Falls, Trails, Bikes and Elks

Even the trailhead signs are beautifully done...

Day 2: Saturday 25th August

What a great day we had today.  A perfect (if absolutely knackering!) introduction to the beauty and splendor of Yosemite.  Again, I marvel at how lucky I am to live within a few hours drive of such a magnificent place - and to have such great friends in my life to share it with.

Even though they fart in the tent cabin*.

Back of Half Dome, view from the John Muir trail

So, we intended to get up at 6am, to grab an early breakfast and be on the trails by 7am.  Unfortunately, we didnt hear the alarm, so didn't actually wake up til almost 7am.  I guess it probably would have helped had I turned the volume up on my iPad to a notch above silent.  Oops.  That's what comes from playing Drunken Wildlife Bingo just before you set the alarm for the next morning.

But, despite our late start, we catch up some time by getting dressed quickly and chugging down a very speedy breakfast at Peets, so we still managed to be on the bus and at the trailhead by 8am.  There was a lovely friendly woman driving the bus who was very informative about all the trails and the camp & wildlife - I think it might actually have been Mrs Santa Claus on her summer job.

Just one or two steps on the way up!!  

So today's hike was up to Vernal Falls, a beautiful waterfall with then magnificent views up to Nevada Falls and then taking the famous John Muir trail back down.  We wanted to get onto the trail nice and early (hence the attempt to get up at 6am) - Lori said that when she and her Mum had done the trail a few weeks ago, they were up and out by 9am and it was perfect.  Not too hot, not too crowded so definitely the way to do it.

We got started on the trail and soon discovered we were both feeling quite knackered (I'm sure it had absolutely nothing to do with our choice of liquid refreshment from the day before), so we took it nice and easy with plenty of photo op stops.  I'd brought my tripod with me, so I blamed the weight of that for slowing me down...   Lori was dead right in that the trail was very exposed in places, with no cover from the sun directly overhead, so I was very glad we were not doing it later.  It was roasting enough at 9.30am, so God only knows how baking it would be in the full heat of the sun - not pleasant at all, I think.  Looking back and down our route later, our early start meant we also missed most of the people on the trail.  Though it was fairly wide in most places, there were a sh*tload of steep steps at the end and a really narrow and steep section that really was only wide enough for one person, so that bit of the trail must be an absolute nightmare to navigate when it gets really busy.

Feeling smug, looking down on the

 hoards of people still climbing

Channeling Pantene Pro-V....

As promised, the scenery was absolutely stunning and the Falls themselves were beautiful.  The view looking up was simply magnificent and we had some fun with my camera's self-timer (primarily to validate my decision to bring my tripod).  I think it took us a couple of hours to get up to the top of Vernal Falls and, when we got up there, we gratefully sought out some shade and sat by the river to rest, recharge and enjoy some well-deserved snackage.  Lori had (once again) brought some miniature and completely addictive snacks from Trader Joes (at Tahoe, they were miniature chocolate chip cookies that were like crack - once you starting eating them, you couldn't stop; this time round, it was miniature cheese sandwich biscuit things - like Ritz crackers for midgets), so i made a dent in a big bag of those.

Goofing about at Vernal Falls, giving the

self-timer a workout 

After relaxing and enjoying the beautiful view of the river and the falls for a half hour or so, it was time to get moving again, before everything seized up and we were forced to call Mountain Rescue.  It was about half ten by this stage, so it was really starting to get hot and, once again, I was very glad i was just starting out on my hike but instead was on the homeward stretch.  We came back via the John Muir trail - a very famous Scottish and American naturalist who founded the Sierra Club and was one of the earliest advocates of the preservation of wilderness within the US.  A local boy done good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir

We made great time and, hiking past the still ascending sweaty hordes, made it back down the trail, to the bus stop and back to camp by midday.  Bonza.  For lunch, we had some wraps that Lori had brought with her - they were a bit squishy and water-laden from sitting in the ice chest overnight but they still hit the spot.  We then, naturally, washed it down with a refreshing adult beverage at the bar before sitting in the lounge, hitting the Internet and recharging all our various electronic devices.

By this stage, it was around 3pm, so after a quick tool round the gift shop looking for a mug for Mum, it was too hot to do anything else but have a siesta.

Vernal Falls falling 

Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

After sleeping and drooling for an hour or so, I woke to a soggy pillow and a slightly more temperate temperature outside, with a wonderfully cooling breeze that was a welcome relief to the overbearing heat.  As if we'd almost planned it that way, it was perfect weather for a bike ride, so we (eventually) found the bike rental tent and hired a bike for a couple of hours so that we could explore more of the Valley floor and get a better sense of where things were and see some more of the Park.  I think the bike itself was probably the heaviest mechanical item i've ever had to peddle but the saddle was Floridian-arse wide, so it was comfy enough even though gears and brakes also seemed to be surplus to requirements in this particular bi-pedicular design.  

Cycling around the Valley floor was - again - beautiful.  One of our stops was a place called Mirror Lake.   Unbeknownst to us, I think the idea was that you bring your own mirror to place on the ground and look at and pretend the shimmery, silver reflection is actually a lake as there was no water whatsoever in there!  But it was still interesting, if a little curiously named.  

A randomly beautiful scene - UnMirror Lake

The infamous Yosemite Waterfall 

Thieves had struck again...

The whole time we were out biking, we were keeping our eyes peeled for bears - alas, during our whole time there, we didn't see any BUT we did see some elk instead which was brilliant.  On our bikes, we managed to get really close to them, as they crossed the road in front of us - they weren't perturbed in the least by our presence - i guess they are completely used to people jumping out of cars to take their picture.  We also saw this impressive white-headed black woodpecker - but somehow i managed to eff up the settings on my camera, so singularly failed to get any photos of any worth - doh!

Faster than a speeding Elk....

Nom, nom, nom....

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille

Northern Exposure, anyone?

Antler bush

Dylan the Elk

We stopped at a deli for supper (I got a big chicken and swiss sandwich with some macaroni salad - I figured I'd burnt off enough calories during the day's exertions to warrant the carb-fest) before finally heading back to CV to return the bikes.  Then, the big decision of the evening was whether we could be arsed to go and listen to a talk by a climber about something climber-y or have another adult beverage and a round of Wildlife Bingo.  In the end, the Need to Get Clean won out and it was time to (finally) locate the shower block.  The showers were good and hot and free - I think, though, we inadvertently cut some people up who I think were outside waiting and hadn’t figured out you needed a combo code to open the shower doors.   Oops.





Afterwards, we toyed with the idea of heading back to either the bar or the wireless lounge but instead sloth won out and we just vegged out in the cabin instead.  Instead of the hoards of college kids who'd been our tent neighbors the night before (and who were very well-behaved and that we didn't hear a peep out of), instead tonight we had a bunch of redneck bikers, whose conspiracy theories and disdain for the liberal media we got to enjoy loudly until - finally, thank God - it was time for quiet hours at 10pm and they were asked to shut the f up.  And thus ended a very satisfying, exhausting day in Yosemite.  Bloody marvelous.

Psychedelic tree bark

* OK, OK.  It was me too.