They thought he had gotten the food some other camper had hung too close to the trunk of the tree that anchored the cable. This was at Lower Cathedral Lake Campground, where I was to meet my wife in a few hours. Lower Cathedral Lake, one of the most popular backcountry areas in the park, is half a mile off the John Muir Trail. But more than that is The View. There's a certain type of mountain view that has fascinated artists ever since Claude Lorrain perfected it 300 years ago.
Trees frame a lake that reflects both the azure sky and a mountain beyond.
In the middle ground, the artist adds a few people to give scale, or a deer to symbolize the innocence of nature before The Fall of Man. Lower Cathedral Lake Campground is dominated by just such a view. I took an hour to set up camp, wash some clothes, and hang. Then I sat down to relax on a knob of granite that defined the lake's northern shore. The granite had been polished smooth by the Tuolumne Glacier, now long gone, but once over a quarter mile thick where I sat.