A Writer's Adventures Backpacking in Yosemite: Hiking Out, A Return to Normalcy, Plus a Recap

Yosemite Park Hike: Day 4 Miles Hiked: 4.6 Total Miles for Entire Trip: 26 (this includes the nearly two miles we had to hike to get from the Trailhead to the Visitor’s Center where Mom is picking us up)
Today we hike out of the valley and back to civilization. The wind is completely gone. It was a perfect morning for fly fishing, except that today the fish are refusing to bite. This is because I have finally managed to figure out the whole casting thing. Dad assured me that had there been fish, I would have caught them. That is just my luck. I was happy just to know that I’d finally succeeded at it, though. That in itself was enough of an accomplishment for me. We tried fishing again later on before heading out of the canyon, but still got nothing. It’s my belief that the bears ate all the fish and that’s why we didn’t find either one (my dad had a bear with cubs visit his campsite on a hike on another trail in Yosemite earlier this summer). On our way out, we found a number of trout feeding about a mile or so downstream, mocking us.

We finally reach civilization and take advantage of the bathrooms in the campground to tidy ourselves up a bit before heading to the grill to have what Dad has called the worst hamburgers ever. While Dad gets the food, I talk to an older guy (probably in his fifties or so) who has hiked from Yuba River and is on his way to Mono Lake. It seems he is a perpetual backpacker who mails himself provisions to pick up at different stops along the way. I’ve decided that apparently the backcountry attracts the most interesting characters. On our way from the grill to the Visitor’s Center, we also meet a bearded hippie and his girlfriend, who are backpacking the entire Pacific Crest Trail, from Mexico to Canada, though they admit to cheating and taking a shuttle from one area of Yosemite Park to Tuolomne Meadows.

All the rocks/mountains in Yosemite are granite. A long time ago, a huge pocket of magma bubbled up under the earth here and after it cooled, pushed its way to the surface. As it came up, the pressure caused the rocks to crack and form the mountains and valleys of the park. And then the glaciers came through and carved the land up even more. (This is a much simplified version of events, for more in-depth explanations see Huber’s book Geographical Ramblings in Yosemite.) In much of the area we hiked through you could still find sheets of granite not far beneath the dirt. It makes for a landscape unlike anything I’ve seen before. In the areas where the ground is too moist for trees to grow are these vast meadows through which the main branch of the river winds. Where the trees are thick, the dirt is loose and silty, in some places it is nearly as fine as sand (and as difficult to walk on).

My favorite moment of the day is when Mom pulls the car into the lot and hands me the bag with my clean clothes. I run to the bathroom and change into new (CLEAN!) clothes for the first time in 4 days. It's just about the best feeling in the world.

A Writer's Adventures Backpacking in Yosemite: Are We at the Top Yet?

Yosemite National Park Hike: Day 2 (or, the day I fell in a river and climbed a mountain) Part 1
This morning when I went down to the stream to get water, I saw a doe on the other side, not more than 15 feet from me. It seemed as if she was trying to decide whether she wished to drink the water or leap across it to test out the other side. Then she looked up and we stared at each other for what felt like forever. Unfortunately, my camera was at camp. (Luckily, I caught one later on. See above.) Then she turned and went back the way she'd come to the shady side of the meadow beyond the forest the stream ran through. As we were finishing loading our pack at camp this morning, a gold mantel ground squirrel started circling the campsite in hopes we would leave some food behind. Not a very lucky squirrel after all (we are good practitioners of Leave No Trace).

In order to get back onto the trail after leaving our campsite, it was necessary to cross the many different branches of the river. Most of the crossings have rocks or sturdy logs to help one across. One crossing, which I'd encountered the day before on our fishing treks, had only two very wobbly logs. I already hated this particular crossing from the day before (and that had been without a twenty-pound pack on my back). Today, of course, it is wetter and as I reach the halfway point, I lose my already precarious balance, slip on the wet wood and my right leg ends up in the water, between the rocks on the bottom of the stream and the log. The only good things were that neither my pack nor my camera got wet. My shoes however felt like portable lakes for the next hour or so. Luckily my pants and socks were both of a special quick-dry material, so I didn't stay soaking for long. Still, it was about the least fun thing to happen, until we reached the mountain.

Earlier, my dad had mentioned that we were almost to the end of the lower canyon and did I want to go up the mountain to the upper part as we would have a really awesome view of the valley looking back? The first day's hike had gone so well that I said "Sure, that sounds like fun."

Now it's 1 pm and we've hiked 4.32 miles and are about 3/4 of the way up the mountain. As I informed my dad moments ago, the next time someone asks if I want to "hike up the mountain at the end of the valley," my immediate answer will NOT be "Oh sure, that sounds like fun." However, it is amazing sitting here (resting) most of the way up the mountain and looking back across the valley we just hiked through, in less than two days. (It has no specific name as it is merely the beginning of the Donahue Pass. I have decided that it shall henceforth be called "My Mountain.") We can see the river snaking back through the meadows and the trees and rocks on either side. As we’re resting, we see a guy probably in his late twenties or early thirties who is climbing the mountain barefoot. He is followed shortly by a guy with a Mohawk who had camped near us in the backpacker’s camp in Tuolomne Meadows the night before hiking in and who is hiking the entire John Muir Trail, which goes from Yosemite Valley to Mount Whitney.


Part 2 Miles Hiked: 2.1 (since 1 pm; daily total: 6.42 miles in 5.5 hours up 2,146 ft) Current Elevation: 10,258 ft above sea level
We have reached the pinnacle of our journey: the top of “My Mountain,” which is actually a valley with a glacier/snowmelt-fed lake (which goes on to become the river snaking through the basin of Lyell Canyon that we’ve been hiking next to for the last day and a half) and the start of the Donahue Pass. We are so far up into the mountains that the valley is no longer visible. There is actually snow on the ground near our campsite and the mountains with the glacier are at the far end of the lake.
The piles of rocks at the foot of the cliffs along with the glacier make me wonder what it must have all looked like hundreds of years ago when the rocks were part of the cliff face and the glacier reached into this valley and the other glacier that we saw earlier was probably connected to this one (all of this is complete speculation, but I did purchase Geological Ramblings in Yosemite by N. King Huber so that I can find out the truth of it all). The water here is crystal clear, not muddy brown like I’m used to from growing up in the Midwest and fishing in Minnesota and Texas. Nor is it like the strange, ethereal blue of the silty, glacier run-off streams I’ve seen in Alaska. It is so clear that as my dad and I stand at the edge of the lake (and earlier the rivers and streams) we can actually spot trout floating in the river, feeding from 30 to 40 feet away.

The valley is picturesque, but crowded. Everywhere I turn, there is another tent pitched. Most the mountains we’ve hiked by and up and through are nameless, but close examination of the GPS reveals that we are camped beside Tarn Lake and the peak on the far end of the lake—a mere 2.8 miles that we will NOT be hiking--is Mount Lyell and Lyell Glacier, the highest peak in Yosemite Park, to the right of which is Earhart Point (which has boulder-type cliffs rather than the pointed peak of Mt. Lyell). Earlier today we saw McClure Glacier when we reached the top of “My Mountain” before continuing on into the upper valley. Donahue Pass continues around the lake, up the cliffs on the other side and then behind the ridge to the left of Mt. Lyell (we are also NOT hiking this).

Despite the fact that the mountains surrounding us are probably a third covered in snow, it is warm enough for shorts and short sleeves. Tonight our campsite is surrounded by white bark pine (these have a five-needle structure), hemlock and the same Lodgepole pine from the day before. There is much more variety in the trees up here than in the valley below. We even saw a grove of aspen as we climbed up the mountain.

Thanks to the flooding in the Upper Lyell Canyon, which has created marshy swampy areas—ideal mosquito breeding grounds—the mosquitoes are AWFUL and surround me if I sit or stand in one place for too long (more than 20 seconds). Despite the fact that I’m wearing bug repellant, they have been hovering around me—sitting or standing—and so now I am walking in circles around the fire pit as I write this in what has become a futile attempt to evade the swarm of bugs that has formed around me. I feel like Pigpen from Peanuts with my own cloud that follows my every step. The bugs aren’t biting me (much) as I have coated all exposed skin with bug dope, but it apparently doesn’t keep them away. They are waiting to see if my movements will expose an area of skin (however miniscule) that they might attack, buzzing in my ears and flying up behind my glasses and in my mouth. I’ve had to take refuge in the tent and I really want the mosquito-net hat I saw a guy wearing earlier when he and his friends passed through our campsite. Even now as I’m writing this inside the tent, they are clinging to the mesh of it and trying to get to me, which doesn’t make me want to leave it anytime soon.

One hour and one nap later. The bugs are actually less bothersome by the lake than at the campsite. I’ve still caught nothing but grass and my own line (creating a knot so badly entangled that Dad just pulled the fly off). Fly fishing does not look especially difficult, but apparently years of casting with a spinning rod have ingrained a casting motion so deeply into me that I am having difficulty overcoming it despite the fact that I haven’t fished for years. While I scared away the fish and tied my line in knots, Dad caught two more trout (one brown and one brook).

Spotted Today: Clark’s Nutcracker, Tri-color Blackbird, Junco, White-Crested Sparrow, Yellow Swallow-tailed Butterflies (I’ve decided these all have ADHD, they flitter around without stopping and fly circles around me, pretending to alight on flowers and rocks, but then rushing off again before I can snap a photo), Lustrous Coppers, yellow-bellied marmot, gold mantel ground squirrel, Belding’s ground squirrel, deer (all does), chipmunks, chickaree squirrel.

A Preface: Historical and Geological Tidbits and the Journey There

Yosemite National Park Hike: Day 0
In 1890, it took five days to get to Yosemite from San Francisco and the average stay was two weeks. Most visitors were wealthy; they had to be to have that much time off from work. Now, it takes five hours to travel from San Francisco and the average stay is only four hours. My dad and I went backpacking in Yosemite for five days. We hiked part of the John Muir Trail through Upper Lyell Canyon, but first, we had to get there. Which meant five hours of driving through the Sierra Nevadas.

The Sierra Nevada mountains are different from the Rockies, which I grew up visiting. They’re mostly rounded-tops and are covered with brush and trees instead of the barren, pebbled peaks of the Rockies. Many of the valleys have vast lakes, creating a beautiful, awe-inspiring view as we make our way to Yosemite. The road winds and twists so much that even at 30 mph, I am tossed around in the backseat like a rag-doll and reduced to clinging to the “Oh Shit!” handle in an attempt to keep myself in one place. Closer to San Francisco, there are a series of hills that have windmills lined up like sentinels on the crests of the mountains. There’s something about these windmills standing tall in perfect lines along the ridges that I can’t quite explain. Almost as if they’re standing guard or patrolling.

The night before we begin our hike, we camp in the backpacker’s camp in Tuolomne Meadows. Luckily, it wasn’t nearly as crowded as the campground my dad stayed at before his trip a few weeks earlier, so we were able to find a great spot that wasn’t surrounded by other people. Everyone is friendly (especially the guy with a Mohawk who had his tent pitched at the campsite next to ours and this guy who asked my dad about his tent and reminded me of a friend I used to work with), though I notice that very few people are carrying lightweight gear and packs like we are. I did not appreciate this when I was packing and Dad told me I had to leave three-fourths of the stuff I had planned on taking behind. I was GREATLY appreciative of the fact that my pack only weighed 19 pounds by day 4.

There was a Ranger Campfire Talk that night about the history and meaning behind Yosemite. The ranger started by telling us three stories about the meaning of Yosemite (obviously of varying degrees of historical accuracy). The first story is that the Mariposa Battalion, which was not actually part of the official army but rather a group of miners from the area, goes after the Miwok Indians in the valley for stealing horses and eating them (which they were doing because the miners were cutting down the black acorn trees that were a major part of their diet). The first group they round up is all from a smaller tribe of the Miwoks, Yos.s.e'meti, meaning we are called grizzly bear.

The second story goes like this: A miner calls to the cook across the mining camp, "Yo! Send me tea!" because he doesn't want coffee. It echoes through the valley and catches on.
The third story is most widely accepted as the true origin of the name. Members of the Mariposa Battalion confuse the Native American words for grizzly bear and black bear—ïhümat.i and ïsümat.i—to get Yosemite (I’m not sure of these spellings; I haven’t found this particular version of the story anywhere, so this is all from memory and online guesswork.). So it actually means Valley of the Two Bears, except that now the California Grizzly is extinct (except for its appearance on the state flag) and only black bears are found in the park. The ranger also told us that Tuolomne means land of the cave-dwelling mud people.


The ranger also mentioned Lembert (and some of the other settlers and business men who first came to the valley), who saw his face (past, present and future) in a cliff face that is now called Lembert's Dome (see above).

After telling us the stories of the meaning of Yosemite, he talked about what the park has meant to people, especially talking about the Wawona Tunnel Tree in the Mariposa Grove (it collapsed under the pressure of snowmelt in the 1960s) and the Fire Fall, which lasted from 1872-1968 when it was stopped because it went against the message of conservation the park was established to promote and the popularity of it was destroying the park land. Fire Fall (if you’re like me and weren’t alive when it was popular) was created by pushing a bonfire off Glacier Point (I think…it was definitely in the main valley near Half Dome) after dark and people would park and set up camp in the valley below to watch the smoldering wood tumble down. If you’re interested, you can see a real Yosemite Fire Fall in Humphrey Bogart's 1954 film, The Caine Mutiny.