Yosemite! First day begins with hike to Dog Lake. Suprisingly we had not been to this lake near Tuolumne Meadows.We enjoyed the reflections in the still morning water.And enjoying some sunshine.After lingering, we headed to nearby Lembert Dome as part of our day hike.Tuolumne river and Meadows view from top of Lembert Dome.We finished the hike with a bit of the John Muir trail for some solitude.The next day we went for the Cathedral Lakes, a trail to views we had especially enjoyed 10 years ago.The lower lake had beautiful meadows.And a nice spot to enjoy the lower lake among the mountains.At the upper lake we were able to walk around the entire perimeter to enjoy the peak from many angles.We felt really good to do this almost 10-mile hike with over 2,000 foot elevation gain!We drove to Lake Tahoe after our Cathedral Lake hike – that was a difficult drive with a lot of mountain climbing. We luckily arrived before dark but were tired puppies.Watson Lake above Lake Tahoe had this incredible dispersed site where we could walk to the Lake Tahoe overlook.We appreciated the beauty of this lake. Nice there are such accessible places outside of our national parks.Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument became a monument in 2015 from both Forest Service and BLM land.We sustained high winds that night. Little did we know that power was out across this area of California – the first of many of the PG&E shutdowns to prevent fires.
