On June 17 2004, I started a backpacking and photography trip from the Happy Isles trailhead in Yosemite Valley. My friend and fellow photographer Loren McKechnie and I were planning to backpack to my house in Bishop.

The views on the trail were incredible, especially near Nevada Falls. After a few hours of hiking we ran out of water and had to pump some with our filters from the top of the falls. By the end of the day, we had made it 3,000 feet above the valley floor with 60-pound packs on our backs. After setting up our camp above Half Dome we had our first encounter with a bear. Loren waved his hiking poles and yelled out to the aggressive bear which was only a few feet away before it retreated back to the forest. After our freeze-dried meal around the campfire we retired to our tents for the night.

At 3 am we were awakened by a couple who informed us of a tree that was on fire nearby. They said their friends had been trying to put out the fire for some time with no luck and were on their way to the ranger station to get help. Knowing there was an out of control fire nearby made it nearly impossible for us to sleep and finally, after hours of hearing screaming and yelling from the nearby campsite where the fire was burning, I resorted to calling the Yosemite emergency number on my cell phone and informed them of the fire. I was a little nervous when the emergency dispatcher took down my full name and said a helicopter and fire crew would be on their way. A couple of hours later, just after sunrise, the helicopter circled for twenty minutes to find a flat drop zone for the firefighters. They later thanked us for calling in and then informed us that the fire was the result of a smoldering lighting strike days earlier that could have spread to other trees if not extinguished.

My friend Loren was ready to start hiking even though he was deprived of sleep. After hiking in the heat for several hours we realized we had taken the wrong trail when we came to an intersection with no directional arrows on the signs. By the time we found our way we had gone 1,000 feet up and 7 miles in the wrong direction. We opted to camp at the same campsite as the previous night. Once again our friend the black bear paid us a visit and was unsuccessful in acquiring our food from our bear-safe canisters. The hard plastic 2.7-pound containers are now required by law for all backcountry trips.

The next morning, to my dismay, Loren had had enough. He decided to hike back to Yosemite Valley and hitch a ride back home. I decided to continue on alone and get more photographs. For the first few miles my morale was low, but later in the day after hiking up another 2,000 feet my spirits were high. I held back tears when I thought of my late father and grandmother who had both hiked the John Muir Trail and both had first ascents on a mountain called the Hermit. My grandmother, Margaret, was the first to climb it in 1924. Then my father Galen returned to the mountain in 1989 to do a first ascent of a new route. Although I was alone I felt them with me on the trail.

After hiking all day I made it to Sunrise Meadow at nearly 10,000 feet elevation. I set up my heavy tripod and camera and composed an image with a stream winding through a meadow filled with deer, backlit with alpenglow on the towering peaks of the Cathedral Range. By the time I set up camp in the dark a mile later, I was too tired to cook dinner and quickly fell asleep.

During the night the temperature had dropped below freezing and next morning my tent was wet with frost. When I got up to look around, I discovered I was not alone—a coyote was walking toward my camp. I quickly got my camera and managed to get a shot with a 200 mm lens from about 25 feet away. It was the start of a great day. I made good time on the trail but did not eat until 2:30 that afternoon when I reached Cathedral Lake. After talking to several people I realized it was my first meal in 24 hours. I later made it to Tuolumne Meadows in time to photograph the sunset. By the time I set up my tent in the backpackers campground I had already taken 100 photographs and hiked 12 miles throughout the day. It was now 10:30 at night and I would have to skip dinner again.

In the morning, I left my tent and most of my gear behind and hiked down to the Tuolumne Grill for my first real meal in 3 days. At the general store and post office I met several people that were hiking the Pacific Crest Trail all the way from the Mexican border—more than 900 miles. The men who started out clean shaven two months earlier were now sporting scruffy beards like Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Most of the hikers were picking up food caches they had mailed to themselves and one young lady shared her mother’s homemade cookies with me that were mailed from Ohio. I joked around with one hiker who was carrying his food cache in a VCR box. It put my mind at ease knowing there were other people hiking alone.

I was ready to continue my journey, but first decided to lighten my pack and called my friends Tim and Edwina Ford. They drove up from Bishop to pick up some heavy items I thought I could live without. I still had a problem. Loren, my friend who departed early in the trip, had cached a week’s supply of food with mine. I decided to call a friend of a friend to help me carry some of my increased load and gave him Loren’s food and some money for his help. The next morning my personal sherpa, Scott Justham, arrived with my friend Greg Haverstock. After a day’s rest and with a lighter pack of only 30 pounds, I was off once again.

When Scott passed me with his 65-pound pack I knew I had hired the right man for the job. While hiking, Scott told me of his 28-hour traverse of all the peaks in the White Mountains. With Scott's help, and less weight on my back, I was able to take considerably more photos. At the end of the day, Scott doubled as my photo assistant, helping me set up my tripod and equipment just in time for a beautiful shot of Lyell Canyon at sunset. After my new friend and employee and I had dinner and told stories by the campfire, we got some much-needed rest.

The next morning we joined three backpackers heading up Donahue Pass. Pat, Rick, and John had managed to hike together almost every year for over two decades despite their busy schedules with jobs and families. Time flew by as we made it up almost 2,000 feet to the top of the pass. After navigating a few difficult creek crossings we set up our camp together. The following day we continued hiking over Island Pass while our new friends went the other way to Silver Lake. After making it to Thousand Island Lake we met up with a hiker from Berkeley named Jeff who had encouraged me to photograph Lyell Canyon a few days earlier. I woke up before dawn and Scott informed me that my sunrise was only minutes away. I grabbed my camera gear and climbed down the face of some rocks just in time to get the first rays of the sun hitting Banner Peak.

Later that day Scott and I encountered a pack string of mules and horses. The lead horse slipped on a polished granite slab, and horse and rider fell down. Both came back up unharmed. I snapped a photo at the moment they hit the ground. Later that day, while hiking near Shadow Lake, we caught up with our friend Greg Haverstock from Bishop who introduced Scott and myself. Greg was playing sherpa for the day for some friends with heavy packs. After a long break and a good conversation we continued on the John Muir Trail while Greg and his friends went back to civilization.

A couple of hours later Scott and I camped near Rosemarie Lake. After an early start we met up with Scott’s girlfriend Sarah who had jogged in from Red’s Meadow several miles away. Sarah had driven Scott’s truck to Mammoth to give us a ride back to Bishop, which was my original hiking destination. By mid-day I reached Mammoth Lakes and indulged in a real meal—and my first cold beer in over a week—at the small store and restaurant near the Devil’s Postpile National Monument.

Now that I have completed my longest backpacking adventure and have been introduced to the John Muir Trail, I plan on returning to complete the entire trail. Including my 7-mile detour, I hiked sixty-five miles from Yosemite Valley to Mammoth Mountain. Not bad for a beginner backpacker.