched some formerly nice shady ones that used to exist, and I had a foreign family show up at Return Creek and get all pissed at us for camping in one of the well used spots because they wanted to camp there. Sorry, man, we didn't know you had reservations. {/sarcasm}
It was not encouraging to find a horse skull next to the trail.... But it's a beautiful hike. Unfortunately all the waterfalls will be next to nil in August... they were unimpressive when I went, after an average snowpack melted.
![[Yosemite]](../images/yosemiteicon.png)
