poison ivy
Well-known member
I finally had a chance to pare down my Yosemite pictures to a somewhat reasonable level and they are here if anyone is interested in seeing them. J On a non-hiking note, there are also some pictures from Bodie State Park, which is an old gold-mining ghost town that Pudgy Groundhog recommended a stop at… (thanks Kathy!)
Our Yosemite plans got a bit messed up because the airline lost all of our bags when we arrived in Fresno. (Count yourself lucky if you’ve never had to explain to an airline counter person why you can’t just go on with your backpacking vacation without your backpack & tent, etc. It was extremely difficult to get them to understand why we didn’t have hotel reservations someplace!) So, we didn’t arrive in Yosemite until around 4 p.m. on Saturday instead of 9 a.m. as planned.. Here are short (I promise!) summaries of our hikes in Yosemite.
Saturday, July 9: Since we arrived so late, our original hiking plans got scuttled. We ended up on a short two-mile trek around the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. The trees were majestic and beautiful but I couldn’t believe some of the stuff we were seeing. People were carving their names into the downed trees and picking up pine cones even though there were signs all over the place forbidding it. I got a good chuckle, however, when I picked up my guidebook and found those giant pine cones were actually from sugar pines, not sequoias.
Sunday, July 10: We started on what was to be a three-day, 22-mile backpacking trip, hiking from Cathedral Lakes in Tuolumne Meadows to Yosemite Valley. However, Dave ended up getting symptoms of altitude sickness (at 9,500 feet) and we ended up hiking back out the same day.
We arrived at the Cathedral Lakes trailhead at 8:30 a.m., preparing for a 3.5 mile hike that would bring us up 1,000 feet to 9,500 feet. Since Dave has had trouble with altitude in the past, we decided to see how we felt before deciding whether to hike on from the lakes or camp there. Wilderness Permits in Yosemite allow you to camp pretty much anywhere, with a few limitations, as long as the site is already hardened so we had plenty of options for our trip.
The hike started up a dirt path pretty steeply at first and we found ourselves stopping a lot to catch our breath and look behind us at the terrific views of jagged mountains under bright blue skies. After the first mile or so, the trail flattened out and became an easy walk. We saw two mule deer along the way and crossed our first snowfield of the entire trip, getting occasional glimpses of a great view before arriving at the spur path for upper Cathedral Lake.
The spur descends past a small series of cascades and through a grassy meadow with a fleet of mosquitoes so thick that it was impossible to keep from breathing them in. We literally ran across the field and onto a large white rock that sloped into Cathedral Lake, with incredible views of Cathedral Peak and Tressider Peak. The lake was actually still frozen the week before we arrived and the water felt as though it was barely above freezing temperature so my swim was extremely short-lived.
We decided the views were just too perfect to pass up and set up the tent, preparing to camp. Dave decided to take a nap while I hiked around the lake so I could check out the views from the other side. There was an impressive view just past the opposite shore, where it was windy enough to keep the bugs away but sunny enough to be warm too.
I arrived back from my walk to find Dave wasn’t feeling so hot -- he had a splitting headache and felt nauseous. Strangely enough, one of his eyes had swollen shut too (perhaps from a bug bite??) so we decided the best thing to do would be to hike down. It took us just an hour to hike down to the trailhead, as opposed to 3.5 to hike up. Dave’s headache went away about a quarter-mile from the trailhead -- somewhere around 8,500 feet -- and even more bizarrely, his swollen eye returned to normal too. A ranger we met along the way suggested that it wasn’t altitude that was bothering Dave, but the ponderosa pine pollen. We managed to get a site in the Tuolumne Meadows Campground to end our day.
Monday, July 11 -- Dave was feeling better so we decided to do another dayhike since our backpacking trip didn’t work out. I read all of the trail descriptions for hikes around Tuolumne Meadows to Dave and the minute he heard “mainly flat” he began campaigning for hiking the John Muir Trail through Lyell Canyon. It was actually a fantastic choice -- not too difficult, with stunning views and since the trail winds along the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River, we had plenty of swimming spots available to us.
The trail at first heads through the woods, then crosses a double bridge over the Tuolumne River. The views from just a half-mile in were already phenomenal and we were glad we picked this particular hike. We actually followed the river upstream a short ways to cool off and enjoy the views before turning around to follow the trail.
In this area, the John Muir Trail crosses a series of alpine meadows that are studded with peaks, the most spectacular of which was the massive Kona Range. We took tons of breaks for pictures, swims and snacks before deciding to turn around and head back. Based on our time and reports from thru-hikers about how close we were to the end of the Canyon, I think we hiked about 11 miles roundtrip.
- Ivy
Our Yosemite plans got a bit messed up because the airline lost all of our bags when we arrived in Fresno. (Count yourself lucky if you’ve never had to explain to an airline counter person why you can’t just go on with your backpacking vacation without your backpack & tent, etc. It was extremely difficult to get them to understand why we didn’t have hotel reservations someplace!) So, we didn’t arrive in Yosemite until around 4 p.m. on Saturday instead of 9 a.m. as planned.. Here are short (I promise!) summaries of our hikes in Yosemite.
Saturday, July 9: Since we arrived so late, our original hiking plans got scuttled. We ended up on a short two-mile trek around the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. The trees were majestic and beautiful but I couldn’t believe some of the stuff we were seeing. People were carving their names into the downed trees and picking up pine cones even though there were signs all over the place forbidding it. I got a good chuckle, however, when I picked up my guidebook and found those giant pine cones were actually from sugar pines, not sequoias.
Sunday, July 10: We started on what was to be a three-day, 22-mile backpacking trip, hiking from Cathedral Lakes in Tuolumne Meadows to Yosemite Valley. However, Dave ended up getting symptoms of altitude sickness (at 9,500 feet) and we ended up hiking back out the same day.
We arrived at the Cathedral Lakes trailhead at 8:30 a.m., preparing for a 3.5 mile hike that would bring us up 1,000 feet to 9,500 feet. Since Dave has had trouble with altitude in the past, we decided to see how we felt before deciding whether to hike on from the lakes or camp there. Wilderness Permits in Yosemite allow you to camp pretty much anywhere, with a few limitations, as long as the site is already hardened so we had plenty of options for our trip.
The hike started up a dirt path pretty steeply at first and we found ourselves stopping a lot to catch our breath and look behind us at the terrific views of jagged mountains under bright blue skies. After the first mile or so, the trail flattened out and became an easy walk. We saw two mule deer along the way and crossed our first snowfield of the entire trip, getting occasional glimpses of a great view before arriving at the spur path for upper Cathedral Lake.
The spur descends past a small series of cascades and through a grassy meadow with a fleet of mosquitoes so thick that it was impossible to keep from breathing them in. We literally ran across the field and onto a large white rock that sloped into Cathedral Lake, with incredible views of Cathedral Peak and Tressider Peak. The lake was actually still frozen the week before we arrived and the water felt as though it was barely above freezing temperature so my swim was extremely short-lived.
We decided the views were just too perfect to pass up and set up the tent, preparing to camp. Dave decided to take a nap while I hiked around the lake so I could check out the views from the other side. There was an impressive view just past the opposite shore, where it was windy enough to keep the bugs away but sunny enough to be warm too.
I arrived back from my walk to find Dave wasn’t feeling so hot -- he had a splitting headache and felt nauseous. Strangely enough, one of his eyes had swollen shut too (perhaps from a bug bite??) so we decided the best thing to do would be to hike down. It took us just an hour to hike down to the trailhead, as opposed to 3.5 to hike up. Dave’s headache went away about a quarter-mile from the trailhead -- somewhere around 8,500 feet -- and even more bizarrely, his swollen eye returned to normal too. A ranger we met along the way suggested that it wasn’t altitude that was bothering Dave, but the ponderosa pine pollen. We managed to get a site in the Tuolumne Meadows Campground to end our day.
Monday, July 11 -- Dave was feeling better so we decided to do another dayhike since our backpacking trip didn’t work out. I read all of the trail descriptions for hikes around Tuolumne Meadows to Dave and the minute he heard “mainly flat” he began campaigning for hiking the John Muir Trail through Lyell Canyon. It was actually a fantastic choice -- not too difficult, with stunning views and since the trail winds along the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River, we had plenty of swimming spots available to us.
The trail at first heads through the woods, then crosses a double bridge over the Tuolumne River. The views from just a half-mile in were already phenomenal and we were glad we picked this particular hike. We actually followed the river upstream a short ways to cool off and enjoy the views before turning around to follow the trail.
In this area, the John Muir Trail crosses a series of alpine meadows that are studded with peaks, the most spectacular of which was the massive Kona Range. We took tons of breaks for pictures, swims and snacks before deciding to turn around and head back. Based on our time and reports from thru-hikers about how close we were to the end of the Canyon, I think we hiked about 11 miles roundtrip.
- Ivy
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