RossHarmes.net » Yosemite

Yosemite

Dec 4 2008

I haven’t been home for Thanksgiving in four years, mostly because its the worst possible time of year to travel. It worked out great this year, because Alec was able to use the holidays to get enough time off for a reasonable California vacation. Instead of just hanging around San Fran, we decided to do something interesting: go backpacking in Yosemite. Alec’s been before with Amy, but never in the backcountry, so this was new for both of us. We’ve been planning the route and the gear for a few months; in retrospect, this is pretty funny, since we obviously completely underestimated the difficulty of the route. More on that later.

He flew in at noon on Thanksgiving Day. We spent that afternoon trying to find an In and Out Burger that was open, and after that failed we walked around my neighborhood and had coffee and doughnuts at the only place open for miles. After a few hours of hanging out, we took another long walk to downtown and back, followed by a really nice dinner at Avalon, less than a block from my apartment. I’ve gotten into the habit of eating out at expensive places for Thanksgiving; most restaurants have a fairly cheap fixed price menu, and they’re usually not that busy. The food at Avalon was amazing, but the wait was agonizing. We must have been there an hour before our food came out. Since Alec was on east coast time, he was overdue for food by about three hours.

The next morning we have breakfast and hit the road. The plan was to drive to Yosemite, pick up our wilderness permit, and reach a camp at Little Yosemite Valley (2.6 miles away) by sundown. Sitting in my apartment this all seemed really reasonable: it’s only a four hour drive, and we can easily walk 2.6 miles in less than two hours, so we only had to get to the park by 3:00pm, two hours before sunset. No problem, right?

The first problem was traffic. The smaller roads in rural California were not as car-free as I had hoped. We also stopped for lots of scenic overlooks along the way. By the time we had actually arrived in the valley itself, it was already 2:30. Add another half hour to find the permit office, fill out the forms, and get to the backpackers parking lot and it was only an hour and 46 minutes before sundown (which was at 4:46pm on that day). We set out on the trail, fully loaded with gear, and immediately get lost on a trail that dead ends on an island in the Merced River. So with barely more than an hour before getting dark, we finally get on the right trail.

The scenery is indescribably beautiful. Redwoods, giant granite boulders, and sheer rock faces every where you look. We were able to enjoy it a lot, since we had to stop for breaks every five minutes. I’m not exaggerating here; the one thing we didn’t take into account was elevation. The trail was staggeringly steep. Imagine walking up a flight of stairs with 30 lbs of gear on your back for 2.6 miles. This is exactly what the Mist Trail was like. We pass beautiful waterfalls, rock domes and lots of hikers heading down for the day. The trail was stunning; giant steps carved directly into the rock face with dynamite. We were walking right along the edge of a hundred foot drop every step of the day. By the time darkness falls, we have gone exactly 1.3 miles (and 4000 ft vertically). At this point, we weren’t worried. We both had headlamps, so we figured we’d keeping walking until we found the camp. This optimism evaporated as soon as we saw that the trail was just as steep and treacherous ahead as it had been before, only now you couldn’t even see where the edge of the cliff was. We decided that going on would be too dangerous, so we stopped at the only place we could, and little area of dirt and trees among miles of bare granite.

We set up our tent in the dark and cooked some delicious dehydrated mac and cheese. Sleep came almost immediately for me; I was completely exhausted. The next morning we awake to find ourselves right next to a huge waterfall. In the dark of the night before, we had no idea where we were; now we see that this was literally the only place we could have stopped and made camp. It’s at this point that Alec drops his camera in the river. He finds it ten minutes later, floating in an eddy, but it won’t turn on. We use our cameraphones (my iPhone and his Ace) as our only cameras for the rest of the trip. I was actually pretty impressed with how the photos turned out. Here is a slideshow with all of the photos from all four cameras that we had with us; they tell the tale better than I can. The best way to see these is at full-screen (the button in the lower left corner), and with titles and descriptions showing (click Show Info in the upper right corner).

After the excitement of the first night, the rest of the trip was fairly sedate. We walk to the camp at Little Yosemite Valley the next day, set up camp, and hike to the top of Half Dome with only water and Clif bars on us. The cell reception at the top was fantastic; I was even able to get on the internet. That night was absolutely freezing. It may have been the coldest I’ve ever been while still being able to sleep.

The next day we wake up and make our way back down into the valley. Instead of taking the crazy steep way we took up, we decided to take the trail that was twice as long and half as steep. We manage the hike in a little under three hours, half what it took us to go up. We spend the drive back thinking about real food (and stop at the first In and Out we find), and then relaxing on the couch watching Sly in Cliffhanger (seemed appropriate).

Despite the first night, the trip was a complete success. All of our gear performed beautifully, the food was good, and no one was attacked by bears. I’d really like to do it again, though on a slightly less mountainous area of the park. All in all, it was great to see Alec and to be able to take a few days away from civilization.

Posted by Ross at 19:56

Comments

This is kind of amazing

Posted by Rza on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 12:01

Regenerative braking on a bike. Those crazy Japanese think of everything.

If by “complete success” you mean…

Posted by Crza on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 14:25

Rza: Good thing Alec didn’t drop you into the water — imagine what that would have done to your circuits.

better still

Posted by the Brown Buffalo on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 5:21

ross, i want you to jump into the tub with me when white rabbit peaks

I got this

Posted by Grizzly Adams on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 18:14

I see your jap rocket and raise you my euro wheels
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIHdQBsM9nc

Yaaa……..

Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, January 10th, 2009 at 14:50

Well I guess all of us on this blog are thrilled about the Gators’ new national championship.

I watched it at home alone in my living room.

Why did our college careers have to overlap the Zook era?

Rza… I was with you in spirit

Posted by Mr. Two Bits on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 16:56

THIS IS GETTING REE-DIC-CUE-LUS, REE-DIC-CUE-LUS, REE-DIC-CUE-LUS

Posted by Crza on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 16:58

Sloot — you need to post more. Your community is falling apart.

You know this has reached an all-time low when…

Posted by crza on Sunday, February 1st, 2009 at 14:41

…even my terrible spelling does not prompt a response. Sad.

Czra…

Posted by Rza on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 9:26

The lack of comment on your spelling was not due to ignorance. Instead, I empathized with the fact that central Florida was causing such a derangement of your faculties that you were resorting to a pheonetically spelled out southern drawl to get your point across.

Also: did anyone else see Harrison kick some Arizona player’s ass right after a play? It was fucking brutal: lots of kicking while he was down.