Yosemite

NATIONAL PARK

By DIENEKE

Yosemite National Park was the third stop on our One Way Road Trip. Visiting Yosemite is like making the major leagues of National Parks. NPS puts it this way:

“Not just a great valley but a shrine to human foresight, the strength of granite, the power of glaciers, the persistence of life, and the tranquility of the High Sierra”

In 1986, Yosemite became our nation’s first protected land, in large part due to John Muir (one of my great heroes). It’s also a timely example of why we need Federal land as we cannot always rely on the State to have our land’s best interest at heart. If you’d like inspiration by some of Muir’s writing first-hand, this is a great place to start: Wilderness Essays and is a great accompaniment to any National Park visit.

I’m going to be totally honest here, I had quite high expectations coming into this park (how could you not with a quote like that?!); however, there were two disappointing events that occurred during our time here: generally, too many people and specifically, vandalism at our campsite. Too often, we only read about the perfect trip, but that’s not really reality, right? So, here’s our account. I’ll include how we responded and you can hopefully learn something from it as well.

DAY ONE

This was one of the few parks in which we spent multiple days during this trip. Wildfires closed the Hetch Hetchy area, so we couldn’t get past Big Oak Flat Road. This is a great example of why checking NPS’s website is so important before/while planning a trip because these alerts are posted clearly on the Park’s homepage! Other tips here!

As is our typical approach, we try to get to the most “popular” spots first thing in the morning, like, the sun is still rising! And this worked out just as we hoped for at Glacier Point. It provided a perfect “Muir Moment” and we lingered here quite a while.

Generally, I don’t like looking up too many pictures of Parks before we arrive so as to experience it like John Muir might: for the first time (in my mind at least). I’m telling you, Yosemite photographs are impossible to avoid, but the experience of being there is person is not affected in the least. These views literally took my breath away.

We’re riding a high after this special time and continue on to Yosemite Valley Visitor Center. We pass through the tunnel and one of the most famous views of Yosemite Valley is revealed before us.

And here’s where we hit the throng. Despite being very deep into the shoulder season (mid-October), there are some Parks that will always be busy. This turnout in particular was packed with buses, tourists and selfie sticks. It’s very hard for me to put this mob aside and try to appreciate this wonder on my terms; however, it’s not just for me. This is the entire purpose of National Park protection: it is for all. And this is what we try to remind ourselves when we get frustrated, not because we can’t get a perfect picture, but because we want to listen to the wind through the valley, hear the waterfall in the distance and not be bothered by overly domesticated critters. So, we quickly capture the image in our mind’s eye and move on: generally the opposite direction of everyone else.

So we do the loop through Yosemite Valley. There’s so much to do here! We saw so many vans with climbers barely eating or sleeping but instead climbing every square inch of granite. This gave us hope that there are people here to deeply experience and not just consume. While the architect in me wanted to stop at every single building, they were just too busy, so while the day was still young, we made it to the trailhead for Vernal Fall. The Mist Trail is a strenuous 2.4 mile roundtrip, 1,000 ft elevation gain that will take you to the top of Vernal Fall. Once up nature’s “giant staircase” (I am terrified of heights and this tested my limit!) the view of the fall is spectacular. Again, due to the low snowmelt and rain, it was a bit of a trickle but a spectacular drop none-the-less. If the final steps are too strenuous, you can stop at the bridge and still get a spectacular view.

The second signature hike we did in the Valley was Lower Yosemite Fall. This easy 1 mile, paved trail is a perfect example of one of our Park “musts”: an interpretive nature trail. With many reader boards along the way, you will learn that Yosemite Falls is the tallest waterfall in North America! that is actually comprised of the Upper, Middle Cascades and Lower Falls. This trail is perfect for all ages and abilities and will give some insight into the land beneath your feet while you take in the magnificent views in front of you. Peak flow of this fall is spring and early summer, drying up late July through October. You’ll have to use your imagination in the pictures below but just another example of how timing is everything in a National Park!

After the Visitor Center, a deep strenuous hike, an easy interpretive trail, we were coming up on our last check box for the day: a Lodge.

The Majestic Yosemite Hotel (formerly the Ahwahnee Hotel) is a National Historic Landmark opened in 1927. It is a substantive building of steel, stone, concrete and glass designed to highlight its surrounding landscape: Yosemite Falls, Half Dome and Glacier Point. Even if these lodges are out of your price point (as they are ours), they still deserve a stop and saunter through the lobby. We’ll often pick up a cup of coffee and write a couple of postcards to lengthen our stay and make us feel like a guest in the historic architecture.

Ready to get away from the crowd, we take on one more hike for the day: the Pohono Trail. The entirety of the Pohono Trail is a strenuous 12.9 miles with end points at Glacier Point and Tunnel View. All I saw on the map was “Inspiration Point” and how could we pass that up?! Come to find out, we were approaching this from the reverse of most, starting at Tunnel view which climbs 2,000′ in the first 2 miles to the valley rim. As we hadn’t planned an attack on this serious trail, we got to Inspiration Point and turned around (there are so many options to bus if you’d like to do the entire 1-way trip viewing virtually every landmark: Vernal, Nevada, Yosemite & Bridalveil Falls, Half Dome, Sentinel & Cathedral Rocks, El Capitan and more). And Inspiration came in spades. Another tip, the more difficult the trail, the less the crowds!

DAY TWO

After a lovely evening at camp in Wawona Campground, sharing a campsite with a lovely couple from The Netherlands, we were refreshed for our second and final day at Yosemite.

We took the long trek from the complete south end of the park to the north to Tuolumne Meadows. This is quite a different landscape from the forested valley with enormous faces of granite. This is one of the largest high-elevation meadows in the Sierra Nevada and the granite is much more horizontal, forming the bedrock of the Tuolumne River channel and many glacially carved domes. Olmstead Point is where we first stopped.

Driving onward, we stopped at the Dog Lake/Lembert Dome trailhead, selecting Lembert Dome for a spectacular view of Tuolumne Meadows. This was a moderate hike of 2.8 miles roundtrip, 850′ elevation gain. The toughest part of this hike was the bit of rock-scrabbling at the very end to get atop of Lembert Dome itself. Brandon had to coax me through it but the view was worth the worry and was a proud moment for Brandon as this picture can often be seen on his desktop background:

We were leisurely with this day, spending time at pull-outs and reading many reader boards. There weren’t nearly as many people in this area of the Park, so we soaked in the solitude before heading back toward the campground and making our final stop at Mariposa Grove and Wawona Hotel. To be honest, not my favorite place: too crowded in too small an area, but the Giant Sequoias were spectacular and the Grizzly Giant Loop Trail was a great 2 mile trek through these Enduring Giants.

I’d like to end this epic post about Yosemite on a positive note but our time didn’t end that way. The brief version: to pay-it-forward from the Dutchies who shared their site with us the day before, we shared it with a group of young Euro-vagabonds. They weren’t entire friendly to begin with but after we heard them cutting down tree limbs (strictly forbidden on Park land) and intentionally scraping the side of the Burro (permanently scarred from this event), we became enraged. We reluctantly took the high road and let them drunkenly and disorderly fail at life (we were also outnumbered 3 to 1). Well, almost. Brandon took immense delight in whipping the empty beer bottles they left strewn about the campsite at their tent at 0630 in the morning in between prepping the Burro for departure, though they were too hung over to do more than groan about it. However! there is a bright spot at the end. So upset by our experience of thoughtless vandals, I called the Park Service first thing in the morning and left a message. I got a call back IMMEDIATELY from a Ranger telling me she had dispatched a local crew to investigate and would prosecute the tree cutting to the fullest extent.

While we can’t always have great experiences with our fellow visitors, we can ALWAYS count on the Rangers to help, guide and protect!