Yosemite at Random

My time for Yosemite has finally arrived. With the first few attempts foiled by unforeseen conflicts, weather, and the toils of student life, nothing would stop me now. I have 4 days off, and I don't care what the weather says. I'm going.

I had tentative plans from my first attempt, so I knew camp location options and potential trails to hike. Thursday was for gathering gear, and pilfering a water filter and tarp from the Outdoor Adventures shed. I've been acquiring firewood so I was fully prepared for a cold night at camp. The truck was loaded, and I hit the road Friday morning.

152 from Gilroy is gorgeous. Merced is creepy. I haven't driven through fog like that in a long time.

It was like driving into a white wall. We went from 70 to 30 in no time. I took the opportunity to make a pit stop and snap some photos. The road out of Merced is dead flat and straight like Hugh Hefner. I ended up driving through more ghost fog on the way back... but at night which is extra creepy. I think ghosts live in these fields.

Once into the canyon outside Mariposa the vibe of Yosemite starts to hit. It's awesome. The canyon narrows as you drive up along the Merced river, and it gets more rocky.

Look what I found. Lucky critter: it lived here.

At the gate I spoke with the ranger about the current bear situation. I was wondering if they were hibernating yet or weren't as active this time of year. "Nope. They're still active as usual. I've been here since April and only seen 6 or 7." OK. 6 or 7 bears sounds reasonable. I guess. I'm half hoping to see one....... or two if I'm lucky.

Damn it.  This trail was on my list, but I didn't know it was partially closed. I'm still going. It's the first one I saw, and I was too anxious to keep driving to check on the camping situation. I pulled over and geared up; which means I put on my boots and threw the JetBoil and some tea in my backpack.

I lucked out. The trail was almost empty save for a couple small groups coming down.

Yosemite Falls.

I guess this is where I'll take my tea break.

Half Dome. Duh. Nobody around. Tea brewing. This is my happiness.

My original plan was to hike in the valley, then drive back down the hill to camp at Indian Flat RV Park. It's about 30 minutes away but less popular, and they take walk-ins. Still, I figured I'd try my luck at Curry Village to see if any spots are still available at Upper Pines. I walked into the campground office and got the inside scoop from Kevin. He told me that Upper Pines has open spots for $20 a night, but Camp 4 has spots for $5. SOLD. Kevin tells me Camp 4 is for walk-ins and is usually more quiet. Kevin was super helpful and understood my goal for the weekend, so when I asked about backcountry permits he suggested that it would be a great idea. And, they permits are free and available at the visitor center. It looks I'll be backpacking tomorrow.

I struggled making the fire. I shaved a dry stick with my knife to get tinder, and built a nice bed of shavings and tower of twigs..... still no luck. I took the chance to make friends. I head over and met "Dick. Just Dick." I ask if I can hang for a bit and use his fire to get some logs burning so I can get mine going. He's a retired guy who used to shoot competitively in 26 countries and even beat the Fresno S.W.A.T. He used to drive an old Toyota 4x4, but now drive a Focus and camps all the time. Shit. A senior pass is only $10 and gets you in National Parks for free and camping is half price! I guess when you strike up a conversations with a old retired guy in a campground, you get his whole story. The fire when out on my sticks as I walked to my fire pit, but with some Big Bad Wolf lungs, I was able to get it going.

I met some guys from S.F. who were climbing for the weekend and invited them to join me for a campfire later. I also met some Germans. They joined the fire too. It turns out Maren, the girl from Germany, is also into climbing so we talked climbing a lot. Maren was studying in Mexico and is in CA for vacation. Her boyfriend Johannes flew out to join her. Johannes has family in Bali so we talked surfing too. It was great. I also had some marshmallows to roast so we carved some sticks and made improvised s'mores; roast marshmallow - grab a hand full of Teddy Grahams - scarf.

It turns out there is a team of climbers on El Capitan going for a first free climbing ascent. Two guys and a support crew have been up on the wall for a couple weeks. Normally guys use the rope to assist in climbing some sections. These guys are climbing each section unassisted. No thanks. Seeing their port-a-ledge from the ground give me the chills.

You can see the three tents on the wall about half way up.

I drove by the instameet, but the big crowd wasn't what I was looking for this weekend. I wanted to get out and away, so I kept driving and headed to the hiker's parking lot. I figured I should get started before it got too late in the morning because I was going to take my time hiking and taking pictures.

These birds are fearless. It was pecking at my backpack trying to get my trail mix. They're much bigger than the crows here in town, and they make funny noises. 

Destination: Litte Yosemite Campground. 4.3 miles should be easy.

The trail from the valley up to Vernal Fall is paved which is a bummer for those looking for a full nature experience. It makes sense though because of the amount of use the trail gets a dirt path would be eroded away and damaged within one season.

 Johannes and Maren. They're from the area near the Black Forest in southern Germany. They let me keep my extra food in their bear locker for the night while I backpacked. Vielen Dank. I caught up with them above Vernal Fall and we hiked together up to Nevada Fall.

 Vernal Fall

Fences-aren't-for-me people.

 Rocks or a topographic map?

 Johannes & Maren

Johannes

Above Vernal Fall. Sitting on the railing for a selfie looks safe to me. This girl wasn't quick either. That's her friend on the right with a DSLR. If you want the perfect shot, just do it yourself. Right?

 Liberty Cap, 7,076' & Nevada Fall

 Only 1 mile to go. This should give me time to gather wood before it gets cold and dark.

 At this point, all I could think about were keeping my boots dry and the story To Build A Fire by Jack London. Luckily my boots are water proof, and it was more icy than slushy in most places. What snow was on the ground was only a few inches and didn't get my boots wet.

Booya. I made it. Little Yosemite Valley campground. Hmm...... looks like I'll be camping by myself.

 Nope. I met these cool folks (Andrew, Bri, Max) at the river after gathering firewood. They were refilling their water supply. Andrew asked if it was me making all that noise. "Yep. I had to break some big branches for a fire tonight. Did you think it was a bear?"

"Maybe, but I thought 'damn that's a big bear." Andrew then told me that they had gathered a large pile of firewood and that I should join them. Hell ya.
Andrew: ex professional street bike racer. Raced Laguna Seca while the Moto GP was there. Studying business. Engineering just wasn't his thing. A bit ADD.
Bri, "like the cheese" she says: cool girl. Rides horses. Studying business marketing.
Max: ex army police stationed in Guam. Studying psychology.

 Merced River at Little Yosemite Valley. This is where I filtered water for the night.

Morning fire for breakfast. The night before we had a pile of fire wood the size of a small tent. In the morning it was just about gone. Good thing I spent an hour gathering wood the night before to add to their pile. 

Hi coyote. Thank's for checking up on us. We're good, thanks.

Merced River near LYV. The cool rangers call it LYV so I will too.

On my way back down the trail the smoke from our morning fire created this pretty sight.

hmmm. Where to bury my poop. I had to make a 2 am poop run and it was pretty damn cold. The ground by our site was too hard to dig the required 6" deep so I just did what I could. I had to do a wall sit against a big fallen tree, but it worked. I kept scanning the night with my flashlight looking for bears and coyotes, but saw none. Since I couldn't bury it properly the night before, I had to bag it up and bury it this morning in a proper location.

At the top of Nevada Fall is heard someone say, "Is your name Phil?"

"Um. Yes it is." It was Jason from Cal Poly Wakeboard Club. Damn, small world. He was there with a big group of guys and some cute girls. One girl asked about my shirt. 

"What's flede-fledermausmann?"

"Fledermaus is bat in German." She got a kick out of that. I told her a brief story about being in Germany and how a friend gave it to me for my birthday. I took a photo of their group, and a girl reciprocated by taking one of me. Lookin' fresh, smelling not so fresh. This is day 3 of hiking with no shower and wearing the same stuff. I did change socks though.

A couple of the girls are living in my area. One in Sunnyvale and one in Campbell. One has a boyfriend, but I should have asked for their numbers. It would be nice to have friends outside of the school circle.

More people who ignore the fence. It's not like anyone has died doing this.

I took my time getting down the trail, and found my food still in the bear locker at Johannes and Maren's campsite. They were long gone though. While having a snack at camp 4 two people rode up on touring bikes completely loaded with gear. Of course I had to ask. "How is the trek?"

"What?"

"How is your ride going? How far are you coming from?"

"Pategonia. I started 1 and a half years ago, and she joined me later." The scruffy guy replied in accented English.

"I started in Guatamala," said his female companion. Holy shit. That's a long ride. He asked about the camping situation so I told him how easy and cheap is is to camp here. If I was sticking around I would have spoken with them more about their travels. I find those types of people fascinating. Instead I finished my snack and loaded up my daypack for a hike up Yosemite Fall.

I knew the distance would be tough to make before sunset so I told myself that I'd just go up enough to get a good view and make some food. HA! I tell myself that stuff all the time, and I still push it further. I blasted up this trail. I grunted the whole way and kept a damn good pace. It's a steep trail too with plenty of "stairs." I passed a guy on my way up and asked him what the time is from our current spot to the top. He told me about 1.5 hrs to the top. Damn. I'll keep pushing it and see how it goes. I pass another guy a few minutes later. "How much time to the top?"

"At your pace, probably 20 minutes."

"Awesome. Thanks." No time for chit chat. I'm on a mission. My legs were burning, I was downing water, and only stopped briefly for a couple photos. I NEEDED to keep up the pace to make it to the top and back down before dark. (ya right.)

Yosemite Fall + rainbow

Sunset view from the top of Yosemite Fall.

Above Yosemite Fall

Meet Matt. He's from Oklahoma originally but now lives in the bay area. He came to Yosemite for the Intstameet on Saturday. Unlike most of the others who shoot with nice DSLRs, he simply uses his iPhone. He also hiked up here in flimsy strappy sandals. He said he normally would wear proper shoes but decided to try sandals. He likes to live dangerously and decided to eat his food on a rock at the edge of the fall. It's pretty steep getting to this vantage point, and over that edge is a straight drop to the bottom. I'll make my pasta on this side of the rail, thank you. I lost my spork the previous night so I sharpened a stick as a utensil. It worked pretty good.

I stayed longer than I planned because the view was so cool. As the sun went behind the rocks the haze in the valley created ever changing shadows and light rays. Time to go. 

Quick! This log looks cool! Snap a few photos and get your ass going!

Dang. This looks cool too. I propped my camera on a rock to get this shot. I did that a lot this weekend. I beat that camera up a lot by not using a tripod. A tripod would just add weight. I had to lay on the ground/rocks and take a few shots to finally get a decent composition. With the camera on the rocks, I couldn't see into the viewfinder so I had to check the screen after each shot and recompose. Too much time spent. KEEP GOING!

WOW. Click. Keep going.

As the sun went fully behind the cliffs, the valley became dark quick. I'm not sure if the lights I saw were campfires or lights, but it looked cool. Cars were leaving the park, and the once I hit the trees the darkness began to hit. The light was still lingering enough to see the light and dark of the rocks and trees. The light under the trees was really flat and each step was tough to gauge. Dumbass, I should have brought my light. Always be prepared. I should take my own advice.

I got used to making each step and luckily the trail is really obvious and I only needed to place my steps gently. I had passed two dudes on my way up who were coming down. One of the guys had a prosthetic leg like the ones sprinters use, but it didn't have a knee joint. What a trooper. I saw these guys again as I made my way through the trees in the fading light. They didn't have lights either. By the time I got to the truck it was dark. 

It felt so good to finish the weekend knowing I made use of every minute. I had a rough plan in my head going into the weekend, but the plan kept changing and I'm so glad I had to freedom to do so. Going solo on a trip like this can be lonely, but sometimes you cross paths with cool people and it make it so much fun. Nobody holds you to a schedule. Nobody slows you down or makes you feel bad for going slow. Nobody is there unprepared for impromptu backpacking into the snowy hills. Nobody to stop me from ordering a large pizza for myself in Mariposa either. 

Four Mile Trail: 5.6 miles

El Capitan exploring: maybe 1 mile.

John Muir Trail - Little Yosemite Valley: 8.6 miles

Yosemite Fall: 6.4 miles