This is just a run down of our trip to Yosemite. It was pretty awesome. I guess this post falls under the "keep family and friends updated on our lives" section of what I've been planning to do with this blog. So here we go...the story of Yosemite. ***Warning: this is more like a short story than a quick day by day post of our trip***
Background - Jay loves everything National Parks related, so this is a birthday celebration trip to Yosemite for Jay. We live about 8 hours away driving, pretty amazing we haven't done this sooner. Also, we've been trying to be more positive about California, since it seems we'll be here for a few years. So in an attempt to have a happy hubster AND actually start enjoying California, I decided to surprise Jay with a birthday trip to Yosemite.
In preparation for this trip I did some research and found out that some roads are not passable in the winter time, but we're not taking those roads, so we'll be ok. That is the end of my research on traveling in Yosemite. Jay also does some research and finds out there are levels of road conditions in Yosemite that require tire chains depending on conditions. The level of road conditions for our weekend trip happen to be R1, you MUST have tire chains in your car at all times, or drive a car with snow tires, or some sort of snow plow or something. I ask Jay if he REALLY thinks we need tire chains. He says "yes". We hem and haw and think well maybe we'll just rent some snow plow type vehicle, but decide in the end that just buying some stupid tire chains would be best. I was not a fan of buying said stupid tire chains, if you can't tell. Seriously, we don't even need them in the current road conditions, we just have to have them in our car. Can't we just draw a picture of tire chains to fool the Park Rangers?? No?? Oh, ok, let's buy stupid tire chains.
Issue number 2 for this trip is that I DID do some research in to the lodge where we are staying this weekend...unfortunately I did not research it enough prior to actually making the reservations. I want to find out more about our lodge so I do a general search on it and come up with a Trip Advisor link. The first 10 reviews on this place are about how horrible it is. Mold growing on walls of rooms, sheets made of sandpaper, party animals hanging outside of every room screaming profanities till 4am, etc. Basically they are making this place seem like something out of a horror movie, but at the end each reviewer writes "but you can't beat the view". So in my mind I'm thinking "great, well if this place is the lodge from The Shining, we'll just sleep outside and enjoy the view all weekend. " I tell Jay about these reviews and we decide, "well let's lower our hopes to the level that these people are saying (1 star hovel level) and then if it's anything better we'll be happy with that. Deal? Deal. So, we're off....
January 7th - Jay's Birthday
Jay is 35 and before his legs fall off from old age, I thought we'd go hiking in the winter wonderland that is Yosemite in January. On our way there we have to stop by a random (unknown at this point) auto supply store to get chains for our car. We drive in about every wrong direction trying to find this store, but once we get there we buy the stupid chains (yes they're still stupid) and we're off. We have a lovely drive that took us through Angeles National Forest, which is quite beautiful. I oohed and aahed over the sparkling lakes and fog covered peaks. Jay was asleep. However he did wake up just in time for us to descend into the flattest part of California ever. Basically the three hours from the base of the Angeles Forest, past Bakersfield, through Fresno and on to Merced...about as exciting as driving though the mid-west, except gray and foggy. Hmmm. The one saving grace was the In N Out Burger stop in Fresno. Even though we have lived in California for 1.5 years, I have never had an In N Out Burger. Shocking, I know. This place was awesome and so were it's burgers. I will forever equate the beautiful city, well the city, of Fresno with my first In N Out Burger experience. Ahhh, Fresno.
Once we entered The Sierra National Forest, beautiful scenery was once again ours. We drove through little towns up, up, and up in elevation. Next thing we know we're looking down on some low hanging clouds. With tips of peaks poking through, they looked like islands in a cloud ocean. Up above the clouds the sun was shining and the temperature was warm. We parked in a "turnout" (really a gravel patch on side of a winding narrow mountain road-I do not recommend this kids) and even though we were right at a blind turn, we ran across the two lanes to get a better picture of this view and have our first breath of fresh mountain air. We almost got hit on our first attempt across, but somehow we survived the second attempt. Our hearts racing, we took a deep breath and a few pictures and let the sunshine warm our faces. It was quite the introduction to our mountain vacation.
Having left at 8:30 that morning, we arrived at the park about 3:30 that afternoon. It was amazing how quickly the landscape went from green and lush and 55 degrees, to a winter wonderland with about 2 feet of snow covering everything. There was this transition phase where everything on the low lying area was snowy and up above on the higher peaks it was sunny and green due to their exposure to the sun. The valley seems to be shaded quite a bit and so the snow was not melting there. In certain areas sun was hitting the valley floor and the snow was sparkling and fog was rising from the cold snow and warm air temps, here it was about 35 degrees. Cold, but sunny and just beautiful. We stopped at many turnouts along the way to our lodge and saw El Capitan, Bridal Veil Falls and Half Dome. Along the road we also saw our first glimpse of wildlife. A wolf!! Well, us city dwellers thought it was a wolf. But truly it was just a very healthy full-sized Coyote. In the city we're used to the anemic, half-starved, mangey coyotes. We didn't know any better.
We get to our lodge around 4:30 and I must say it is amazing. Yes! It was amazing. The room was sparse, but clean and homey. It was all wood inside, true the sheets were a bit like sandpaper, but we had prepared and brought one of our "nice" sheets to cover the rough ones. But that 1 issue aside, this place was great. The back balcony overlooked the Yosemite Falls and a winter wonderland. We were welcomed by a fruit and cheese place, a bottle of champagne, truffles and a bottle of red wine. Most of this I had pre-ordered to celebrate Jay's birthday, but in addition they had given us a free picture frame as a gift. There was no giant mold monster growing off the wall and we were never bothered by a rowdy guest. With the last bit of twilight left, we decided to make a hike our first priority. We slapped on our winter gear (who knew we still had winter gear) and headed out. Just behind our lodge there was a path that led to the trail for the Lower Yosemite Falls. Now this trail was fairly short, but was a slight up hill battle...only because it was completely iced over. Twilight + icy trail do not = a good outcome. I was holding on to trees and climbing in to the woods to try and find some snow to walk on. Jay of course was cool and calm, just wandering up the middle of the path with a small slip every now and then. Must be a guy thing. The falls were beautiful and led to a river with a bridge over it. We could see the base of the falls from the bridge. The snow there was almost blue (like a glacier) it was just amazing. The walk back was even more eventful as it was now night time and downhill on this slippery slope. I would have sat down and slid, but I was still in jeans and thought this would lead to a wet bottom situation that could not be overlooked once the trail was done. So we slipped and slid our way down the path, going from tree to tree. Quite an eventful way to start the communing with nature. We warmed up back in our room with the food and drink and headed out to The Lounge for a drink and a small bite to eat. This Lounge was a gorgeous wooden structure with floor to ceiling windows and a huge fire pit in the middle of the room. A long wooden bar flanked the back wall and a few perfectly placed tvs showed us the football game that was still on. What a night, a few more drinks by the fire, a football game on tv, and the wilderness waiting just outside the windows. What a great day!
January 8th - Day 2
We got up at a luxuriously late 9:15 and trumbled over to the food court cafeteria for breakfast. This place had everything you could imagine for a hearty breakfast prior to a hike. I got the Lodge Breakfast which consisted of two eggs, toast, hashbrowns and BACON!!!! It's bacon!! Jay got the Lodge Light Breakfast of course. Ermmmm. The lodge gave each guest a handful of "free coffee" cards at check-in so we were thoroughly caffeinated and fatted up (well some of us were fatted up). Yahooo, lets go hiking. We bundle ourselves up like the kid in Christmas Story and head out for the free shuttle that drops hikers off at destination points throughout the park. We chose to go to Mirror Lake trail as it was only a 2 mile in and out hike. We decided that was good for a quick morning romp through the snow. 3 hours later we were done, not so quick, but beautiful along the way. It was still about 30 degrees when we started our hike, a brisk morning. We were hiking with a few other people as a group for the first 50 feet or so, which was kind of disappointing, but then we ventured off on to the actual hiking trail while most others stayed on the wide road which was an easier flat walk. We had the trail to ourselves for most of the way and it was just so peaceful. Everything was covered in shining shimmery snow. The snow flakes and ice crystals here were the largest, most defined I had ever seen. Everything was so beautiful, we seemed to stop every 10 feet to take a picture...this led to a lot of photo editing later on. This trail had a small river on our left and the base of half dome to our right. Due to recent snow and rain the waterfalls and rivers were quite active for this time of year...made for natural beauty. Eventually we made it to Mirror Lake and it was breathtaking. Picturesque and quiet, a photographer's dream. We hiked further past the lake point, unsure of where the trail ended, and came upon a vast open field of snow with the river flowing through it. It was getting warmer now due to high sun and, well, we had just hiked a mile through the snow. We had this white shimmering snowy field all to ourselves and we stripped off our jackets and hats and sat in the snow and sunbathed for a bit. It was a surreal moment and one I am so glad I got to share with Jay. Also, since it was so warm at this point, high up on the mountain faces snow was melting and falling off in mini avalanches. We would hear these great cracks and thunderous noises and see way up in the sky, snow sliding down the cliffs in small patches. Like I said, this was amazing. And we had it all to ourselves. Soon we decided that for purposes of tiny bladders and soon to be empty stomachs, we should probably get back on the trail. Snow was melting all over, and much of the hike back it seemed like it was raining on us. Every now and then huge masses of snow would just slide off of a branch and land with great THUDS near us. A few caught us on the head which was less than pleasant, but quite funny. Once we saw a huge icicle standing in the snow near our feet as if it had just fallen from a high up tree branch. We decided at this time to put our cushy winter hats back on in the hopes that a killer icicle would just bounce off if it fell on us, instead of crushing our skulls or causing a hemorrhage. By the end of the hike back we were wet and hot, but smiling as big as can be. Just too much fun.
Instead of hopping back on the shuttle right away we thought we would walk some more along the road and just take in more scenery. It was at this time that we noticed a few families with sleds sledding down the hill sides. Jay and I watched for a while when we noticed a lone straggler sled had been discarded in the snow. We looked at each other and ran up the hill for a few sledding opportunities. The first time Jay took the sled and I just tried sliding down the hill on my clothes. Jay had fun, I did not get very far. On the second pass I took the sled which was just a thin piece of foam with a plastic coating on the bottom and decided a head first/belly down approach was best. I think by the bottom of the hill I may have had some internal bleeding, but man it was fun. Eventually we decided to be adults again and hopped on the bus to make it back to our lodge room for a quick lunch of Cliff Bars and a lot of water. Living in California, we have forgotten how drying the winter weather can be.
After a quick change in to some dry clothes we decided to drive around the valley a bit and try to find another short hiking destination. By the way, we still didn't need the tire chains. We stopped at many turnouts and took many more pictures, but by now a gray gloom had settled in the valley and the pictures were not nearly as beautiful as the reality. Odd light for photographs. We saw another coyote along this drive trotting along the side of the road. We eventually made it to the base of the .25 mile trail that leads up to Bridal Veil Falls. This trail takes you right to the base of the falls with the spray from the water hitting the rocks lightly misting our faces. This is a short hike to the base, but it is at a steep angle the whole way. Much like the trail from our first night this trail was all ice...even more so as it was covered in the mist from the falls. Luckily there was a metal railing on one side of the trail and we literally pulled ourselves up the trail with this railing. Although some of it involved rock scrambling and other parts were crawling on our hands and knees. To some people this may seem like utter nonsense, but for us it was hilarious fun. We could not stop laughing the whole way up. All I kept thinking was, how the heck are we going to get back down. The falls were wonderful, but we couldn't get many pictures due to slick conditions and water spray. I thought it would be miserably cold up there, but it really wasn't. We were so hot from the hike up we just enjoyed the mist. Hmmm, now it's time to get back down. We tried walking and hanging on to rocks and trees, but this was very slow going and precarious. We decided to forgo the cost of potential broken hips and cracked skulls and just sat down in the middle of the trail pushed off and slid on our bottoms. This involved a lot of bumper car moments bouncing off of boulders and trees, but it was quite fun. However, this left our bottoms quite wet and made for some discomfort the rest of the day. Ah well. It was worth it!!!
At the bottom of the trail we noticed a group of people all looking in to the woods. When we joined the group we realized everyone was watching a bear!! A BEAR!!! A live Bear only 50 yards away in the woods. No compound, or high cement walls, or large fences keeping it away. This was real live wilderness going on here. Of course, the bear was not interested in us at all and was probably just foraging for food near the garbage cans. It eventually made its way back in to the deep woods and we were back to our car and off on another drive.
By now it was getting close to sunset and time to head to our ideal location, Sentinel Bridge, in time to see the sun setting on half dome (this is a photographer's paradise). Along the way we stopped at The Swinging Bridge - not so much swinging now as it was frozen, but still a nice spot to take some sunset pictures over a river. There was a family there grilling out over an open fire, having a picnic at sunset in the winter!!! Very odd. I'm sure the 18 pack of beer was helping them stay warm. AND.....on to Sentinel Bridge. This was quite breathtaking in it's beauty at sunset, but by now my tush was very wet still and very cold and I was about done with nature's beauty. Time to go home, warm up and, well, shower for the first time in about 48 hours. Eeeep.
That night we enjoyed a drink in the Lodge lounge again and then headed over to The Mountain Room restaurant for a spectacular dinner. We each had appetizers and drinks and Jay had a huge rare Prime Rib (I told him he needed to apologize to the animals tomorrow) and I had White Cheddar Mac and Cheese, all baked and ooey gooey. yummm. We were so stuffed that by the time it came to dessert (part of the cost of dinner), we had to take our options back to the room. Jay wanted to stay up for another drink, I hit the sheets and was out in about 2 seconds. Happy Birthday dear, asleep on a Saturday night at about 9:15. Wahooo.
January 9th - day three, day of departure
We woke up to find that over night the temperature had dropped and stayed down. The falls were starting to freeze more and the spray hitting the bottom was turning into white frost/snow. We enjoyed a quick breakfast in the cafeteria and then checked out and headed to our car. However we found our car covered in a thin layer of snow and ice and being that we are now Californians, we did not have scrapers for the windows. Hmmm, oops. So we sat in our running car until it heated up enough to melt the ice away....such a shameful moment for the mid-western couple who were prepared for everything....we even had tire chains!
On our way out of the park we saw three does by the side of the road. One almost got hit by a car right in front of us (as we had stopped at a turn out to watch the deer). Oh my, my heart almost stopped. Another was quite interested in us and came up to our window before trotting along her way. On our way past the front gate to the park we spoke with a ranger about our trip and here is where we learned that we saw Coyotes, not wolves. We also told her about our bear sighting and she took down all the information. I guess they track the bears which get too close to where humans are, especially the ones that are active in the winter. We showed her pictures and she was able to glean some information from our hazy out of focus pics.
On our way back to civilization, a low fog had set in through some of the mountain ranges causing visibility on the expressways to be less than 50 yards. Quite enthralling, but also quite scary. Made for a tense but interesting drive back. We somehow made it work and fed each other our left over dessert to make it through this trip. We were still in cold weather at this point and as we watched the elevations go down we saw the temperature go up. We saw the forests and fields fade in to industry and farms and then city life. All in all, this was one of the best trips we have taken. It was a great 35th birthday for Jay and I just got to enjoy it with him. Amazing scenery, near perfect weather, and great company. And guess what, we never had to use the tire chains!!!
