Yosemite
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2010
1
3
Trip End
Jun 20, 2010
Where I stayed
Yosemite National Park, California
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Keli – Yosemite National Park was the perfect camping experience for me. The hard-top cabin we had was warm and comfortable and the showers and bathrooms were close and clean. It was a great combination of comfort and rustic "roughing it." It makes it so that you can spend the day out in nature and then be able to relax at night and rejuvenate. Also, Curry Village was really well-run, which made the whole experience easy and pleasant. In the center of the camp was a grocery store, a pizza place, a buffet, an ice cream and coffee shop, all the comforts of home set in the wilderness. The buffet was a God-send. It made it so Dave and I could pig out after long days of activity and replenish our stores of energy. If we hadn't had that to come home to every night, I think we would have struggled to find enough to eat. For me, this makes the camping experience enjoyable, rather than difficult like it would be if you were backpacking in the high country, cooking your own food in the cold, filtering water from a stream and sleeping in a cold tent. But, just like Dave and I talked about, the only down side is that then you can’t get away from the crowds and feel the quiet tranquility of the outdoors.
Yosemite itself was in a word – awe-inspiring. The Yosemite Valley sits at the base of El Capitan, Glacier Point and Half Dome, some of the tallest and most amazing rock formations in the world, and spilling down from each of them are beautiful, powerful waterfalls. You feel like you’re truly viewing some of the great wonders of nature – and sleeping in the midst of them.
The highlight of the trip for me was definitely our Half Dome hike. Having never done an endurance hike like that, everything about the experience was new and inspiring. Starting out at 5 a.m. and climbing up the side of a steep vertical incline next to Vernal Falls was certainly an early challenge, and not one I was particularly ready for, but with each new challenge we overcame, my confidence in our ability to finish the hike grew. Plus, being so close to such powerful waterfalls was really a once-in-a-lifetime experience and inspired us to keep going. Each new section of the trail, too, offered us new things to see … the Little Yosemite Valley was a nice stretch of flat ground that gave us a nice break between brutal uphill treks. Once past the waterfalls and Valley, the rest of the trail was primarily a steady uphill grind made more attractive by the deer we saw and the natural beauty. It was interesting, too, coming up on various groups making the same trek. Just being on the same journey made us feel a certain amount of camaraderie, even though we didn’t know or talk to our fellow hikers. The final climb to the top of the Sub-Dome is something I will never forget. At the end of a brutal uphill seven-mile ascent, to then have to climb a near vertical incline seems like Half Dome’s way of asking hikers just how bad they want to finish. But reaching the top feels like an exhilarating rush – until you see the 500-foot vertical climb via cables to the final summit. Though we didn’t attempt this last little bit of the trail – since Dave was suffering from altitude sickness and me from vertigo – it hardly mattered. We had made the trek and were beyond proud, even surprised, to have accomplished and seen so much. In some ways, the descent was more difficult than the ascent since we didn’t have the summit to motivate us. The downhill is always much harder on my knees and we had fatigue to contend with, as well. But, reaching that final stretch of the trail and realizing you had completed a 14-mile, 12-hour hike was exhilarating.
The rest of the trip felt easy by comparison. We rode our bikes 15 miles or so around the area, taking occasional stops to walk 1-2 miles to see Yosemite Falls or Bridalveil Falls. It was a nice complement to the Half Dome hike. On these days, we could simply enjoy the beauty around us in relative ease and tranquility. We even had a gourmet meal in the Awahnee Lodge Dining Hall, a five-star restaurant with dishes like Watermelon Salad with Arugula and Feta Cheese. Ah … the good life. All in all, the week was a great balance of challenging hikes, beautiful wilderness, good food and relaxation. We couldn’t have asked for a more well-rounded experience.
Dave – I have to agree that hiking Half Dome was the highlight of our week in Yosemite, even though it was a brutally difficult hike for me. The longest hike either of us has done in the past 10 years is the 4-mile hike we do regularly here in Santa Monica. That trail has a 1000-ft elevation gain, and it takes us less than 1.5 hours. The Half Dome hike is 12 hours, 14 miles, and 4800 feet elevation gain! In all honesty, I thought we had no chance of doing it, especially me. I am just not in good enough shape. Well, we made the whole hike! The only part we couldn’t do was the cables that take you to the very top. I was just feeling so dead and so sick by that time and when I touched those cables I knew I couldn’t do it. As Keli said almost the entire hike is uphill, then at the very end it is literally almost straight up the side of the rock of “Sub-Dome.” I have to say I barely made it to the top of Sub-Dome! And getting back down to camp was really tough for me too, though the less elevation we got the stronger I felt. Keli was really impressive on that hike though – she cruised through the whole thing! Very strong. And she was also a very good hiking partner, always waiting for me to catch up to her.
But the hike is really beautiful too – especially the beginning up the Mist Trail. That’s when you are hiking up right next to Vernal Falls, which is thundering down with so much water and force that it makes a gigantic cloud of mist that literally soaks you to the skin! Luckily, we had been warned and we put on our rain gear before that section of trail. One guy we saw even wrapped his boots in trash bags and duct tape! Pretty funny. We got some very cool photos looking down from the top of Vernal too. Right after Vernal Falls you hike up past Nevada Falls, which is also awe-inspiring and spectacular. The power of nature right in your face. Then you have a short break from the near-relentless elevation gain of the trail going through Little Yosemite Valley. The rest of the hike though is up and up and up, and the steepest part is the last mile. Sure does make me want to keep hiking and get stronger! I want to make hikes like that do-able for me…
Our first day in Yosemite, two days before the Half Dome hike, was really amazing – seeing El Capitan for the first time is just stunning. You literally cannot stop staring at it. You’ve already seen Bridalveil Falls, one of the most beautiful falls in the entire park, and you’ve already seen Ribbon falls, very high and narrow. After coming around El Capitan, you see the three separate falls that make up Yosemite Falls, the highest falls in North America and one of the most beautiful falls in the world. Then you see Half Dome and Glacier Point and realize that your Curry Village camp is right at the base of them both. Wow!
On our second day in Yosemite we hiked 1 mile up (all the hikes seem to be straight up) to Inspiration Point for gorgeous views of Yosemite Valley, including most of the awesome sights just mentioned. Very nice. Then we spent the afternoon resting and conserving strength for the Half Dome hike the next day. And eating! The Curry Village buffet is wonderful, in fact the whole park is so very well run. It’s run by the Delaware North Corporation and they just do a fantastic job. I normally like to get into the back country when camping, someplace quiet and secluded, let nature fill me up. But honestly Curry Village was just so fun, the people were so excited to be in Yosemite, and the whole place just had such a great energy! We really enjoyed it.
After our Half Dome day, we decided to rent bikes since my feet were still hurting pretty bad. Of course we have to overdo it as always – we ended up riding about 15 miles that day! As several people told us, seeing Yosemite Valley on bikes is really the best way to see it. Highly recommended! There are lots of cycling trails and even where there are none the roads are not too scary as traffic moves fairly slow. We saw basically all the sights that we hadn’t seen yet.
Our last day in Yosemite, we decided to drive up the road to Glacier Point and try some of the hikes there. We weren’t really expecting much but it was really awesome! We started with Sentinel Dome which is basically a big rock dome. Only about a 2-mile hike and the views from the top were totally worth it. We could see the snowy high peaks all around us. Then we did Taft Point, also about 2 miles round-trip and we didn’t know what to expect, only that the guide book said there were “fissures.” What an understatement! Taft Point is the top of a cliff face, with a dropoff of three thousand feet or so! The fissures are places where huge cracks have emerged in the edge of the cliff so you can be looking across the fissure at your mate and both of you sweating bullets because there is only 10 feet between you but one step forward and it’s nothing but air for thousands of feet down! Then we went to both Washburn Point and Glacier Point. Keli marked the Half-Dome hike on one of the photos from Washburn, so you can see exactly where we hiked. We were amazed to hear that 1 million people per year go to Glacier Point, you can understand why since it’s such a spectacular view of the Valley and it’s also accessible to cars and even wheelchairs!
Yosemite is a water-lover’s paradise. And it made me love water all the more! Wading with our feet in the icy-cold rivers was so awesome! And a great way to ice your aching ankles! Seeing the power of the waterfalls was something I’ll never forget and impressed on me again how much strength there is in water. The same water that comes gently out of a faucet moves boulders at the bottom of Yosemite Falls.
Comments
Awesome guys, you rock, just like half-dome. I love that hill, your blog brought back many happy memories from my visit many years ago. And you saw a bear, thats so cool, we will have to take you to Canada to see Grizzlies some day.
Its great to hear all about your happenings, I will email sometime soon. C.
Hey Chris! So great that you did Half Dome too! It's a pretty incredible hike and I'd love to do it again some day when we return. We'd love to see grizzlies in Canada with you! When do we go?