During the last couple of days I've made my way through DQ Country to Yosemite and spent a couple of days here, taking some arduous hikes. Here's how it happened.
Labor Day became Travel Day. It took around six hours door to door to get to the Yosemite Lodge. Kimberly and I first had breakfast at Fat Apples, where we had lunch on Saturday. After doing some wash and saying our goodbyes, I headed east. My hoped for idyllic top down drive all the way to Yosemite survived only for a couple of hours though, as 98 degree heat soon overtook me. Just outside of Oakland, it suddenly turned into Northwest Texas. Just rolling, scrubby, burned hills...the proverbial miles and miles of miles. I didn't need that, for sure. So somewhere around Tracy, CA, I put the top up. Waste of good money. Well, it'll come in handy when I get to Monterey. By the way, this place is like militia country. What the hell is going on out here that these people feel the need to live on the surface of the Sun? You'd think they were somehow involved in agriculture. But based on my stop at the local Wendy's, unless illiteracy and meth counts as agriculture, that's not what they're doing. The other Mustang I parked next to...yeah, it had a permanent Raiders emblem on both sides. 'Nuff said.
Around Oakdale, the scrub seemed to give way. Oakdale seems like a nice little American town. It has a four lane road and a Starbuck's (the internationally recognized sign of municipal prominence). Maybe Oakdale wasn't sufficiently charming to stop, but I did want to go to the House of Beef (specializing in seasoned sirloin tri-tip). As I posted earlier, a House of Beef may not be structurally sound, but it sure would be tasty.
After Oakdale, agriculture proper takes over. I passed countless orchards, irrigated fields, produce stands, and small farms. How do they grow all these plants in what is essentially a desert? They divert river water for irrigation, growing crops in land that otherwise would be lifeless dirt. Whether that makes any sense as water becomes one of the scarcest commodities I leave to you. Beyond the signs for Tulloch Lake, the elevation picks up, the heat starts to drop, and native trees make a return. Rocks litter the landscape, competing with the trees for space. Traffic flowed pretty well going east; cars leaving Yosemite bound for the coast, however, absolutely choked the one westbound lane for miles on end.
The road in to Yosemite initially goes through some heavy forest, but quickly starts to hug the side of the mountains. There's no gas stations in Yosemite Valley, where I'm staying, so I paid $5.09 for basic unleaded at the station just after the entrance. It was hard sitting down for a few hours after that, but they charge super-inflated prices for just about everything. Its like Hawaii, or New Zealand, or the Gulf Coast after a hurricane. Apparently gouging has become part of the National Parks experience. It takes forever to make it to the Valley because of the super low speed limits, winding roads, and the fact that I stopped every five minutes to take pictures. The Valley, where most people tend to visit, is situated along the Merced River, which runs between a series of huge granite cliffs. Right away you see the incredible natural beauty. A little closer in you encounter the famous El Capitan, and then the Cathedral Rocks. Still closer to the Lodge, where I'm staying, a herd of black tail deer was foraging in the meadow.
Yosemite has several lodging options, anything from the Ahwanhee Hotel, which is like a Hilton or a really nice Hyatt, to tent camps. The Lodge is analogous to a Hampton Inn, albeit with a better dining set up. The Lodge is actually the "Lodge at Yosemite Falls," but the Falls have actually dried up (oh snap) until later in the year, as they rely on snow melt and all the snow has run off. The Falls dried up in early August. All around one can smell a strong tree scent. They've set up a shuttle bus system running throughout the Valley, taking people to all the popular locations for free. I took the shuttle over to Yosemite Village, to get some basics from the Village Store (Prisoner, anyone?). The driver chastised me for going in the exit door (in through the out door, anyone?). On the way back, I paid my debt to society by listening to her offer her opinions on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and how the newer Johnny Depp movie wasn't nearly as good, and how she doesn't have a TV set but likes to watch DVDs, but only DVDs she can fall asleep to, and her favorite is the series Alice, because its Alice In Wonderland but the science fiction version. Anyone remember when I said the whole point of vacation was NOT to have to talk to people? I chimed in with "uh huhs" and "reallys" where appropriate. Whatever, freak. Oh, and I was the only person on the bus after she shooed away this young couple trying to do a bunch of stuff after the buses stop running and the stores close at 10. They were incensed that things didn't stay open until midnight. In a national park. Hundreds of miles from the nearest after-hours club, yoga studios, and late night shopping. Hell the nearest Starbucks is in Oakdale and that's about two hours away. The whole point of a national park is that its not Los Angeles. Go back to West Hollywood, chatches.
The next morning I took a tour bus out to Glacier Point, towards the southern end of the Park, for what became a six and one-half hour hike back to the Valley. Glacier Point has long been one of the Park's more popular destinations. At its 7,000 foot elevation it provides fantastic views of the Valley, including Half Dome, the Vernal and Nevada Waterfalls, Mt. Hoffman, and other peaks. I took the photo above at Glacier Point. The trip there took an hour and a half, with an irritating tour bus driver wrapping somewhat interesting facts and figures around the worst jokes ever told. Which basically is the Tour Guide profession, I suppose. I've taken exactly one tour bus where the driver's schtick didn't make me want to re-enact one of those scenes in Airplane where people are killing themselves as Stryker drones on telling his life story. That was at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. Anyway, we passed El Capitan, Cathedral Rocks, Bridal Veil Falls, and the now dry Yosemite Falls en route. I started hiking around 10:30, and aside from stopping about 20 minutes to brush off my new camera that I dropped in the dirt about 10 minutes in to the hike, and about a 20 minute lunch break, didn't stop until around 5:30. Mostly the hike was downhill; in fact, it had such a steep downhill grade that the last couple of hours or so I could feel my quadriceps twitching they were working so hard (sidebar-new punk or angry grrll band name: "Twitching Quadriceps"). The hike, along the Panorama and Mist Trails, runs past three waterfalls (Illilouette, Nevada, and Vernal), one river (Merced), and provides fantastic views of Half Dome and its sister "Sub Dome", and even a little (unsanctioned) swimming hole or two near the Nevada Falls. This hike boasted several highlights. I saw a green rattlesnake for the first time. Not sure exactly why it was green, but apparently it is the Mojave Green Rattlesnake, with a very small rattle. It was crawling just alongside the trail in a bush, and a woman about 30 feet ahead of me screamed bloody murder when she saw it. Other highlights included the Ahwahnee Hotel tour, led by two 20-ish year olds, one of whom went to TCU (nice job prospects there, Horned Frogs), the other of whom was a young woman who literally would not shut up about her recently broken engagement. I started from Glacier Point about the same time as them, and apparently kept the same pace. Were it not for the dropped camera, I may have had to burst my eardrums from the pain. I also enjoyed the couple who felt compelled to fight with each other, and keep the same pace as me, for about a couple of miles. Needless to say, this trail was very popular and about as populated as any trail I've ever hiked. The falls were quite spectacular. The Nevada Falls flowed into Emerald Pool, which had about the clearest Irish green water I've ever seen, and which then flowed into the Vernal Falls. Both falls were quite loud; even with my terrible hearing I could hear them all the way at the top of Glacier Point and throughout most of my hike. The Vernal Falls created a rainbow effect as they hit bottom, and threw off mist (hence the "Mist Trail") for hundreds of feet in every direction. It was a fairly warm day for Yosemite, in the upper 80s, and the place is always very dry. I ran out of water with about an hour left. Iced tea cravings kept me going to the shuttle at the hike's end.
The next day took me further north, to Tuolumne Meadows in the "High Country" to hike to Cathedral Lakes (there's two, an "Upper" and a "Lower"). I hadn't planned on the drive to the trailhead taking over an hour (thanks to road construction--hey, if we can't have late night grocery stores, we shouldn't have to deal with road construction). But it was a cool day, and the Tioga Road passed some very interesting scenery so it wasn't too painful. Of course, I prepared for this day's hike as if it were yesterday, taking far too much water, and not enough clothing. It was a good 20 degrees cooler at this higher elevation (7,000'), and towards the end of the day, near sunset, I could feel my hands becoming numb. Plus, today was cloudier, with clouds rolling in and out all day long. This hike had an elevation gain of about 1,000', meaning that it wasn't mostly downhill as was yesterday's hike. It started at the Meadows, a well known Park area boasting clear grasslands and no doubt wildflowers in spring. The Tuolumne River cuts through the Meadows, nourishing the clearing. The sight of numerous twenty-somethings in excellent shape bearing full trekking gear should have been my first clue this hike would pose a challenge. They looked like they were headed out to Milford Track in New Zealand, one of the world's greatest and most challenging hiking trails. As opposed to me, who finally figured out the reason my right boot was surprisingly tight was because that's where my lost tube of chap stick was hiding. My hike was almost straight up for about an hour, leveling off as it approached the first Lower Cathedral Lake. While the Glacier Point areas were fairly heavily forested, this area resembled northern New Mexico, only somewhat greener. The trees were scrubbier, and the whole area was chock full of rock and boulders. Right around where the trail leveled off, I got in front of three retirees, who insisted on talking loudly about their recipes and their gardens and various daily medicine routines. I couldn't quite shake them, at least not for awhile. And I left my ipod in my pack and didn't want to stop and take it out. So I had to do a LaDanian Tomlinson burst to create some distance. Or endure their waterboarding-like conversation. Approaching the lake, the trees gave way to another meadow, revealing the gorgeous Lower Cathedral Lake. A large granite expanse bordered its northern shore, accessible for hikers, while the southern side was tree-lined. The water was deep and blue, with brown grasses covering a portion of the lake bed. I ate lunch along the shore beneath a small cedar tree, enjoying the still cool temperatures (maybe a windy, sunny upper 60s). Cathedral Peak dominated the scenery, jutting up with several spires higher than any of the surrounding peaks. After finishing lunch I headed on to Upper Cathedral Lake, which unfortunately did not seem accessible. So I kept hiking just a bit beyond and found a nice, exceptionally large meadow which opened up the space between three high peaks and the lake. Returning, I ran across another asian family (actually, by this time, they ran me down) looking for their son, with whom they were supposed to rendezvous at "Cathedral Lake." They had the wrong lake. They didn't quite speak english. I tried telling the father about the other lake, and how to get there. I asked if his son was young, and he said "he is 21, but we are old!" I guess, meaning that he and his wife were getting pretty tired. The guy looked younger than me, by the way, so that's good to know. The trail was also the John Muir Trail, doubling as a horse trail, and I saw several horses being moved. Horses had fertilized the whole trail, so careful footing was the order of the day. Around the fourth hour, I started experiencing some really bad right foot pain, primarily due to my small toe's nail getting extremely irritated and sensitive. Like most of your political posts on Facebook. I had to cut my speed dramatically just to get back, and by the end was limping pretty badly. Its been painful ever since.
So I'm not quite sure if I can hike tomorrow or not. Stay tuned to find out.
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