.
Our plan was to pick up the rental car, a subcompact. It turned out to be a little Black Kia. We had never seen one of these Korean cars in Michigan. We loaded it with our four suitcases, two into the trunk and the other two on the back seat, and set off for the mountains. We had no intention of investigating the Bay area for now. It is a lovely place, but we were saving it for later. We had reservations for a cabin in Camp Curry Village, in Yosemite Valley, and it was going to take us 4 hours to get there.
The lodging in Yosemite Valley books up a whole year in advance. We got the idea of taking this vacation only a month before. So we were very lucky to have this reservation. There were devastating floods in Yosemite this winter, and the park had been closed while they recovered, rebuilt, and cleaned up the mess. The park had only opened two weeks earlier, and we were fortunate enough to obtain a cabin that someone had canceled.
So we drove across the San Mateo Bridge, cleverly avoiding the toll, which is only taken westbound, and headed east. Upon passing through a pass between some low hills, we found an array of large windmills. These are the modern 3-propeller design, and I imagine they were producing electrical power. What a nice use of renewable resources. These windmills were really spinning, so I'm sure there was plenty of power to go around that day.
We crossed the flat
San Joaquin Valley via route 120. We saw lots of fields planted with grapevines, and also many things being grown that will not grow in Michigan. We saw
almond,
orange,
and
olive Trees, and also artichokes
being farmed. Then, suddenly, we left the valley and we began climbing into the
Sierras.
We arrived at the gate to
Yosemite National Park
a little after 4 P.M. Boy were we excited! .
Then in one minute, our plans were wrecked. The ranger told us the park was closed.
"How can that be? We have reservations," we said.
"Well, you had better cancel them and find other accommodations," he informed us, "because high winds have made it dangerous in the park, and the road is closed with trees down across it. We hope to have it open by midnight, but we can't guarantee it."
He was nice enough to direct us to a place called the Evergreen Lodge. It was about 8 miles from the entrance. It looked like this when we approached it. It had very nice cabins, so we rented one, but it was too late to contact the reservation office for the cabins we had already paid for in the park. This vacation was not getting off to a good start. The winds seemed to be out to get us. First the turbulence, then the landing, now this.
Here is a picture looking down on the cabin, with our little car parked next to it. Steffi was recovering from a lingering cold, and we hadn't yet adapted to the 3 hour difference in time zones, so we went to bed real early by local standards, with plans to get up at the crack of dawn, and enter the park. The winds howled much of the night, making a great deal of sound blowing through the trees in that evergreen forest. this really wasn't a very good start for our vacation.
I am sure you don't need us to tell you how beautiful this area is. The drive was spectacular, although there were some areas that were blackened by fires. Fires are natural, but the after-effect of blackened, dead trees is not really very pretty to see. We passed that, but it was almost an hour after we left the Evergreen Lodge when we finally entered the valley. It was worth the drive. There was this monumentally huge peak "El Capitan" dominating the entrance on our left. I didn't get a picture of it, because I imagine it is one of the most popular rocks to take a photo of. There must be millions of pictures of El Capitan. The same can probably be said of beautiful Bridalveil Falls, to our right. This place is certainly amazing. Immense granite cliffs and waterfalls seemed to be everywhere.
When we got to the desk at Camp Curry and discussed our reservations, we were surprised to find that they had opened the road at 6 P.M. They wanted to charge us for not showing up. I protested, and he said we should wait until 8, when the office in Fresno opened. All of the accommodations in the valley are operated as a concession, and the concession is headquartered in Fresno. Fortunately, at 8, they agreed that the National Park Service had been very aggressively turning away visitors, so we weren't going to be charged. Not only that, but because of the previous day's closing, they had had a new rash of cancellations, and we were able to upgrade our tent to a cabin for the next two nights. We were very happy about that. The winds had vanished overnight, we moved into our cabin, not feeling too sorry for the unknown people who had given it up to our benefit. It was a beautiful day, in a spectacularly beautiful valley, and it was time for us to take a hike.
We love to
hike. We have both always loved hiking. We had bought brand new hiking boots from L. L. Bean a month before, in anticipation of using them a great deal on this vacation.
After a quick visit to the visitor center for advice, we decided to take the hike to Vernal Fall. At right is a photo of Steffi taken on a bridge over the Merced River near the trailhead.
The trail leads into a narrow gorge cut out of solid granite by the Merced River. As we proceeded upstream, the path climbed steeply up the left wall of the gorge. At left is a picture of the opposite wall taken across the river. The river cannot be seen as it is way below.
We continued up the trail, enjoying the views as we went. The river curved sharply to the left, and then the trail came to a bridge across the river. From this point, for the first time, we could see the falls in the distance. We knew then that we still had a lit of climbing to do, because the falls were way above us. At right is a picture of the two of us, snapped by another hiker, showing the falls in the distance between us.
We were determined to get all the way to the brink of the falls. At this time of year that is about as far as you can go. There are trails to many other places, but they are all closed except in the summer. First we went along the river directly toward the falls. After a while we reached a point where we had a really good view of them, but the trail which continues along the river to the top of the falls, called the Mist Trail, was closed because of icy and treacherous conditions at that time of year. This is the best view we had of the falls though, so I took another picture (left).
We then backtracked and began following a side trail that lead us upwards and upwards. It was so steep, that the trail needed switchbacks. While we were climbing this portion, called the Winter Trail because it is the only way up in the winter, we had no view of the falls at all. We did have an absolutely breathtaking view downwards, looking back towards the trailhead in the Yosemite Valley. You can see the Yosemite Falls way in the distance on the far side of the valley in this picture that I took while we were climbing.
We continued upward until we suddenly reached a point where the trail was blocked
by a large snow field. We carefully followed in the steps of others who had crossed
so that we could continue up the trail. It was very slippery and we almost fell.
At left is a picture of the trail as it crosses the snow field.
Finally the trail reached the top, and we could again see in the direction of the falls. But the falls were now below us. As we looked upstream, we could see an even higher falls up above. This was Nevada Fall, 594 feet high, but even if we had wanted to hike that far, the trail was closed.
So we stopped for lunch, with only the short distance down to the brink of Vernal Fall left to hike, before returning. When we resumed, we got this stunning view of the falls as we approached it from above.
Not long after that we came to the brink of the falls. Vernal Fall has a lot of water flowing over it. The height is 317 feet, so it is not as high as Nevada Fall, but this was hard for us to appreciate, because we never got a close view of Nevada Fall. From the brink of Vernal Fall the drop seemed enormous. The picture on the right is the view down towards where we had been. The bridge we had crossed when we got our first view of the falls is visible as little more than a speck in the evergreens about 20% of the way up from the bottom of the photograph. On the left is a photo of Steffi standing at the brink of the falls.
We returned to the trailhead by retracing our steps, first up the the view of Nevada Fall, and then back down the steep switchbacks, crossing the snow field, and then to the bridge and trailhead. While we were descending, the afternoon sun shown on the cliffs above us as we descended. At this time of year, large pieces of ices would break loose under these conditions, and come crashing down to the rocks below. It sounded almost like thunder. and it continued the whole time we descended. This was amazing to watch and listen to. At lower elevations we even found lots of small pieces of ice on the trail.
When we returned to our cabin, we were a little tired, but not really exhausted. We had not taken a hike that was this much fun in years. We were also more than a little pleased that we could take such a long hike without incident. We decided that tomorrow we would try something even more challenging, so we went to bed early, got a lot of sleep, so that we would be able to start early the next day.
We again awoke very early. We were still running on eastern time, and didn't see any point in
getting accustomed to the local clock time, since doing so would cost us daylight hours in the early morning. We had eaten and driven to the a parking lot near Yosemite Lodge by 7:30 AM. The picture on the right is the view that greeted us when we got out of our car. This is Yosemite Falls, one of the highest falls in the world, The waterfall starts 2,425 feet above the valley floor and falls 1430 feet in the uper falls, and then farther below another 320 feet in the lower falls, before joining the Merced River in the valley.
We knew that this time there was a good chance that we would not be able to get all the way to the top of the falls. The trail is 3.5 miles long, but the climb from the our starting point at the valley floor is 2,700 feet. This is more than twice as high as the Empire State Building. We're both originally from New York City, so we find the height of the Empire State building to be a natural unit to use for measuring great heights. We had no idea how we would hold up under the strain of so much climbing, but we figured that even if we didn't get all the way to the top, we would still see a lot of cool stuff, and it would be worth it.
So we hiked for about 15 minutes until we reached the trailhead. We should have parked at the Sunnyside Campground, because that was a lot closer to the trailhead, but we didn't realize that. This trailhead was completely out of site from the falls, being way around to the left of a big rock outcropping. The trail immediately entered a wooded area and began going straight up. This trail was much steeper than yesterday's Winter Trail, and seemed to have only one purpose, to go upwards. At our starting time of 7:45 AM, there was no one else on the trail. You could look back down at where you had come from, but you couldn't see across the valley because it was heavily wooded. It was a beautiful trail, but very hard work doing all that climbing. Steffi went faster and had to keep waiting for Steve, who came plodding along, conserving strength. We had all day, after all.
We took much fewer pictures on this hike than before. This was mostly because we were concentrating a lot more on the physical effort of climbing the trail. To make up for it, we will let one of the pictures remain really large. But meanwhile on we climbed, and eventually the path stopped switching back and forth and began marching only to the right across the cliff. This was the way to the falls, we knew, because we had gone way to the left when we started. Soon we came out of the woods, and found ourselves at a big rock, from which we could at last look across the valley. This is known as "Columbia Rock" although we couldn't find a sign. It was a little depressing to see that even though we had climbed a huge amount already, we were only about 1/3 of the way up, judging by the opposite valley wall.
So we forged ahead, and resumed climbing. First up a sandy slope and then on rock steps. The rock steps were very tedious to climb on. We were to find out that almost all of the remaining portion of the trail was made of rock steps. But we continued on anyway, and the trail stopped climbing again and moved around to the right some more. This time, there was a big reward for our climbing.
Suddenly the falls came into view, and we were much closer to it than we had ever been before. The trail continue to get closer and closer to the falls, and we took the opportunity to take this picture on the right.
These falls are totally amazing. There is a lot of water falling over them, especially now, in the spring, but the water falls so far that it breaks up into clouds of mist before it hits anything. It is absolutely fascinating to watch the water falling in this way. It never really hits the rock and splashes. Many people only hike up this point and then return, we decided to see if we could get to the top. We had been climbing for several hours, but it was still only mid-morning.
After approaching the falls for a while, the trail then veered back to the left to reach the bottom of a very steep section that reached straight up to the top at what looked like a 60 degree angle. Once we got the bottom of this section, we were again out of sight of the falls, and back onto rock steps. This section is very barren, and I am sure that in the summer it gets baked by the sun. This is not a good place to run out of water to drink. We just climbed and climbed, with Steve limiting the pace, so that his legs would last as long as possible.
The switchbacks on the left were right up against a huge rock cliff that rose over our heads, but the switchbacks on the right occurred just before a big dropoff. As we climbed, these dropoffs started to look really scary. I took this photograph looking down from a right switchback into the valley below. Yosemite Lodge and Yosemite Village are down there, but they are too small to make out in the distance. We are probably over 2000 feet above the valley floor now.
We had promised each other that if we thought at any time that we would have trouble getting
back down, we would call it quits. I think we both started to feel that it was time to call a halt by the time we were three quarters of the way up that last section. It was about that time that someone coming down cheerily told us that we were less than ten minutes from the top. So we felt that it would be silly to turn around that little short of the goal. We took a break, and looked out over the valley.
This picture shows the famous and massive "Half Dome" looming over the Yosemite Valley. The gorge on the right side of the picture is the one we took yesterday, to Vernal Falls. The great Yosemite Falls is still out of sight, despite being between us and the brown rock in the foreground on the left.
Energized by the encouraging words, and the long rest, we continued up the rock steps. Sure enough, in about ten more minutes the slope lessened and we entered an evergreen forest. At this elevation, there was still snow on the ground. This was a very beautiful place, but I forgot to take a picture of it. We continued through it, and across a little creek, over some rocks, and finally reached the top of the climb. We were actually a little bit above the brink of the falls, on the left side as you view the falls from the valley. Here there was a sign to the overlook,
and we took each other's picture to prove that we had actually climbed the whole thing.
After lunch, and a nice long rest, we started down. We had assumed that the return would be much faster, but the climb was so steep that we had to go down very slowly too. Another complicating factor was that in the hours since we had been on the portion of the trail close to the falls, the wind had changed. Now it was blowing some of the waterfall onto the trail, although we had remained perfectly dry on the way up. This cause us to get wet, but more importantly, the rock steps became wet and slippery.
We didn't finish retracing our steps to the bottom until late in the afternoon. We were glad that we had started so early that morning. We were really sore, too. It would take us three or four days for our muscles to recover from that hike, but never once were we sorry we had gone.
That night, after dinner, when it got dark, we went to Wawona Tunnel, near the western end of the valley, to watch Comet Hale-Bopp. This was April 4, close to its most advantageous viewing, and we had the advantage of being high in the mountains. What good planning! The comet was great, but my camera was not up to the task of recording the event. We slept very well that night.
This day was mostly a traveling day. We drove out of the Sierras, because there are no roads that proceed southward in the mountains.. Fresno is in the San Joaquin Valley, which is close to sea level. I had originally planned that we would spend the night there, but Steffi convinced me that the mountains were a lot more fun, and since our next destinations were King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, we headed due east out of Fresno on the same day and then back up into the mountains. I had no idea where we would spend the night, but there we were.
When we arrived at the Park entrance station, the Ranger assured us that there would be no problem finding lodging in or near the parks that night. This was a great relief. Then he told us that the road into King's Canyon is not open, because it had not been repaired yet due to the bad flooding that they had had over the winter. So we drove as far as we could go towards King's Canyon. We saw a lot of great scenery, too. There is a place where the drop from the top of the Spanish Mountain (10051 ft.) to the bottom of the canyon, where the Kings River flows. is over 7000 feet. That is even higher than the Grand Canyon! Everything in the Sierras is absolutely colossal.
We had to turn back so we stopped in at the visitor center, and one ranger there recommended a resort named Montecito Sequoia Lodge. It was almost twice as expensive as we had been planning to spend, but it came highly recommended, and the price included all meals, so we decided to splurge.
The road here between Kings Canyon and Sequoia Park passes through part of the Sequoia National Forest. It is higher in altitude than we had been so far. While the altitude in Yosemite was 4000 feet, here we were at 7500 feet. There was snow on the sides of the road, and in some places it was 3 or 4 feet high. The Lodge turned out to be a bargain. The meals were served buffet style and were far better than we had expected. The room was luxurious. We definitely got our money's worth there.
The following morning, after eating our breakfast (included in the lodging package), we found that there was to be a snowshoe hike up to Big Baldy Ridge. We rented snowshoes at the Lodge's ski shop and prepared for some more hiking. Snowshoeing is pretty much like hiking, so it was definitely for us. We were still sore from our hike two days earlier to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls, but they assured us that the hike was self-paced and easy.
As it turns out there was only one other person who signed up for it, so our guide, a young lady from (surprisingly) New York, took the three of us out and we started going through the woods. At this altitude the woods contains only evergreens - Sugar Pine, Incense-Cedar, and Douglas Fir were the primary species in those woods.
The snow was pretty deep too. There were wells around each big tree where the snow had been melting, and you could look down into those wells to see that we were walking on at least four feet of snow.
We climbed through this forest until we reached the ridge, which is close to 8000 feet in altitude. From here, we could look west down into the San Joaquin Valley, and east up into the high Sierra peaks, which are all snow-covered, of course. The largest peak is Mount Whitney, but it can only be seen from the west by traveling into the back country, because it is so remotely located.
It was very quiet and peaceful amidst that grandeur, and then our guide called our attention to the drum-like sound of a grouse. I wish I had had the equipment to record that for you, but I didn't, so you'll have to use your imagination.
We went back to the lodge for lunch - our last meal paid for by our overnight stay there. (It was also delicious.) Then we headed on into Sequoia National Park to see more of the big trees that we had only had a small taste of back in the Mariposa Grove.
It is really hard to imagine the size of the amazing Sequoiadendron giganteum. This is the world's larget living thing. It is extremely difficult to photograph an entire tree.
The best photo I took only goes up somewhat less than halfway, and doesn't include any branches. This is the photo at right, and it also lacks a foreground object to give you an idea of the scale. Consider that the other trees in the photo look like match sticks but are actually mostly adult
Sugar Pine. This picture also really shows off well the striking bark color, described as "cinnamon" in one description we read. I am afraid that you'll just have to imagine the top portion of the tree. One of the largest Sequoia branches we saw measured 7 feet in diameter, but it was hard to tell for certain, because it branched out from the tree about 150 feet over our heads.
Steffi and I each took a picture of the other standing in front of a Giant Sequoia, In order to show the entire girth of the tree, I had to reduce the picture until Steffi is barely recognizable. Fortunately she had on that unmistakable red ski jacket.
These trees are very shallow rooted and so they are protected by fences so that the area around the base of the trunk does not become compressed by the many footsteps of the hordes of people who come to this park to love these trees.
If that happens, the tree roots will die and the tree will topple. There were numerous examples of toppled Sequoia trees in the park. The fallen trees do not rot, because the tree has taken up a great deal of tannin, which accounts for the bark color and also renders them nearly fireproof. Despite being so much larger than the pines, they are not any taller, and they would likely be out-competed for sunlight by Pines, except that they have evolved to survive forest fires, while the pines burn very freely. The life span of a Sequoia is hundreds of times longer than a pine, and it will survive many forest fires during this period. Sequoia seedlings will only germinate in the bare earth following a fire, as well.
As the day wore on, with great reluctance, we had to leave the park. We exited to the south on route 198, which descends via a very steep narrow winding to the San Joaquin Valley. It was slow going until once again we were driving on the flat plain. Then we quickly headed south on route 99, and Interstate 5. We went through the Tejon pass at dusk, and stopped for the night in the outskirts of Los Angeles.
This is the end of our time in the Sierras, and we were sorely afraid that the rest of the vacation would be thoroughly anticlimactic. To see how wrong we were, you'll have to advance to the next chapter of our vacation.
[Intro] [Sierras] [Desert] [Zoos and Beaches] [Redwoods]
