Down (and up) in the Valley

After restocking our pantry and fuel tank at Costco, we headed up Highway 41 the 'Southern Yosemite Hwy' to Oakhurst where our campsite was, about 17 miles from the Yosemite National Park entrance. We arrived at the High Sierra RV campground mid-afternoon and saw, unfortunately, that there were not any trees for shade on our campsite so we set up our tent on the bank of the little Fresno River in the overly warm California sun. Once camp was prepared, I drove us into the park and then we started on the 27 or so mile road to the Yosemite Valley area. We didn't get to see much while driving because of the tall pines trees lining both sides of the road. After cruising along for a perhaps an hour we reached the Wawona Tunnel. Everything had been going well until we reached the tunnel, though about half way through is where it stopped, quite literally. Traffic was stopped completely, it probably took us about 45 minutes to move the next mile to the nearest parking lot with restrooms and a short 1 mile roundtrip hiking trail to Bridalveil Fall which we decided to do since traffic was so bad and it was already getting late. 

We hiked the short trail, once again passing people of every nationality and hearing many different languages. At the end of the 0.5 mile trail the paved path ended and it became a jumble of broken granite rocks varying greatly in size which you could climb around/over to get closer to the large waterfall which was the purpose for this trail. So Jacob climbed up a little bit to get some pictures and video, which was a challenge because people were everywhere. You could occasionally see a rainbow from the mist of the waterfall, but nothing close to Vernal Falls/the Mist Trail which we'll get into later. So we walked back to the car and began the journey back to our campground since it was already 6:30pm (I think), and thankfully, there was not any traffic on the return drive. 

When we awoke Monday morning it was pretty chilly and everything was covered in dew, which was different because even waking up earlier at Guadalupe or Zion there wasn't any. I cooked our breakfast of turkey bacon and eggs, that just happened to get a little burnt… but hey, who doesn't like crispy bacon? After eating we started the long drive through Yosemite to get to Tioga Pass, which was roughly 90 miles from the park's entrance gate. I don't know if this is a generally known fact, but Yosemite Nat'l Park is humongous! The next 90 miles were the most curvy, twisty, and windy mountainous roads I have ever had the pleasure of driving on in my life; it was a lot of fun cruising on those roads, especially gliding downhill, not touching the gas for 5 minutes at a time, trying to gauge how much you need to brake to make that turn up ahead... Awesome. 

Somewhere along that road we stopped at the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias to hike along the old stagecoach road to see some of the trees growing there, which as the name implies are absolutely gigantic. The first one dubbed 'Big Red' (big was a massive understatement) marked the first mile of the trail, from where we took a 0.7 mile loop that brought us to a few more of the overly large trees, one having caught fire before crashing to the ground.

Towards the end of the loop we walked into the Tunnel Tree,  it was big enough for a stagecoach with a team of horses to pass through.Why they didn't just build the road around the tree I have no idea, but I trust that they had a good reason. Finishing the loop left us back at 'Big Red' and the now uphill hike back to the car. 

Continuing on our drive we had some pretty good elevation gain, reaching 9,945 feet at the highest point. Cruising along the road I saw what I at first though were white rocks, but as we passed more splotches of white, Sarah and I realized that it was drifts of snow. Snow! And not just a little snow either, in fact the lake we ended up stopping at was almost still completely frozen.

So after passing up more snow, an overlook of the valley with the famous Half Dome in the distance, and Tenaya Lake we came upon some traffic, and after waiting a short period we drove on past a little park building and the speed limit changed to 55mph whereas it had previously been 35-45mph in the park. And about a mile later is when we realized that we had just left Yosemite National Park… which was totally not planned but it worked out fine because about a mile from the park exit was the aforementioned partially frozen Tioga Lake where we stopped to walk around and take pictures. Some of the snow drifts were so deep that I sunk down enough to get snow inside of my 6 inch boots, and of course we're wearing shorts and short sleeve tee-shirts. Jacob even had a sleeveless tee-shirt on. Several pictures/video clips later we returned to the car and drove back to the Tenaya Lodge and ate a lunch. Our plan was to then hike to the Gaylor lakes so we parked at the Backcountry office near the Tenaya Lodge to get a trail map and told the ranger there that we'd like to hike to the Gaylor Lakes and she replied, "Be prepared for lots of snow, you'll probably be ok if you have waiters, waterproof boots and an extra pair of socks, your going to be posthole-ing up to your knees in snow." After hearing that and deciding we weren't ready for 'posthole-ing up to our knees in snow' we opted to hike the shorter 3.2 mile round trip hike to Dog Lake.

We started at somewhere near 8,000 feet elevation and gained approximately 600 feet, and I could definitely feel the effects of hiking so high up. Dog Lake was very beautiful being mostly surrounded by tall pines, a few snow drifts along the bank, and the snow covered Tioga Peak in the distance. 

The lake was kinda secluded, even from the sign that said it was 0.2 miles ahead you still couldn't see it. The hike back was uneventful and because it was mostly downhill was quite easier than the hike there. We then began the long 80+ mile drive back to the High Sierra campground with myself driving again. Did I mention that Yosemite Nat'l Park is really, really big? After dinner, which was meatballs and rice that Sarah cooked (and did not burn) we washed the dishes, took showers, and pretty much just went to bed. 

We got up Tuesday morning to find it similar to Monday, cool with dew on everything. With breakfast out of the way we chose to go to the Yosemite Village about 27 miles from the park's entrance, and stopped at the Visitor Center to get a day hikes map and browse the gifts shop. We then drove a little further and parked to fix lunch before catching a shuttle bus to take us to the Mist Trail's trailhead, which goes to both Vernal Fall (1.4 miles) and Nevada Fall (2.7 miles). The first 0.8 of a mile to the Vernal Fall footbridge was a nice paved path with 400 feet of elevation gain. There were plenty of people on the bridge since you had a good view of Vernal Fall up ahead, and we even saw a guy setting up an art canvas to paint the the river. 

The next 0.6 or so miles to the top of Vernal Fall is where things got interesting… First off in that about half mile we gained another 600ft elevation, the trail being made of granite rocks cut roughly into stairs which were completely soaked making them somewhat treacherous, and then we discovered the reason they named it the 'Mist Trail'. The Vernal Fall has a straight drop of 317 feet, with the water smashing into the uneven rocks of the river bed below causing waves of mist to spray every direction. You could practically always see a rainbow somewhere in the mist, which made for some beautiful pictures and also didn't; as soon as Jacob would begin to film the lens would get sprayed by the mist, so after each picture/video he'd try to put his back to the mist (which was difficult as it was flying everywhere) and wipe his lens clean with a quickly saturated microfiber cloth. Sunglasses weren't useable because of the water droplets they collected and none of us thought to bring our rain jackets so we got pretty wet. It was refreshing at first but soon became a little too cold with the wind blowing. 

Moving on, the next 1.5 miles of our trek to the top of Nevada Fall was similar to what we had already traversed, but with less mist and more steep granite stair switchbacks leading us up another 1,000 feet to bring us right under 6,000ft in elevation. 

You weren't able to see Nevada Falls as well as you could see Vernal falls because the trail wasn't as close to the waterfall, and once you got on top of Nevada Fall it's kinda hard to see the waterfall from the top. But the view of some of the valley was definitely better than from Vernal Fall as we were higher up. The Half Dome was towering on our left and the valley with the river stretching out below us. 

We quickly hiked back down to complete the 5.4 mile roundtrip, and rather than wait for a shuttle we chose to walk back to our car almost one mile away. After showers and dinner back at the campground we went to sleep knowing we needed to get up early to unpack the car so Jacob could repack it with the tent, tarp and sleeping bags, so we would be able to meet our good friend Andrew Jasso for lunch in San Francisco. 

So that about wraps up our stay at Yosemite National Park in California, which was very beautiful with its high rocky peaks, many waterfalls and bountiful pine forests, and as I may have mentioned before… this park is huge!

Next stop: San Francisco, California!

-John

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