Monday, 13 & 20 June 2022
I had a wonderful time in Yosemite. Five days, each of which ended in pleasant exhaustion. Some beautiful hikes; and none that I regret. More detail below.
Snow Creek
Lower Gaylor Lake
Polydome area
Three moraines in the Valley
May Lake towards Glen Aulin; and Lukens lake
Good work, Body!
Top of mind is that my body did well. Not only am I back in condition, but in some respects my body is in better shape than it was a year ago. In particular, my shoulders, which typically have a bit of pain towards the end of long hikes, gave me almost no discomfort, which I attribute to the physical therapy work I’ve been doing. Similarly, I had minimal Achilles tendon soreness in the morning. The reason for this is more difficult to pin down. I did a lot of prophylactic eccentric heel drops leading up to the trip, but I was still generally experiencing mild soreness in the morning; I very recently began doing stretches, as the recommendation of my physical therapist, but I haven’t been that regular about it either before or during the trip; I also noticed a possible bad habit in the way I walk uphill (when tired I sometimes will not push off the ball of my foot, but instead just use my leg/thigh muscles, resulting in the achilles being stretched) that likely stresses the achilles, and tried to avoid it; and, of course, it could be that hiking is just less stressful than running. I guess we will get the answer to some of this when I get back to my regular regime of running.
The Trip
As usual, I did not plan the Yosemite trip a long time in advance. In this case, I think I started looking for lodging in the Valley on three or four weeks ahead. Per my usual approach — based on the observation that cancellations are frequent from 6 to 1 weeks out – I began to check the online reservations sites for openings several times a day, and when a few nights opened up I grabbed them (often the Ahwahne has more openings due, no doubt, to its expense); I got four nights, in two different room classes, with no place to stay in the middle, but as time went on I was able to get the middle night, and added a sixth night on the end, and finally got them all in one room class — at that point I called on the phone, and the agent consolidated everything under one itinerary, and took care of my cancellations and refunds. It is clear that my approach is a common one. And it works — I described it to two other friends this spring, and they were successful in getting what they wanted.
Contrary to previous trips I arrived on Saturday (normally I come Sunday); that was nice because, as I think is now common in the Spring, they do controlled burns every week the weather and moisture conditions permit, starting on Monday. So I had one non-smokey day in the Valley; the other days I went up high, hiking off Tiogra road or Tuolomne Meadows (though much of the latter was closed due to road construction).
Except for the first day, I quickly developed a routine. Rise early, drive over to the Ahwahnee for breakfast about half past seven (giving them time to dispense with the early risers who are all in line at 7:00), and have a hearty breakfast. One of my great pleasures is sitting in the Ahwahne dining room in the morning, having their corned beef hash with a poached egg, and fruit, looking out a the morning light on the meadows. In fact, they are still in Covid-mode, meaning, I believe, that they can’t find enough staff, and so they are serving a breakfast buffet (which has neither hash nor poached eggs), so I do that instead, which is really not a hardship.
After breakfast I would drive out of the Valley, up to Tioga road, to whatever trailhead I had decided on (typically while perusing maps over breakfast). The drive takes an hour to an hour and a half — a bit longer if going through the construction zone (one-way traffic) to the east end of the Meadows — which is fine: the scenery is spectacular, and it gives the hearty breakfast a bit of time to settle. Then I do the hike or hikes, usually with nothing more than trail mix and chocolate for ‘lunch’, and the head back to the Valley. I arrive, usually, between six and seven, circumnavigate the Valley (they have made all the roads one way to try to discourage driving), and stop into either the pizza place in Curry Villiage or the Ahwahne bar for, respectively, pizza or chili, and beer. Then its back to the lodge, shower, and a little bit of reading before going to sleep.
The Hikes
Snow Creek
Day 1 | 6/5: Snow Creek. I began with an ambitious hike. I rose, grabbed a ‘breakfast burrito’ at the Basecamp food court across from the Lodge, and headed out to the Mirror Lake trailhead. That, unsurprisingly, took me to Mirror Lake, and the proceeding farther got me to the Snow Creek trailhead. The Snow Creek trail basically switchbacks up the north by northeast wall of the Valley. For a trail that is mostly switchbacks (and that does not actually follow the course of Snow Creek, I found it surprisingly pleasant; far more so than the Yoesmite Falls trail, about which the same may be said. Why I liked Snow Creek far more is difficult to say; perhaps the switchbacks were less relentless, and certainly Snow Creek is the least traversed trail I’ve been on that goes out of the Valley whereas the YF trail has a steady stream of hikers. It took me a very long time to make the ascent, which I can partially blame on being unaccustomed to the altitude; regardless, it was quite taxing, and I found that, for the latter part of the ascent, I would take a picture every time I stopped to rest (frequently) so that I could see that I was making appreciable gains. I particuarly liked that when I would stop and open up the GPS app, the little marker that was ‘me’ would effortlessly scoot along the trail to my current location. Much easier for it! Eventually I made it to the rim and then the bridge over Snow Creek about an hour before my turnaround time of 3:30. I had a turkey sandwhich for lunch, and then turned around and did the descent. That went much faster, even though I was appropriately cautious. I was exhausted when I reached the Valley floor, but still had 2-3 miles to go to get back to the lodge. I walked a mile, and decided to pick up the shuttle the rest of the way back, but I waited and waited, and it didn’t come, and so I commenced walking back. Of course, a few minutes after I left the shuttle came, but too late for me. Eventually I made it to Camp Curry, where I had a pizza and a beer, and then walked the rest of the way to the Lodge. Tomorrow, I resolved, I would drive to whatever trailhead I departed from.
Lower Gaylor Lake
Day 2 | 6/6: Lower Gaylor Lake. I didn’t mention, for yesterday’s hike, that the mosquitoes were quite bad, at least until I’d gotten up a thousand feet. That, and the fact that it was Monday and the NPS was doing controlled burns in the Valley, led me to drive up to Tuolome Meadows. That’s one of my favorite places, and its been a couple years since I had been up there, mostly due to Tioga road not being open when I was visiting. In any event, I decided to do a hike to Gaylor Lakes; I had a dim memory that that might be the location I remembered from a backpacking trip, circa 1980, where didymous waterfalls spilling down a mountainside into a lake, created a haunting resonance that sounded like music. It turned out not to be the place I remembered, but nevertheless the hike was delightful. I’d opted for a non-ambitious ascent — only about 800 feet — but as I was at 8,000+ feet it turned out to still feel more ambitious than I intended. But not too bad. Anyway, as I said, it was delightful; actually, the word that keeping bobbing into my consciousness was ‘charming,’ not one I’d usually apply to a hike. But the landscape was magical: rills wending their ways through meadows; remnants of snowdrifts melting into vernal pools; outcrops of granite with gnarled pines, and compact stands of forest; and wildflowers everywhere. And no mosquitos, not a one!
Murphy Creek towards Glen Aulin to Polydome lakes
Day 3 | 6/7. Yesterday I had begun the day with breakfast at the Ahwahne, and I continued that today (and for the rest of the trip). Although the dining room is only offering a buffet, it is a fine buffet, and I ate a very hearty breakfast. Fortunately, the drive to Tuolome Meadows gave it time to settle, and I reached Murphey Creek Trailhead, at Tenaya Lake, feeling ready to start out. I had planned an ambitious hike – I was hoping to go all the way to the Glen Aulin High Sierra camp, near which there was a reportedly interesting geological feature called “Little Devil’s Postpile,” not to be confused with the larger version that has achieved nearly iconic status. (LDP is, like the big version, columnar basalt, but it differs in the the columns are horizontal — suggesting that sub-surface magma flowing through a conduit encounted a cooling surface.) This would be a hike of at least 17 miles, with appreciable elevation gain at a high altitude, so it was, let us say, a provisional goal. (In hiking, I am not very goal-oriented; I like to get out in the landscape, and then see what transpires and what I feel like.) To make a longer story short, I only made it about halfway there; not because the hike was too strenuous, but because I kept stopping to explore patches of granite with glacial features like polish and erratics. The landscapes weren’t quite as charming as yesterday’s — I think it was because the various biomes were larger and more uniform — but it was still quite lovely. And it did have a few mosquitoes. Anyway, I meandered along, taking photos, and examining the ways granite weathered — particularly the cathedral peak granite in which extremely large orthoclase crystals resist weathering more than their matrix, and the hillsides ended up littered with orthoclase. If you’re interested in granite, this hike is for you!
Valley Loop and Moraine hikes day
Day 4 | 6/8. On day 4 I was ready for an easier day, and as the controlled burns seemed to be finished for the week, I spent the day in the Valley. I started out at the Ahwahne for breakfast, as usual, and then spent the morning their with my computer and books, moving back and forth between reading and writing. Mid-day I headed down-valley, intending to do the western end of the Valley Loop trail. On the way, I realized I’d come to the Valley’s Terminal Moraine, and so pulled over and (re-) explored that. I’d also, in my reading, discovered that there were at least two other morraines the Valley, and decided that it would be nice to visit those. My next stop was to hike a bit of the western Valley Loop trail, which included the Bridal Veil morraine. I couldn’t get very far on the Loop, without getting in water deeper than my new, nicely waterproofed boots, but I did make it the moraine. It was hot and dry, and not quite as pleasant a place to hang out as the terminal moraine. (It did make me wonder why the Terminal Moraine is called “terminal,” since the Bridal Veil Moraine is farther west…). After that, I proceded to Camp Curry, where I parked in Day Use parking, and took the Loop trail to the last moraine of the day; I was interested to see that, as I had noted it before, but had just assumed the erratics (far bigger than those on the other moraines) were rockfall from the rim. But there were so many piled up that were so far from the rim that I’ll buy the moraine story. My day ended at the pizza place in Curry Villiage, possibly followed by a nightcap at the Ahwahnee bar.
May Lake towards Glen Aulin; Lukens lake
Day 5 | 6/9: May Lake towards Glen Aulin. The plan for my last day was to try to get to Little Devil’s Postpile again. I thought I could do it from Murphy Creek, but I didn’t really want to re-hike the bit of trail I’d hiked two days ago. Instead, over breakfast, I saw that I could leave from the May Lake Trailhead, and take an alternate route. I’ve been to May Lake, but not for a couple of years, and it is a geologically interesting area because it has metamorphic rocks, an odd thing to find in what is usually thought of as an igneous province — so I was happy to return. To make a long story short, the alternate route was great, except that there was a lot of up and down over very rocky trails, and even if I hadn’t tarried to look at various geological points of interest, it became evident that the trek was way too ambitious; I was also aware that this trail had very little traffic — none after I had passed May Lake — and worried about getting fatigued and stumbling and injuring myself on the very rocky trail. So, at some point I discarded my ambitions, enjoyed the rocks, and turned around well before my turnaround time.
And Lukens lake. On my way back to the Valley I stopped and did another hike — a very short one to Lukens Lake — which had an amazing stand of shooting star wildflowers, marred only by voracious clouds of mosquitoes.
The Penultimate Day
Friday was my last day, and I need to check out by 10, so having a long hike was awkward, at the last. Also, I was tired. So I had breakfast, checked out, and headed out via route 140, down the Merced. On the way, I had it in mind to check out a hike to Coeville Valley [check] — the trail follows the south fork of the Merced River from where it joins the Merced. I had been warned by my waiter at breakfast — who is an avid hiker — that it would be hot, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it would be even hotter than I’d expected because it was 2,000+ feet lower. By the time I arrived at the trailhead, it was over 90, and the intense uphill at the start made me content with just noting where I could park on a future, presumably earlier in the season visit. Although I was interested because of the rocks along the Merced, the hike is particularly noted for its wildflower displays in April and May, so I will save that for another year.
After that I drove back to the bay area, turned in the rental car, and spent the night at the SFO Hyatt, a superb hotel only 5 minutes by skytrain from the airport. I left on a 6am flight, which was not fun, but not so bad as I had stayed pretty close to Minnesota time on the trip.
And that was the trip!