Up and at ‘em! We wanted to be at the park early enough to
avoid the heat of the day and give us plenty of time to get our hike in.
We got a great parking spot next to a
field containing several deer with their velvet antlers! Many were traipsing onto the grass, right
past the sign that says, “Give plants a chance-please don’t step off the path.”
Andrew started our app we use when we
hike, bike, or kayak and started at 8:30.
It went UP, and UP, and UP. It
was dry and sandy which made many parts of the trail very slippery. I am a VERY slow hiker as I need to watch my
footing so we had many pass us up. Funny
though, some of those speed demons we passed on later and we just passed each other. Steady and slow!! That’s me, and Andrew is great about walking
just ahead and waiting on me. There was
a part of the trail that leveled out!! YES, I thought prematurely. Another part went down, and I was confused by
that too as our goal was way UP. But we
meandered back and forth for a zillion or more switchbacks, climbing rocks and
rock steps, back and forth. Finally
someone heading down said it was only 45 minutes further! That last part was pretty steep but the view
of Yosemite Falls from above them was breathtaking!
I temporarily lost Andrew even though he
had seen me pop up over the last crest and thought I had seen him. I was walking and chatting with a gal from
Australia who had been waiting on her sister about ½ hour! We wandered over to the edge, my still
looking for Andrew. The views were
amazing but at this point we couldn’t see any waterfalls, but we could hear
them and feel the mist. We turned and
walked towards where we’d come as we thought perhaps we’d missed a trail
marker. A gentleman leading some friends
told us to turn back around as the falls were definitely in that direction. It turns out some people were standing directly
in front of the sign pointing to the overlook.
The overlook was a narrow rock stairway
down just a bit, and if you wanted to see more you could butt slide across a
very large slippery looking rock or you can take a narrow one-person rock step
trail. Andrew had resurfaced at this
time and was very giddy and excited as he’d just come from the narrow
trail. His words were something like, it
is a narrow trail for just one person and there is a handrail by the rock but
the other side drops off and you have to do it!
So my Australian friend and I went down and took some pictures, opted
NOT to do the butt sliding scenic view, and she went down to the trail
first. She opted not to go further, and I sort of
agreed as I hadn’t seen it yet. Once she
was done and had come back up, and others came from her general direction, I
got my chance to go down. I took some pictures, and then looked. Hmmmm.
The rail was attached to the rock, the trail was one-person wide and I
was one person, so I did it. It was enough
to make your stomach do a few twirls, but the view was worth it. We were at the TOP of the UPPER Yosemite
Falls! And it only took use 3 ½ hours,
from the parking lot. We had brought a
very basic snack up (banana and protein bar) so we sat down to rest, snack, and
rehydrate. It was pretty hot climbing up
to this point.
We began our descent. People we didn’t recognize were appearing to
descend also. Perhaps we just didn’t notice
them. It took us LONGER to get
down! The sand of the trail made going
down even more slippery. Many a hiker that
looked like they hiked daily :) even had slippery
moments. I used my trusty walking
sticks, and we did it, one slow step at a time.
For a time we had a young man and his girlfriend hiking with us. They were from New York and he was doing an
internship with a start-up in San Francisco (Nylas? Something to do with email, but I haven’t had
a change to research it yet). He
attended MIT and would be going back for his senior year in the fall. His gal was just visiting for the week and
this was her first hike ever in her whole entire life! What an indoctrination. That is how we got to talking: we passed each other several times, back and
forth, on the way up and then encountered them again on the way down! She was going back to school to start her
Physician Assistant training. He had a
rainbow colored Mohawk!
How long were we on this grand
adventure? By the time we go back to our
truck, it was just short of 8 hours. That
does include a bathroom break before going up and a longer one after coming
down due to the line, but we won’t discuss that here. The time that was “suggested” for completing
the trail says “6-8 hours.” We feel we
did pretty darn good considering we had parked a mile away. The trail was 3.5 miles UP 2800 feet
elevation change. My only complaint are
my toes. My boots for some reason don’t
like hikes over 7 miles and my socks get bunched up and so my toes were really
cramping by the time we made it back to the truck. I had a different set of insoles when we
walked the bridges in San Fran so I also had a blister on one of them. When we got our new bike hitch, I also got a
new pair of insoles. They were so much
better but I think my sore toes today were sort of residual from our bridge
hikes. They didn’t get worse, but they
were freshly irritated.
We drove to the lodge to grab a bowl of
soup; I had the black bean and vegetable soup while Andrew had the chili, and
both were excellent.
It was time to say goodbye to
Yosemite. We went out a different way
than we’ve ever done. Yosemite is a HUGE
park. We drove literally two hours
before we were out of the park. The
landscape changed and there were different colored rocks of the mountains, and
grasses and meadows. The rocks look like
someone just set them here and there but there were left hodge podge by the
glaciers. We were tempted to kayak by a
gorgeous lake we passed but I was just too tired to stop. By this time it was 7. We wanted to get out of the park and find a
shower and a burger to replenish ourselves after our long hike.
We lucked out to find a tent site, even
though the office closed early. We could
fill out the form and leave it in their drop box for a night registration, but
the showers required tokens which we couldn’t get until the office reopens at 9
am. We got our tent set up in the windy
area, next to a field at the base of a mountain. I am going to miss these views! Then we went to a local restaurant for a
burger and a salad.
We are back to update the blog IYeah for Verizon LTE!) and hit the
hay. We are some tired peeps this
evening. Tomorrow we start the drive to
Colorado to visit Kim and Bryon; we will be meeting them on Monday evening for
supper.
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