Abbey's Road

I’ve been to the mountain. I can die now. Well…maybe not yet. But I finally made it to Yosemite. Mary Beth and I had always wanted to come here, but we never made it. At least now I can say I have. Believe it or not, I wasn’t overwhelmed at first. Maybe it’s because I’ve been to so many beautiful places lately, or maybe it’s because the Kupecs treated me so well, not to mention fed me pretty well, too. Maybe it was the gray, cloudy weather the first day. Or, maybe it’s just because I’m slow. But it didn’t take too long for the sense of awe to settle in. Everywhere you look there are granite walls (and crazy people climbing them) and waterfalls. Being spring still, the waterfalls were spectacular – raging torrents and mist as heavy as rainstorms.

I know it’s hard to believe, but some of them were so loud that Abbey was scared of the noise. Yosemite Falls is the 5th highest waterfall in the world, and what’s amazing is that you can see it from almost everywhere in the valley and many points above.

And it is just one of the many waterfalls (during spring and early summer) in the park. Half Dome dominates the view from most places. The funny thing is that geologists were so upset about the name that they refused to accept it for over 50 years. They said that only about 1/8 of it broke off. I guess 7/8’s Dome just didn’t have the same ring. El Capitan is said to be the largest slab of granite in the world, but that doesn’t make me want to go out and climb it. About 2000 people a year feel otherwise, even though it takes most of them 3-5 days to do it. I can’t imagine them getting a good night’s sleep. Enough of the accolades. Yosemite is just a really cool place. And I didn’t even get to go into the backcountry at all. Tioga Rd. was still not open for the season. It’s projected to open June 16th, so I missed it by about a week. The good and bad thing about Yosemite is that it is different in every season. Good because you can see a different place in each season and no matter when you go there is something beautiful to see. Bad because you have to be able to go back many times to enjoy it all.

I actually didn’t do a lot of hiking while I was there. Partly because of Abbey, partly because you don’t have to hike much to see many of the sites, and partly because I’m out of shape and was worried about my knee. But on my second full day there I decided to do the Panorama Trail from Glacier Point, high above the valley, down to the valley floor. It’s an 8.5 mile trail that goes past 2 of the year-round falls and has views of many of the main sites. Glacier Point is about 2000 ft. above the valley floor. There are 2 ways to get to the start – hike up the 2000 ft. in 4 miles (on the aptly named 4 Mile Trail), or take a tour bus. I thought $20 for the one-way “tour” (glorified hiker’s shuttle) was a bit steep, but not as steep as the 4 Mile Trail so I opted to fork over the cash and save my legs. After my experience with my knee on my last couple of hikes I was a bit worried so I brought my hiking sticks along (sorry Tommy). I was still debating on using them (OK, so I’m vain), until I saw an attractive blonde woman in her 30s or 40s using them. So I decided if they were good enough for her, they were good enough for me. The sticks must have done the trick as my knees held out pretty good. I only felt a slight twinge now and then. The trail was incredible with great views of 3 different waterfalls that you can’t see from the valley floor. Plus, it was nearly all downhill. I felt bad, though, ‘cause I left Abbey for nearly 7 hours. So to make it up to her I took her on a walk on the bike path through the valley. Part of it was still flooded so she had a ball playing in the water for most of the time. She entertained many park visitors with her “fishing” routine and her normal antics in the water.

I am now sitting in a campground at the beginning of the steep climb to Sonora Pass. Since Tioga Pass is closed, and I wanted to go to the east side of Yosemite, I had to go countless miles and hours out of the way. Luckily, I stopped at a ranger station before starting up the road to the pass where I found out that the road up is a 26% grade (to put it in perspective, the most I’ve ever done in my RV is about 12%) and it goes for about 20 miles. Seeing that it was almost 5PM I decided to stop in the last campground before the pass. I had had enough (and I’m sure Abbey did too) of steep winding roads for one day. Besides this area is beautiful so I don’t mind spending the night here. Tomorrow I’m headed to Highway 395 and the eastern slope of the Sierras. I’m not sure where I’ll stay, but I’m sure it will be pretty nice. Next time I come back to Yosemite, though, I want to come in summer so I can backpack up in the high country. I can’t imagine anything much better. (Can you guess that I drank a little wine while I was writing this? I guess it got my creative juices flowing a bit!)