Yosemite Hiking

Houston is just as I left it: hot and sticky.

My calf muscles are so incredibly stiff and tight and it’s a bit painful to walk. I’m doing the old lady shuffle in style.

Yosemite is one of my favorite places on Earth.

So much to say, but I will start with the plane flight back last night. I was disappointed to be on the right side of the plane, where I was able to overlook Oakland as we took off but not San Francisco. This fact, however, was more than made up for when I was able to see not only Yosemite and Half Dome from my side of the plane, but Longs Peak silhouetted against the setting sun and storm clouds in the distance as we landed in Denver.

So, what have I done since I last updated…

Thursday night we stayed with Gavin’s step-grandmother, Sigvor, in Berkeley. First of all, she’s Norwegian, so she speaks with a very cool accent of a foreigner completely fluent in English but retaining the lilt of their native language. She has lived in the US since the 50s, I believe, but is obviously still very attached to Norway.

Rich probably worded it best when he said: “You know how sometimes you meet people, for just a moment, and even though you will probably never see them again, you’ll never forget them?” Sigvor is one of those people. She was always smiling, very quick with a joke. She spoke about everything from what it was like living under German occupation in World War II to the time she met Robin Williams and didn’t like him very much; it was impossible to stop listening to her talk, even if I had wanted to.

For years, she has been opening her home to visiting Norwegian (and a few other foreign nationalities) students as a sort of short-term “hotel” where they can spend a few nights until they find permanent housing for the year. As a result, there are always students coming and going, with backpacks and sleeping bags covering the basement. She often makes dinner for the group (“I think my dining room table is in photos in half the living rooms in Norway!”, she said), though the night we were there was reserved for “family night” and consisted of Sigvor, Gavin, Gavin’s parents, Tolief (this year’s preferred student to whom Sigvor has rented a room), Rich, and me.

As if it weren’t clear after all that, I’ll just say that staying with Gavin’s grandmother was a real treat. Oh — and even if she weren’t such a cool person, her house is absolutely incredible with a view that covers Berkeley, the Bay Bridge, San Francisco, Alcatraz, the Marin headlands, and far in the distance, the Golden Gate. Awesome house belonging to an awesome person.

So. Friday morning we got up and lazed about Sigvor’s house before hitting the road around lunchtime headed for Yosemite. Traffic was heavy through the hills beyond Oakland and into the first part of the central valley of California, but things smoothed out past Modesto and after a late lunch at In ‘N Out, we arrived at the Yosemite Bug Hostel around 5:00. After checking in quickly, we headed 25 miles up the road to Yosemite.

The drive to Yosemite is a little misleading — the scenery, while impressive, gives no hint of what is to come. You drive along mountain roads through the valley formed by the Merced River, taking in hills and pine trees and some outcroppings of granite here and there. You see the sign for “Yosemite National Park” and even get as far as the ranger station still thinking, hmm, this doesn’t look all that great so far, just normal run-of-the-mill mountains.

But suddenly, looming in the distance directly ahead of you through the pine trees is an enormous slab of granite. By enormous, I mean more then 3,000 feet tall. El Capitan is an incredibly imposing site, and just as I did when I first saw it three years ago, I couldn’t help but say “WOW.” As you continue to drive along the valley, El Capitan falls behind you and jagged Sentinel Rock and Glacier Point rise on the right. Finally, you come around a bend and are met with the piece de resistance — Half Dome. It’s amazing at any time of day, but when viewed in the late afternoon as it was when we drove into the park on Friday at about 6:30, the setting sun makes the sheer granite face shine. It is an awesome sight.

We headed back to the hostel after dinner at a pizza place right outside the park entrance (where they forgot about our pizza, so it took much longer than planned). After that it was lights out.

We got up at 6:00 Saturday morning and headed into the park. I’ll have many, many photos in the next day or two but for now you’ll have to imagine the view as I show you the route we followed! We began at the trailhead to Four Mile Trail that leads to Glacier Point. This trail was first created in 1872 and really was 4 miles long. Today it is 4.5 miles after being lengthened by the National Parks Service to improve some of the steepest sections. Be assured, it is still pretty dang steep in places — it covers 3,200 vertical feet in only 4.5 miles. Here is the trail, highlighted in blue:

It took us about 3.5 hours to make it to Glacier Point, as we stopped and took many photos of the spectacular view looking west down the valley towards El Capitan, as well as across the valley to Yosemite Falls, which were pretty bare (not much water). We definitely picked the right time of day to do this part of our hike — this was 85% of the uphill work for the entire day, and it was entirely in the shade, since the sun was shining on the opposite side of the valley.

We reached Glacier Point just before 11:00 and were met with many other tourists, since there is actually a road that goes up there. (This begs the question of why we decided to hike. We hiked because it is fun.) Gavin and I had ice cream at the cafe, and we all took in the marvelous view of Half Dome, Nevada Falls and Vernal Falls (we were finally in a position to be able to look east along the valley). After lingering at Glacier Point for almost an hour, we began the second part of our day, following the 8.5-mile Panorama Trail that passes Illilouette Falls, Nevada Falls, and Vernal Falls on its way back to the valley floor. These 8.5 miles were almost all downhill except for a short section where we had to climb maybe 500 vertical feet back up in order to follow the lip of a canyon.

Zoomed in:

Zoomed out:

The first part of the descent, 2 miles to Illilouette Falls, was very exposed, and I got a bit of sun despite use of sunscreen. In addition, we seemed to be walking through an area that had suffered a fire five or ten years ago. There was a lot of growth on the ground, but most of the trees were dead trunks.

I hadn’t inspected the map closely and didn’t realize that Illilouette Falls even existed, so they were a pleasant surprise and were really beautiful. Just past the top was where we had to begin the second (thankfully much shorter) ascent of the day. We soon reached the top of the ridge and started our descent to Nevada Falls. As we reached the trail juncture 0.2 miles from Nevada Falls, I suggested we walk over to see the top before retracing the 0.2 miles and heading down to the valley floor. We didn’t quite make it to the top though, because we were stopped a few hundred feet from the top just before a rescue helicoptor landed on the rock next to the falls. The hiker who stopped us said someone had died, however, we aren’t sure whether he was actually telling the truth or just telling a sick joke. The fact remains that the helicoptor did land. However, we’d seen the helicoptor fly to the top of the falls two previous times that day, and it seems unlikely that three people would need medical help in one day, so I hope it was doing something else.

We headed slowly down the trail towards Vernal Falls below, stopping to take many photos of Nevada Falls as they came crashing over the rock. Vernal Falls is not quite as tall, but still very impressive. We took the mist trail that runs right next to the cascading water, and though there was not as much mist as there was three years ago when Becca and I took that trail, it was still fun.

We finally reached the Merced River and the end of Yosemite Valley at 5:30. Gavin had actually run ahead in the last half mile and had already gotten on the shuttle bus to go back and get the car, so Rich and I cooled our heels on some rocks while we waited for a bit until Gavin returned. We hadn’t been too crunched for time, but it was certainly nice and did save us a half hour or so in the end.

After stopping at the store for some dinner, we took the almost hour-long drive back up to the top of Glacier Point, where we had just been 7 hours earlier — on foot. (Sad, eh? Heh heh.) It was dark when we got there, so we found a good spot, sat down and waited. A spot on the horizon grew lighter and lighter and the clouds began to glow and suddenly the moon slowly climbed above the mountains. It was only one day past full, and the light was dazzling — no flashlight needed. The light shining off of the granite wall-filled valley was beautiful, and I got some great night photos from the top of Glacier Point, and also from the valley floor after we drove back down. We finally arrived back at the hostel past midnight, exhausted.

Yesterday was simply a day of travel as we drove back to San Francisco (the return trip, minus traffic jams and plus Gavin’s lead foot, took a mere 3 hours). We had some time to kill so we drove through the Presidio and Golden Gate Park before heading to the airport for our 4:45 flight. A quick jaunt to Denver and another flight to Houston and we were home just after midnight last night. Of course with the drive from IAH, I didn’t get home until after 1 a.m.

And it is hot. And sticky.