Yosemite Rockfalls--NPS

Fun little tidbit from the National Park Service--you can read the full story at https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/nature/rockfall.htm.

20th Anniversary of Happy Isles Rockfall
Sunday marked the 20-year anniversary of the Happy Isles rockfall, one of the most devastating rockfalls in Yosemite’s history.

At 6:52 pm on July 10, 1996, two rockfalls detached in quick succession from the rim of Yosemite Valley east of Glacier Point. Approximately 90,000-180,000 tons of rock slid down a bedrock ramp and went airborne, free-falling 2,200 feet to the base of the cliff. The impact generated ground shaking equivalent to a magnitude 2.1 earthquake, which was detected by seismometers 125 miles away. The impact also generated an airblast with velocities exceeding 240 miles/hour, snapping or toppling more than 1000 trees. Falling trees in the vicinity of the Happy Isles Nature Center caused one fatality and several serious injuries. The sky went black for six minutes as a large dust cloud blocked out the evening light, and the area around Happy Isles and the Pines campgrounds was covered in a thick coating of rock dust.

The 1996 Happy Isles rockfall proved to be an important turning point in the study of Yosemite rockfalls. Following this rockfall, the National Park Service established a close working relationship with the U.S. Geological Survey to document rockfalls and assess geologic hazards, a relationship that continues to this day. The park now has an active rockfall research program that helps inform management actions to reduce rockfall risk.

Mapped above are documented rockfalls in Yosemite Valley, from 1857 to 2011, for which location and seasonal timing are known. 

 

 

P.S. It was this rockfall that turned the NPS hike up to Sierra Point into a scramble because it destroyed parts of the trail.

Bethany’s Yosemite Guide: Places to Eat

To address the questions that I’ve been asked regarding everyday living at Yosemite, I’ve decided to make a little guide. This is a picture guide, so you’re welcome for going around everywhere and taking pictures of everything…like a touron. :P I decided for my first edition, I would start with the most important aspect—food! So here are the majority of places you can eat while you’re in Yosemite, not including cooking your own food in the employee kitchen. :)

Food options in Half Dome Village include: The Grill, The Pizza Patio, The Pavilion, and the Coffee Corner (ice cream).

A—The Grill:

The Grill is where Abby works as a cashier. They serve food that you would expect from a grill—hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese, chicken sandwiches, pulled pork, veggie burgers, salads, etc. My favorite thing to get from The Grill is the Deluxe Grilled Cheese with a side of bacon. The Deluxe Grilled Cheese is on funky bread and it comes with tomatoes and onions on the inside, so I pick those off and put the bacon in. Delicious!

B—The Pizza Patio

The Pizza Patio is said to be the busiest pizza place in California in terms of sales per day (or something like that). They are almost always super busy, but they are decent about cranking out your pizza in not-an-extreme-amount of time. Pizzas start out as cheese and then you pay per topping that you add. It can get pretty pricy pretty quickly if you’re not careful. Sabas used to order all the housekeepers pizza on Sunday (the busiest day), but people started taking it for granted, so he pulled the plug. This Sunday the lifeguards ordered a pepperoni/pineapple pizza and we’re just going to rotate who pays for it the next three Sundays. The pizza here is actually pretty good; they just need bacon.

C—The Pavilion

The Pavilion is semi-cafeteria style in that you wait in a main line for the entrée/side dishes and you just pay for whatever you pick up. They also have a dessert corner and a salad bar/soup station. They’re the only place in Half Dome Village open for a full breakfast meal. They close for lunch and reopen from 5:30-8:30 for supper. Most of their supper food is delicious; however, for breakfast I would recommend the Lodge for most foods over the Pavilion. The biscuits and gravy is an exception, but it’s obviously not as good as homemade. What I like to do there is go on the day that they have mac & cheese as a side! Sides are less expensive, but the nice people usually fill my plate with mac & cheese. My favorite thing here though for supper is probably the mashed potatoes! Super delicious!

D—Coffee Corner

The Coffee Corner is my favorite place in Half Dome Village!!! It serves breakfast pastries and muffins in the morning and then switches over to ice cream at 11:00 (in addition to all of the drinks they serve). Far surpassing the Lodge in flavors and creations, the Coffee Corner is the place to go for ice cream, which they serve until 10:00. On the weekends they have more flavors than during the week, but it’s still fantastic no matter what! I don’t know if I have a favorite food to get here, but one of the things I order most frequently are their sundaes—single, double, or triple scoop with hot fudge or caramel, whipped topping, nuts, sprinkles, and a cherry. I typically stick with single or double, hot fudge, whipped topping, nuts, and sprinkles. Rocky Road, Peanut Butter Cup, and Cookies & Cream are my go-to choices along with random special flavors that they have.

E—Lodge Cafeteria

Over at the Yosemite Valley Lodge is a fantastic cafeteria! They open the earliest for breakfast at 6:30, and they serve lunch and supper. I’ve only been to the Lodge for breakfast once, but I can tell you that my French toast there was absolutely fantastic! See, the Lodge cooks the food in front of you at certain stations that you go to, as opposed to the Pavilion which is like a cafeteria line. No biscuits and gravy at the Lodge though. :( For lunch, their burgers are the only ones I’ll eat in the park. In my opinion, they’re actually really good! I would go to the Lodge cafeteria more often if it wasn’t so out of my way because I think it is actually pretty good.

F/G—Mountain Room Lounge/Restaurant

I have never personally eaten at either of these places. Regardless, the Mountain Room Lounge is semi-casual and I believe the Restaurant is considered fine dining. Don’t quote me on that. Neither has a ton of menu options, and they’re both more expensive than I would generally pay for a meal. (Neither as expensive as the Ahwahnee, but we’ll get to that later.)

H—Degnan’s Deli, Café, and Loft

The Deli and Café at Degnan’s in the Yosemite Village area close at 5:00, so I’ve never eaten either of those places. I’ve heard they do well in their breakfast sandwich making though. The Loft is another pizza place; however, even better than pizza at the Loft is their rice bowls! You choose between a 1 meat/1 veggie and a 2 veggie rice bowl and then you can add additional toppings if you want. Luckily for me, pineapple was listed under veggies, so I had a chicken, bacon, and pineapple rice bowl with the white sauce whose name I’m completely blanking on right now…So if you want pizza—go the the Pizza Patio and get a rice bowl at the Loft!

I—Village Grill

Disclaimer: not my picture, I forgot this little guy was tucked away behind the Village Store. It closes at 6:00—another inconvenient time. When I went there, I had a grilled cheese kids’ meal with a fruit cup and chocolate milk. Again, don’t quote me, but I’m fairly confident their menu is very similar to the Grill at Half Dome Village.

J—Ahwahnee Dining Room

If you have a large pocketbook or are just interested in a fancy meal, then this is the place for you. Employee discounts don’t work here and regardless, I have no desire to spend that kind of money on one meal. Also, if you’re going to eat here, you should call a few months in advance. No joke. Their reservations are nuts! Just to give you an idea, the Sunday brunch buffet is $48/person. Dinner meals are somewhere in the $60 range. Crazy…My roommate Cassidy is an intern in the pastry area of the kitchen. When she works the morning shift, she makes things like pancakes for breakfast and then does all the desserts for lunch. When she works the evening shift, she does desserts all day. On Mondays, she makes the dessert special. I think there’s another intern who has a different day. Last week, she brought me a leftover piece of whatever it was that she made—delightful! It was so good!

(Also, last night Cassidy brought Abby and I s'mores cheesecake while we watched one of the X-Men movies. Remarkable.)

Well, that’s all the places that I can think of to purchase food that’s made for you. (Both village stores sell food, but it’s packaged food.) Stay tuned for the next edition of my guide where we’ll look at different places to stay while you’re in Yosemite (visiting me)!!!

May Lake and Mount Hoffmann

Usually I use my Saturday for laundry, errands, and r&r…but since it dawned on me that I only have a little over a month left here, I decided that there was still a lot to see! So adventure #2 for the weekend was up in Tuolumne. I decided to do a short hike and then catch the bus back down. Following another of Conor’s recommendations, I decided to go up to Mount Hoffmann and May Lake. Round trip from the trailhead was only about 6 miles, so I figured I wouldn’t have a problem catching the bus back since I had a 4.5 hour window.

I took the hiker’s bus up to the May Lake Junction. I hadn’t realized that the trailhead was an additional 2 miles from Tioga Road…putting my new total at 10 miles round trip—a little more interesting. I had no intention of hiking an additional ten miles back to the valley, so I decided to bust a move. I began my journey at 9:45.

The first two miles to the trailhead were almost entirely uphill, but on a paved road, so it wasn’t a problem at all. After I got to the trailhead, the trail became pretty sandy, and a little rocky.

An interesting side note: I saw tracks in the sand from what looked like a stroller or a wheelchair. Don’t get me wrong, this trail wasn’t bad, but in no way would I consider it handicap accessible! Sure enough, a little bit later I met three people, one of whom was in a wheelchair. A little bit later I met another group of people waiting that asked if I had recently passed the group with the wheelchair. Kudos to that entire group of ten-ish people for helping her experience Yosemite! I was thrilled by their perseverance and dedication. How awesome!

Anyways, the May Lake HSC that sits right by May Lake is only about 1 ¼ miles from the trailhead, so it makes this a very popular place. It took me about an hour to get there from Tioga Road. Then I headed on a trail SW of the lake up to Mount Hoffmann. The beginning of this trail is no problem at all. The further you go up, it gets harder to spot the trail cairns, even though they’re everywhere. There’s just so much rock! After you get up the majority of the rock, it turns into this pebble-y, semi-grassy area with a few rock formations. The trail cairns disappear and you’re on your own. If you’re like me, and you miss the first turnoff to the point I was trying to get to—you’ll keep on going straight until the trail divides and you’ll take a minor detour to scramble up a rock formation on your left until you realize that’s not where you want to be. Then you’ll come back down and head over across the trail to the other side and hope that’s where you want to be. Then as you climb up the rock formation that you wanted to be on in the first place, you’ll notice that there was a slight trail over there after all—you just happened to miss it. You’ll also realize that it’s already noon and you need to go down in like five minutes if you want to arrive at the bus pick-up in reasonable Bethany-time (aka 10-15 minutes early). Instead you spend 15 minutes on the rock formation because of your saying, “You’re Only Here Once.” (#YOHO) You also stumble upon that cool circle embedded in the rock that says fancy stuff about the mountain that you’re on. :)

 May Lake and Mount Hoffmann viewed from the May Lake HSC

If you look at the top left rock formation, that's where I climbed to. :)

 May Lake from the top of Mount Hoffmann

 View from the top of Mount Hoffmann

Half Dome in the distance! Check out my cool new sunglasses that I found in the free bin in our lounge! Sweet, right?

Okay, so now that it’s 12:15—it’s been 2.5 hours since the bus dropped me off and I have 2.25 hours until it strands me in Tuolumne. So I make my way down the rocks quickly, although I lost the trail and ended up just scrambling down until I found a cairn again. During this time, I also ate my pb&j—pretty sure that’s how I lost the trail. My brain always focuses on food! I book it back to the May Lake HSC and make a pit stop to drink water and go to the bathroom. Then, just like any normal person would do, I decide to trail run the last ~3.25 miles. For fun of course! It was pretty easy terrain for a trail (except for the rock that jumped out of the sand and almost made me biff it), and it was almost all flat or downhill. The only things holding me back were the wind and my darn too-heavy backpack. I ended up getting back to the May Lake Junction at Tioga Road at 1:40. Plenty of time… :D Just the way I like it.

Fun fact: Mount Hoffmann is the geographic center of Yosemite National Park.

 This is the little circle that I said I stumbled upon earlier. Pretty cool, pretty cool.

Pre-Work Fun—Sierra Point, Fail Trail aka Ahwahnee Ledges/Slabs

Thursday

So there’s this place called Sierra Point that I’ve really wanted to go up to for a while. You can view four of the falls in the valley at the same time. It was a former trail maintained by NPS, but a rockslide over the trail took out many of the stairs and path. So it’s on all the old maps and the sign at the trailhead just has it covered up. Which means it’s a great scramble for park employees and other people who know where it’s at! :)

I had only read descriptions of the trail, so I felt more comfortable if someone showed me. Cue in Val—a really great climber and scrambler—who likes to go do things before her shift at the raft stand. Perfect. I work at 10:00, so Val said we’d go at 8:00. In typical Val fashion, it was 8:20 before we left and I was really nervous about being late to work. (If you don’t know me all that well, I basically have a phobia of being late to things and I get really anxious and start panicking.)

We biked over to the Happy Isles trailhead to cut off time, and then started on the main trail. At the sign about rock slides, you turn left and scramble up a small talus field. Not too far up, you find the actual rock stairs from the old trail. You continue along these, some more rocks, some more rock stairs, repeat…then you round the bend and come to Sierra Point! The old guard rail is still there and everything. It was gorgeous! It took us a little over 30 minutes to get up there, so we only got to spend 5-10 minutes up there—a real bummer. :( There was a guy up there who Val asked to take out picture, but in a really weird position, so just know that this photo was not my idea haha.

 Nevada and Vernal Falls from Sierra Point

 Yosemite Falls from Sierra Point

 Illiouette Fall from Sierra Point

 

Val's picture idea... 

It took about 25 minutes to come back down. I still absolutely hate coming down rocks. Hate it. Hate it hate it hate it! On the plus side, I hopped on my bike and still got to work at 9:50, just the way I like it!

Friday

When trying to plan what to do for my weekend, I polled a solid majority of my coworkers/friends to pick their brains about hikes. Most of them I’ve already done, so a lot of people weren’t too helpful. One of my friends, Conor, had a few suggestions that peaked my interest and seemed plausible. I decided to go with his recommendation of the Ahwahnee Ledges/Slabs “Trail” and Indian Canyon “Trail.” I put trail in quotes because these are really scrambles and not NPS trails. I haven’t done a ton of scrambling besides Middle Earth/Fern Ledge and Sierra Point, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

My first clue to this not going very well should have been that Conor is injured…he sustained a knee injury somehow, and has been doing work in the office instead of HP-ing for weeks. He’s really sick of it, but is still doing physical therapy.

Anyways, last night I read the Summitpost description of the route, committed it to memory almost word-for-word, and then wrote the important parts down on a piece of paper just in case. I started up the Ahwahnee boulders/talus field a little after 7:00 this morning. This part wasn’t bad at all. I tried the upper access onto the ledge going west. This ledge was supposed to be the most exposed part of the journey. Unfortunately, I think I passed my exit because after scrambling up a solid rock face, I found myself at a rock wall that dropped about twenty feet.

 View from the upper access(?) point up the NW-slanted ledge

View of the south side of the valley from where I headed up the ledge

I turned around and came back down (remember, I hate going down), and tried to go up elsewhere. This was a real pain in the butt, but eventually I found my way up the ledge and to the “semi-open, semi-flat area with a great view looking south and down to the valley. A large rock here with a flat top is a fine indicator you are on route. It's also a fine rest spot..” I sat on this rock and picked all of the burrs, thistles, and those pesky thorn things out of my socks, shoes, shorts, and shirt. I also texted Shelby to have her tell Conor that I needed a personal trail guide. They agreed to send SAR if I didn’t contact them that I’d gotten back down safely. (I had my whistle and headlamp so they’d no doubt be able to find me as long as I was conscious.) Then I ditched my shirt because it was super duper hot up there by that time—the sun had reached a point where it shone directly down on the ledge. Ugh…hot.

 the lovely flat rock I finally found

 View of the Ahwahnee from said flat rock

 Gorgeous view of valley from flat rock

After verifying the directions again for the next portion, the portion where the instructions had said the trail would be tricky to find, I continued on. Then stopped. Got stuck. Turned around. Came down. Went back to the rock. Repeat x3. Then I laid on the rock, taking a break (mental and physical). By this time it was 11:00. I reasoned it out with myself that even if I found the stupid trail again, I’d never make it down through Indian Canyon with my sanity before nightfall. (Each scramble was supposed to take half a day.) I decided I’d rather take a blow to my pride than a blow to the head, so I ate my sandwich and began the journey down.

I once again got to go down a bunch of rock, still not my favorite—still made me grumpy. (Also by this point, I had to switch to my happy music because I was so frustrated.) :) Somehow I undershot the exit point this time and had to climb up some more rock to climb back down the rock and re-enter the talus field. By the time I got back to my tent, it was almost 2:00.

Map of route from SummitPost—I made it to almost the end of where it stops going left

http://www.summitpost.org/ahwahnee-ledges/158040

I have more cuts on me then I can count from either rock or bushwhacking. At one point, I was stuck somewhere that I could not physically climb down with my backpack. (Another sore subject—what kind of idiot brings a completely full backpack with them when they’re scrambling? Leave it to me to always be prepared for everything.) I had no choice but to try to drop my backpack on a ledge about five feet below me. I hit the ledge, and it teetered, and then it fell…and it rolled, and it stopped, and it teetered, and then it fell…by the time it was done it had fallen about 25 feet. Not a happy camper. Thankfully, I was then able to slide down and climb down to reach it. Upon later inspection, I believe besides cuts on my arms and legs, the only thing I damaged was one of the zippers on the backpack and a scratch on my watch. Not bad given how many interesting situations I put myself in.

Conor said he hadn’t heard any bad things about this scramble out of the valley. Now he has.

I need ice cream.


**Update: I didn't get Conor's message until I got back down that if I hadn't done the Ledges Trail on the south side of the valley (up to Glacier Point), I should do that one first because it was much easier. He also said that going down Indian Canyon was a lot more difficult than going up. (He also said afterwards that I shouldn't go running off without letting him fully explain, as he didn't want me to die in the process...) So now I can blame the wifi instead of Conor. ;)

A Few More Things

I forgot some things when I typed this up in the wee hours this morning. Now that I've gotten another five hours of sleep, I'm good to go. :P

So this past Sunday, I came back to my tent after volleyball to find that it was 1/3 empty. One of my roommates, Andi, decided to leave the park and take a position as ski patrol closer to where she lives in Reno. Abby and I were quite sad, and also pretty frustrated that she didn’t take the time to say goodbye. I did get a note on my bed, but it’s just not the same. It’s Saturday now, and you’d think with all of the people in temp housing that I’d have a new roommate—but so far, no one. Fine by me.

I was wearing a UNI shirt the other day after work when I went to the CC and it turns out that Ryan’s (Conor’s roommate) dad graduated from UNI. His entire side of the family is from Osage.  ♪ It’s a small world after all…♫

On Monday at the pool, this guy argued with me for half an hour because I wouldn’t let him bring an inner tube into the pool. He kept telling me his son, who was in the infant/toddler range, would drown if I didn’t allow him to have the inner tube. I explained why we don’t allow inner tubes, but it apparently wasn’t good enough for him; he wanted me to make an exception. After ~15 minutes of him badgering me, I told him I would consult with one of my coworkers and get back to him. I went and talked to Shelby, who wholeheartedly agreed with me, and then walked back. On my way back to the guy, three moms at a table were telling me things like, “Stand your ground,” “Stay strong,” and “You’ve got this.” I started laughing—how nice of them! I went and told the dude again that we weren’t going to allow the inner tube in the pool, so he took it away from his son who immediately started screaming in his mom’s arms in the water. The dad looks at me and said, “He will cry for hours. This is your fault.” Yeah…it’s my fault I’m doing my job. Sorry, not sorry. At that point I had to go up on the guard stand because we got more people in the pool, so it provided a nice little escape. Not five minutes later, two kids come in with giant inner tubes, I tell them that we don’t allow inner tubes, they say, “Okay,” drop the inner tubes by their things, and happily get in the pool. I tell them thank you. That’s how that works.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’ve never heard a Steller’s Jay before, you’ve never heard the most annoying bird ever. Those things gather in the trees and decide it’s alright to start talking to each other at like five in the morning. The sad part is that my earplugs can’t even block them out—they’re too dang loud.

Here, have a listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0S3NhhV1js

And now, with that wonderful sound in mind, have a great day! :D

A Park of Its Own/Glen Aulin and the Return to the Valley

So everybody knows I’m a pretty big exaggerator—a million of this, a billion of that, a ton of something else…well, when I tell you that today I killed 200 mosquitoes, I’m actually probably shorting myself some kills. Holy cow, they were everywhere, just swarming around me—I even remembered to put bug spray on this morning! I was so proud of myself. I just did take it with me because my backpack was already kinda full and heavy. Thankfully, I think only one mosquito that I killed had blood, so apparently I got to all but one of them? It’ll be gone in a few hours anyways. A few hours…aka how much sleep I got before going hiking today. The real bummer was that Open Mic Night (where I was at last night) wasn’t even good. The last one was okay; this one sucked. I stayed, thinking it would get better…but it didn’t, so I just talked to Conor and some of our other friends that I found there.

Right, so I got five hours of sleep before I packed up my stuff this morning and went to Yosemite Village to get on the Hiker’s Bus to Tuolumne. I have a grievance with the use of the word “hiker” here. This bus gets up to Tuolumne around 10:30 and leaves again at 2:00. What decent hike can be done in 3.5 hours? It’s really setting me up for a loss. I’m pretty sure this is why most people call it the “backpacker’s bus” instead (everyone but me and two other people were backpackers getting dropped off at their stops). So this year, Aramark decided to make this a guided tour and charge people for the use of this bus. Round-trip to Tuolumne from the Valley is $23 ($11.50 for employees). Lucky for me, I happen to know the bus driver and she said that she gets employees comp tickets from the ticket agent at the Lodge. So I got to go for free. :) I’m special. (Thanks Stephanie!)

 from Olmstead Point

 Tenaya Lake

Pothole Dome

So I get up there and I have her drop me off at the Visitor’s Center, the closest place to the Glen Aulin Trailhead. Now, it’s 10:20 and the trail’s about 12 miles round-trip and I’m supposed to be back at 2:00, so I have to average 18 min. per mile. Doable, but not enjoyable—which is why I spent the past day brainstorming ways to get back to the valley after the bus leaves.

Plan A—take bus back at 2:00—highly unlikely

Plan B—run into someone I know with a vehicle to take me back

Plan C—find Andrew, a coworker camping near Vogelsang and have him bring me back Saturday night

Plan D—find Tommy, a former coworker who works somewhere doing something and ask him to let me sleep on the floor

Plan E—ask super terrifically nicely at the Lodge or one of the High Sierra Camps if they’ll let me crash somewhere

Plan F—sleep on the ground outside, pray I don’t freeze to death, return in the morning

Plan G—attempt to hike back via Cloud’s Rest—additional ~22 miles from Glen Aulin HSC

Plan H—find the people that Miles said play ultimate up near Tenaya on Fridays and ride back with them

Plan I—Plan TBD
__________________________________________________________________________

Plan J—Hitch-hike back—promised solid majority of my close relatives that I wouldn’t hitch-hike again, even though this is the option almost everyone told me to do

Plan K—Actually pay for a room somewhere—Do I look rich to you? No.

So I’ll leave you with those lovely options and keep you guessing (or reading, whichever) to find out what I did. Unless you’re smart and you already figured it out.

First of all, Tuolumne is often referred to as a park of its own. The Tuolumne Meadows are just so different from Yosemite Valley. They’re both spectacular in their owns ways. Tuolumne is also about 4000 feet higher in elevation than the valley, so prepare your lungs. Now that I’ve been there, I would have to agree with the people who say they’re nothing alike. But I love it. I couldn’t stop taking picture of everything. Everywhere I turned, it was gorgeous and I wanted to remember it all. Remember when I told you what to do if you only have one day in Yosemite? Well if you have two days—spend your second day here. Don’t do what I did of course—that would be crazy. Take the Backpacker’s Bus up to Tuolumne, ride the free shuttle around to the different stops, and explore. Then get your butt back on the bus at 2:00.

The hike to Glen Aulin was beautiful. I expected nothing less once I got up there. It was about six miles from the Visitor Center parking lot to the bottom of White Cascade/the Glen Aulin HSC. I had never been to a High Sierra Camp, so I decided to go check this one out while I was there. They’re available by reservation only, and from what I hear, you should do that early. Breakfast and supper are included in your reservation price, and the menu for tonight looked pretty darn fantastic. I ate my pb&j at the base of White Cascade Falls. Not a bad view for lunch. ;) When I got there, it was 12:30, so if I had really wanted to make it back by 2:00, I probably could have trail run parts of it and gotten there. But what’s the fun in that?

 Tuolumne Falls

  ...pictures are hard

 White Cascade Falls

 Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp--at the base of White Cascade Falls

 Store/Kitchen--tonight was Pork Night with homemade bread, soup, salad, and dessert. Mouth currently watering.

Glen Aulin HSC tent cabins

Instead, on one of the signs I had passed, there was a route to Yosemite Valley past Tenaya Lake via the Murphy Creek Trail and then via the Snow Creek Trail to Mirror Lake. “Only” 18 more miles. The three people in the store (one of whom was a former Curry Village Lifeguard a couple seasons ago) thought I was nuts to start that ~1:15…but what the heck, why not? So naturally I went with Plan TBD and didn’t impose on any of my friends/acquaintances/total strangers. If you guessed I would pick that one, congrats, maybe you know me or something.

At that point I chose to listen to my feel good/pick me up music—the playlist is literally named “Positive.” I hand-picked each of the songs because I felt they had a positive message, and when you’re starting 18 miles after 1:00 in the afternoon, you need your mental game to be on point. My two go-to songs are on this playlist—You Are Loved by Stars Go Dim and Thrive by Casting Crowns. If you’ve never heard them before, you should definitely listen to them. During the school year when I’m sulking because of work or practice or I just got an A- on a test :) … there’s a good chance that I’ll listen to one of these songs because they’re so awesome. I’m not usually much for recent music, oldies but goodies all the way, but these are exceptions. Another good one for hiking (or actually anything challenging) is Limitless by Colton Dixon. I could really go on and on about music because music is so awesome…but I’ll continue with the day.

I really wanted to get back before dark because I only packed a flashlight. I still need to take everyone’s advice and buy a headlamp—I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Starting my hike so late in the day, at 10:20, really just threw me off. Usually for a 20-30 mile hike, I’m almost halfway done by the time I eat lunch. Today I had about 6 miles done and three times that more to go. Yuck.

It was also right about after lunch that mosquitoes kept landing on me. I became a slapping machine, but those things were everywhere. I contemplated putting my orange raincoat on, but I was already extremely warm and didn’t really want to do that. I was afraid it would make me drink more water, and I was trying to limit myself on that for a few reasons—1) I didn’t want to have to pee all the time. 2) I didn’t want to stop to drink it. 3) I had cottonmouth all day today and it was driving me nuts, so I was having a hard time rationing it out so that I’d have some left at the end. No need to add to the thirst. (The past couple days at work, I’ve been drinking over 2 gallons of water. It is so toasty warm.) I tried leaving the remains of the mosquitoes on my skin as a sign to their counterparts what would happen if they landed there. Those little kamikazes didn’t take my hint, and soon I had to brush them all off again because I felt disgusting. Darn mosquitoes—life lesson: bring bug spray with you up to the high country because there’s so much water.

Tenaya Lake--lots of people go swimming and floating here--there are many picnic areas and beaches

Speaking of water, like I needed anything else to slow me down, there was water covering parts of the trail. Usually, I just hop from rock to rock or balance on a log to get over. Well, one such trek didn’t go so great. I typically test my weight on any skinny logs before I put my full weight on them in case they roll. Well, somehow it didn’t work correctly on this really super long skinny one (the only available tool to cross), and it rolled and my entire left shoe went into the muddy water. I was not happy at all. I went and sat on a rock after I finished crossing and rang my sock out and tried to beat my shoe. Didn’t work—it was still wet. :( At the point, I think I had just passed Tenaya Lake, so I probably had 9ish miles left. Bah humbug.

I didn’t like the Snow Creek Trail going down any more than I had coming up in whenever that was to get to North Dome. It was boring and not very scenic. Which is why I decided that it would be beneficial to run the parts that weren’t crazy rocky. There were a few spots up near the beginning, specifically in the Olmstead Point area where the trail wasn’t marked very well. I had to keep retracing my steps and looking at it again. There was one spot that took me almost ten minutes to track down where the trail continued because it was overgrown by weeds and then just rocks after that. Extremely frustrating. Dumb trail. Not a fan. Neither were my ankles by that point. They hated me for making them go down the Snow Creek Trail—the steepest descent to the valley. I also needed to do it quickly because I was losing light as the sun set, especially in the wooded area. I ended up getting almost all of the switchbacks knocked out before I had to turn on my flashlight. After that, it was just another couple miles to Mirror Lake.

 from the Scenic Overlook on the Snow Creek trail, basically right below Olmstead Point

Half Dome around sunset on the way down

By the time I got to the edge of Mirror Lake, it was a little after 9:15. I’m not extremely familiar with the trail back to the Ahwahnee from there, but I remembered that it’s pretty rocky. I didn’t really feel like doing that with my flashlight—it makes me go so slow. I hate going slow. So instead, I went another 1.8 miles over to Curry Village to get………you guessed it—ice cream before they closed at 10:00. Always thinking with my stomach. I was still super thirsty, so I got a shake (Cookie Dough, one of the special flavors for this weekend, and Chocolate), and one of my friends that works there charged me exactly $0. Thanks Tom! The guys that work there (Tom, Sam, and Neil/Nick?) are all super nice. The one girl is okay. The other girl is a pain in the butt. Coincidentally (or not), she happens to now be dating the coworker that I just helped get transferred to the Lodge Pool because they lost one and we had an extra. Who to send? The weakest link…the one that doesn’t do anything—sucks at guarding, sucks at cleaning, argues with everything I say (even though I’m 100% right), and breaks half of the rules that we, as lifeguards, are required to follow—no eating on the pool deck, don’t use your cell phone, no reading, etc. Idiot. So glad he’s gone now. Interestingly enough, he now becomes Conor’s roommate Ryan’s problem, since Ryan is the lead lifeguard over at the Lodge. (Conor—HP, Connor—Lifeguard——sorry if it’s confusing for you.)

I took the bus back to my tent at the Ahwahnee because I was tired of walking, so that puts my total around 25.5 miles for the day. So basically tomorrow will be a lazy day. ;) I like those days. After eating some leftovers, guzzling an excessive amount of water, and typing this up—I’m now all set to go to bed. Unfortunately it’s no longer Friday; it’s 1:45 in the morning. Bah humbug.

Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias

Forty miles.

Gotcha didn’t I? It was actually 37.5. ;)

Gotcha again, right? It wasn’t all hiking. In fact, very little of it was hiking—most was biking. I decided not to go on a long hike during my weekend (no matter what days they are, your two days off are referred to as “your weekend”) this time due to the prolonged recovery of my stupid toes. So instead I was looking for somewhere to bike to out of the valley that would be interesting. I had looked up biking to Crane Flat and it was only roughly 18 miles, so I talked to some of my neighbors about it in the kitchen one day. Peggy—the nice woman who fed me lemon pepper chicken for our potluck and biscuits and gravy, who works up at the Crane Flat gas station, said anyone who biked up that road would be crazy, but she had seen a couple of people do it. That was really all I needed. If they could do it, so could I.

Solid mentality for a fool. (That’s me—the fool.) I left a little before 7:00 and the first couple miles were a piece of cake. Then I turned onto Big Oak Flat Road. Pure death. The entire thing was an incline at a grade that my sucky loaner bike from the wellness center program hated.

Notice anything about this bike? That’s right—there’s no way to shift gears. There’s one gear that you get to go, as determined by the bike. It was absolutely awful. I had to stop by the side of the road on those little pullout things more than once to try to catch my breath. I constantly contemplated turning around. I kept dreaming about how easy it was going to be to come down! I pulled into this little parking area and asked these people in an RV about how many miles they thought it was to Crane Flat. They said it was 10 minutes—3 to 4 miles. In case you didn’t figure it out, that’s ten minutes by car…obviously. It took me another hour and a half to get up there. I stopped and took my granola bar break, drank some water, and rested my poor quads. To be entirely honest, I had to walk my bike up some of the stretches of road. It reminded me of the people in gym who could power walk the mile faster than they could jog it. I could walk my bike up the hill faster than I could ride it…but it hurt my pride. I finally got up to Crane Flat around 10:15, so 3.25 hours later. 2.5 hours of that was after I turned onto Big Oak Flat Road. (Remember this for later.)

I went into the gas station because Peggy wanted me to check in with her so she knew I was alive. That gas station was packed! She had said they stayed really busy, but I didn’t realize like that. The store itself isn’t very big, but it’s the only one for miles and Crane Flat is at an intersection of roads. Anyways, there were people in there who had seen (and passed) me on the way up and they all told me how nuts I was but how impressed they were. Peggy said she was proud of me. :D

I was tired of biking so I walked the half mile to the Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias from Crane Flat. Then I went into nerd-mode and took pictures of all of the signs after reading them so I could look back at what they said later. The first Giant Sequoia that you encounter after entering the grove is Big Red. It’s 24 feet in diameter. As I was walking, I determined that based purely on square footage, 4.5 of my bedrooms could fit inside this tree trunk. Also, it's extremely hard to take a picture of yourself with a giant tree...just saying.

After that, I spent about half an hour at the Tunnel Tree playing photographer for families that wanted their picture taken. Good times, good times.

One of the sequoias fell and somehow while it was lying there became fossilized. The preserved sequoia, “Fallen Tree,” was absolutely massive. It was so overwhelming to stand next to something so giant that fell because they have crappy root systems. I think that’s a metaphor to life. It’s all in the roots—gotta have a strong foundation.

While I was eating lunch, this exhausted family came and sat next to me (because I picked the table in the shade—obviously). From what I picked up, they were from South Korea, had flown into Seattle, and were here for three weeks. That could have just been the daughter though and the parents lived here…I’m not really sure. The thing was, they had two of those dinky water bottles for the three of them and they were almost out. I had packed almost 60 oz. for the day and had only gone through maybe 30. I was also about to head back to get my bike and head down. So it was a pretty easy decision to attempt to ask them if they’d like me to fill up their water bottles. After a little confusion, they graciously accepted my offer, telling me what a kind person I was. If you’ve never tried to pour from a full Nalgene into that little opening—I challenge you to try. Because I didn’t spill a single drop for either bottle. Take that. :) They were so grateful that they insisted they take their picture with me AND send it to me. So the father handed me his phone to enter it in—and the screen’s entirely in Korean haha. After a little confusion, we think we got it so that it would email to me (he turned the screen briefly to English), so we’ll see! Nice people, I liked them.

This isn’t a Giant Sequoia, but it was a sugar pine that the sun was hitting really nicely while I was sitting at lunch.

Alright so fast forward a little bit and now I’ve got my bike from the gas station and I’m about to leave Crane Flat. It’s 12:50. I turn the corner onto Big Oak Flat Road and just start moving—not pedaling—moving without pedaling. This is white knuckle driving ladies and gentlemen! I almost didn’t have to pedal ever on the entire way down! There was one time that I went to let cars pass me on one of those pullouts, but the gravel was too loose and I about skidded away off the mountain—so I salvaged it quickly and decided to try the next one. Including a stop at a scenic overlook, I was back down that road in 27 minutes. TWENTY-SEVEN MINUTES!!! 150 vs 27…holy cow.

I got back to Yosemite Village a little after 2:00, so today was a pretty short day overall. Was it worth it? My gut tells me yes, but boy that first part really sucked! We’ll see how sore my butt and quads are tomorrow. The Giant Sequoia grove WAS really neat though and there only two of Yosemite’s three groves are open this year. The Mariposa Grove is closed for restoration until next year. The Tuolumne Grove had those wooden barricades everywhere trying to keep people on the trails so the rest of it could recover from stupid people over the trampling all the undergrowth. Stupid tourons.

(If you’d like any of the information about the sequoias, don’t hesitate to ask. I just didn’t have time to type it all or to upload each of the sign’s photos.)

I almost forgot to share this—but on Wednesday night we had this youth group visiting at church. They outnumbered us like 6 to 1. ;) Wednesday nights are basically a Bible study set-up, so we’re in Genesis right now discussing Isaac and Rebekah. Pastor Brent told us a story about something he did for his daughter Ashley. He told her that he would put a quarter on the counter every day for a month or until she picked them up. If she didn’t pick them up, at the end she would get a $20 bill. If she picked them up, she didn’t get anymore. Well Ashley managed to wait until the end of the month so she received her $20. He then asked her what lesson she thought this was about. She said she thought it was about saving money. Pastor Brent said, “No, it’s about boys. If you pass up all the quarters, some day you’ll find that twenty dollar bill.” Ashley’s getting married this summer—he thinks she’s found her $20 bill. (When she would bring boys home before, he always said, “Is this a quarter?”) I think it’s hilarious. :D I look around me and see a bunch of like, nickels or something hahaha :) So I’m going to close with that for the day. It’s almost Joshua and Nicole’s wedding anniversary, so congrats to them on finding their $20 bills!