Day 2 found us awake pretty early as neither of us had slept particularly well – temps had been in the 40s overnight, but perhaps the 20-degree sleeping bags we’d brought were a little too warm at this low elevation, especially during the first few nighttime hours when it was still quite toasty in our tent. Or maybe it was simply the excitement we felt at having five more consecutive days on the trail – although we’ve day-hiked multiple days in a row on many occasions, this was to be our first experience at thru-hiking, packing up and moving our house 7-10 miles away each day. Such realities were on our mind as we fixed coffee and instant oatmeal for breakfast – our first HSC-provided meal would be dinner at May Lake that night, and we were anxious to get going. Still, it took us forever to pack up and get organized, and, despite the early rise, we didn’t leave camp until after 9am. Our packs felt quite heavy – although we each had but 2+ liters of water today, as opposed to a full 3 the day before, perhaps a little soreness from the hike in plus the knowledge of a long ascent today made the packs seem heavier than they were (of course, Jane still had a substantial complement of wine in her pack, starting from Tuolumne with 3 full bottles, each re-poured into a lightweight plastic bag – that’s about 5 lbs. of wine, but more on that later). We re-crossed the Tuolumne, made the short ascent to the trail junction, and turned west up the May Lake trail we had passed the previous afternoon. We had briefly chatted with a mom and her teenage daughter back in camp, who intended to day-hike today up to May Lake and back (a roundtrip of over 16 miles) – sure enough, they came up quickly behind us and passed by like we were standing still. Our pace was comfortable – our muscles warmed quickly as we walked upward through a cool and shady valley, eventually reaching the peaceful McGee Lake after 30 minutes or so. Here, we were at a low crest and immediately began losing elevation as we gradually descended into the Cathedral Creek drainage – we crossed the creek about two miles west of Glen Aulin. We knew today would be mostly climbing, and so we got our first taste of the disgust that comes from laboring up an incline, whatever the gradient, only to give back a substantial amount of that gain once over the top – the converse, of course, is also true, in that nearly every descent is followed by an “up.” So it was that, after the lengthy, slightly-aggravating descent to Cathedral Creek, we immediately began to gain back that loss with gusto. The trail climbed moderately above the creek to the west, but it felt straight up to us at the time – after a mile and 500′ of gain, we emerged atop an open slab that yielded views to the north and east. There were other hikers resting here, and we chatted a bit and did some collective navigational estimation, figuring we were still more than a mile east of and 400′ below our first trail junction (such junctions, as they are typically furnished with trail signs and distances, are the mileposts of backcountry travel in Yosemite – we found ourselves constantly planning breaks and gauging time relative to the location of the next junction). So, steadily we climbed on, sometimes more steeply and sometimes more gradually, and eventually we reached the junction with the Murphy Creek trail leading down to Hwy 120 and Tenaya Lake below us to the south – we turned right here, staying on the May Lake trail and proceeding across flat terrain toward a second junction 0.4 miles further. We met a couple doing our loop in the opposite direction, and they gave us some good tips on the climb remaining – after the second junction, we’d head south up and over a saddle and then traverse southward up a steepening slope to a higher saddle at a little over 9,000′ (we had started the day at about 7,800′). We quickly came to the second junction, snapped a photo of the trail sign, and immediately gained another 100′ as we crested the wooded pass, treated now to open views south and east that only got better as we gained ground from there. The traverse uphill was moderately graded, but perhaps the afternoon heat sapped some of our energy – it became a bit of a slog as we ascended the open hillside (we had both realized by this point that carrying a partial water load was not the best decision, and there were no other water sources between here and May Lake, forcing us to be more conservative with our water intake on this warm afternoon). Soon enough, though, we reached the scenic top and began a 200′ descent into a cirque on the west side of the ridge (that demoralizing elevation loss again) – as we crossed the flat at the cirque’s bottom, we saw the last ridgeline to the west above, atop which we knew was May Lake. Being low on water and relatively close to our destination gave us the motivation to make the final climb in fairly good time, resorting to Jane’s familiar method of step counting to maintain our pace (e.g. we only rest after completing so many steps). We began to encounter day hikers as we neared the camp, and the mom-and-teenage-daughter combo met us on their way back when we were about 1/4-mile short of the camp – they were amazed we had made such good time. The final descent into the May Lake basin was wonderful, a gentle downhill along the lake’s eastern edge and into the camp itself. We first found a nice tent site in the campground beyond the HSC, then backtracked to the dining tent/office to check in – Brian, the camp manager, was a gracious host and offered us hot showers (score!) before dinner. Our first HSC meal exceeded our already-high expectations – it was pasta night, with an awesome salad and hearty bread followed by giant meatballs and penne with a fettuccine veggie concoction as well. Brian offered some storytelling during the dinner that was very entertaining, and we scrambled up the low ridge east of the camp after dinner to watch the mountains change color with the sunset (the sun had disappeared behind Mt. Hoffman across the lake by 6pm). We could actually get a cell signal from here, so we snapped some iPhone photos and texted them to the kids before hitting the hay. An awesome Day 2.