Piccola's Projects: CA (Yosemite)

I plan on returning to Yosemite early next week to get in a few more hikes, but this was a beautiful stop on the way to Kings Canyon-Sequoia. The Tioga Pass from Mammoth Lakes to Yosemite was closed by the park until 12 PM the day I went. :)

On the way, I had plenty of time and enjoyed this scenic road. I stopped a few times to soak in my surroundings. Here is the view on Tioga Pass from the road (if you plan to be in Yosemite, I highly recommend driving up this road in additional to seeing the falls in the valley).

Even at close to 10,000 ft, there are beautiful lakes, like Ellery Lake. However, most of the lakes up here were still iced over.

You can see how much snow is up here. Since my buddy talked to me about El Capitan, I started to do some research on this trail... There are some interesting trails up there from Tioga Pass. I'm going to be hiking over to El Capitan, Eagle Peak, and the Upper/Lower Yosemite Falls trail from Tamarack Flats, but it should be a real challenge to try and stay on the trail with all the snow and melting (which turns the lower parts into swamp area). The route I plan to take later this week is about 22.8 miles, so getting lost in the middle up there would not be cool. I called the ranger who will know my plans, and also will be taking a flashlight and compass. It looks like a lot of fun though!!! I also had wanted to climb the Half Dome, but the cables are still down...

I arrived to the park's entrance (still 80 miles from Yosemite Valley) by 11:25 AM and there was already a line of cars waiting to go through...

The 80 miles down to the valley offered some great views of the surrounding mountains and lakes as well.

Once I reached the fork in the road toward the valley, the first hike I did was called Tuolumne Grove, which is where there is a sequoia grove. It's 1 mile downhill to the grove and then back uphill. I hiked down the full mile to the start of the grove and then realized that over the next few days I'd be hiking through many more sequoia groves and didn't want to waste time and energy on that in Yosemite, so I turned around and hiked back to the car. It was still a nice hike, but it would have made sense to at least walk through the grove and see the sequoias there since I had already hiked down it. LOL Typical. Here are some photos from that hike. (The trees here are not sequoias.)

Giant sequoias are the oldest, largest, and fastest growing trees in the world. They can live for over 3000 years, grow to 300 feet tall, and measure 30 feet around. On a lot of the trees you can see burn marks / fire scares on the trunks, which is a testament to their fire resistance and longevity. The rings on the stump will help people figure out how old the tree is. That's all I will say about the giant sequoias until the next park.

Big Oak Flat Road starts at this hike and continues down into the valley.

Half Dome is the place I referred to earlier that would be a neat hike/climb if the cables were up. It can be seen from a few different places throughout the park. You can see it way off in the distance in the photo below. (Don't worry, there will be better shots later.)

There were also waterfalls coming down off of the mountains that I saw on the way to the valley.

This is a site where President Theodore Roosevelt sat beside a campfire with John Muir in 1903.

In the valley, there are a number of places you can stop and see waterfalls.

I then walked on the short trail to Bridalveil Falls.

Along the valley floor, there were a few more waterfalls, such as Ribbon Falls, Sentinel Falls, Horsetail Fall, and Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls.

The best part of Yosemite was the longer hike up to the tops of 2 more waterfalls - Vernal and Nevada Falls. To get there, you take the bus to Happy Isles, which is where the trail head begins. I started off on the Mist Trail and went up to the Vernal Falls Bridge.

You can see the rainbow from the sun at the bottom of the bridge. :)

From there, I hiked up to the top of Vernal Falls. Here are pictures on the way up and at the top. Walking up the stone steps up to the top was a little strenuous, but not difficult, and the mist was so heavy I was nearly soaked by the top, but it felt good and didn't wreck the map or camera.

From there, I hiked up to Nevada Falls. As with Vernal Falls, here are pictures from the way up and at the top. :) I had wanted to take the longer route from the top of Nevada Falls over to the John Muir trail and then down through the switch backs on the Clark trail, which ends up by the Vernal Bridge (near the beginning). However, this was closed due to snow on the trail, so I went back down the same way - a little hard on the knees.

On the way out of the valley, I saw a large black bear (brown in color) loping / running across a field. By the time I pulled over to see him, he was stopped by the edge of the forest. I walked over a little closer and took a few pictures. He (or she) was adorable!!! :)