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Mt Lyell (3,997m) is the highest peak in Yosemite National Park.
Most people hike it via Lyell Canyon from Tuolumne Meadows.
The trailhead is an adventure in itself. While driving east on 120, pass the Toulumne Meadows campground and turn right into the place marked as Wilderness Permit/ John Muir/ Pacific Crest/ Lodge. If you are camping at the hikers' campground, turn right again where it says "Wilderness Permits". Park, walk beyong the bear lockers and turn right into the trail that leads to the walk-in campground. (The well-marked campground off 120 is for tourists who make reservations: whether it is full or not, head straight for the hikers' campground that, being less advertised and involving a little hike, has almost always available sites, and is not checked by nazi-style guards anyway, i.e. you can pretty much camp anywhere nearby). When you are ready to start the hike, drive the road to the lodge past the ranger station until a sign sends you left to a parking lot for hikers. The parking lot at the trailhead is reserved for the elite tourists of the lodge. Hikers are considered inferior beings and forced to a distant parking lot so the rich tourists are not exposed to smelly hikers. Then walk down the hikers' parking lot and walk 200 meters to the lodge's parking lot. The John Muir trailhead is right at the beginning. (Note: rangers are truly awful here, avoid all contacts. I saw rangers at mignight checking all parking lots with floodlights to make sure no hiker sleeps in the car, which, of course, would be the most environmentally-friendly thing to do, but would deprive the rangers of the fees that they need to pay for their own salaries). After winding a bit southwest through the forest, the John Muir trail is basically a flat, monotonous and sandy hike along the Lyell creek. For more than two hours you see the very same landscape. The Lyell Canyon is not terribly exciting. So if you are a slow hiker or a backpacker, this may not be an interesting hike. The first major junction (10kms in) is at Potter Point (the white mountain to your right) and that is the trail to go to Ireland Lake. After crossing the creek, you continue in the same meadow for about an hour. Then finally some action: a series of switchbacks take you to a double bridge and to the left side of the Lyell creek, where more switchbacks take you to the end of the canyon, where Donahue Pass (center), My Lyell (right) and Mt McClure (even further right) are clearly visible. Here the John Muir trail crosses the creek again (the trail to the left has not apparent purpose). This is a popular place for John Muir hikers to camp. The landscape is finally alpine. Cross to the western side of the creek by walking on stones (in august it is really easy) and continue on the John Muir trail that first heads northwest. At some point the trail turns sharply left and seems to loop back (and down) in the direction you came from. If you continued, you would cross the creek again to go to Donahue Pass. This is the point, instead, where you want to get off the trail and head straight northwest up the canyon. There is a ridge over your head. If you walk to its right, you'll end in the McClure basin, that contains two pretty lakes. This is a long ugly way up. If you stay to the right of that ridge (i.e., 100-200 meters to the right of the creek) you'll end up in the Lyell basin, which is much easier to cross. So stay a bit on the left of that ridge and you will be walking on granite slabs and grassy terrain. On your left you can see Mt Lyell and straight in front of you the giant McClure glacier. Head for the rocky hill below McClure and climb it (easy class-2 climbing). Most likely at this point there will be snow even in august. The slope is not such that you need crampons. You should be able to traverse right to left to some rocks and eventually walk all around until you reach Lyell. If you have crampons, just go up vertical towards the center of Mt Lyell. Then climb the rocks to the ridge and then follow the ridge left to the summit. As the condor flies, it is 3.5km of cross-country hiking from the John Muir trail to the summit (easily twice that much in real hiking because you can't follow a straight line). The total distance is approximately 23kms each way, but of course it depends which route one follows up the glacier. 
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