Tenaya Lake Christmas Day 2011

A new postcard. Perhaps a poster. Maybe a snapshot.

An Early Christmas Gift from Laura

With the warm weather continuing and Tioga Pass open, Bryan called me up and asked if I could go to Hoffman. Laura gave me an early Christmas present and said yes. So at 6:30am we were driving out of the Valley listening to a live Pearl Jam show from 2003 (a 48 song concert from Boston!) and finding ourselves alone of the highway. The weather had to have been 60 degrees (it was perfect) and there was no wind or a cloud in the sky. By 10:15 we were on the summit of Mt. Hoffman (renamed Mt. Holden for the day) taking pictures and then returning back to the car. I was dropped off at home by 1pm and had a great afternoon with Laura and Holden, and then a beautiful evening at the Bracebridge event- Holden was the star once again. Enjoy some high country snapshots taken in December, of all months. This is some crazy weather, lets all use it.

Yosemite Point of View

There was a light snowfall that blew across Yosemite Valley Thursday night. So today being a day and a half later, we (Bryan, Jim and myself) found ourselves wandering up the Yosemite Falls trail to Yosemite Point to see how much snow fell and to see the valley from on high. These are a couple of the views. The first postcard is the overlook of Yosemite Falls from the higher vantage of Yosemite Point. The second postcard is near the top of the Falls trail. Enjoy.

Pohono Trail Shots

Up and down the south side of the valley is what Bryan S. and I did yesterday to begin my training for the half-ironman next July. Up the 4-Mile trail and down the Pohono Trail towards the Tunnel View where a detour down the old stagecoach road took us to the Bridalveil Falls parking lot. We then hopped on our bicycles for the ride several miles back to the car. A loop as they say, and the map shows. Above are a few snapshots from yesterday. As you can see the weather is a mighty fine sunny and holding at a pleasant California temperature. The top postcard is Bryan on the rim while I stood over at Taft Point. The second postcard was taken from the other direction while a professional slacklining photo shoot was occurring and I was told to "SHHHH" as I walked by by spectators from the midwest or central valley (we couldn't ell the difference- bad joke.) The last view is back towards the valley and you can see Sentinal Rock off in the distance where we began the trail hours before. Enjoy some new photographs finally, because I enjoyed taking them.

It's Your B-Day, In Da Club...

Since its my day, I've taken the opportunity to post a non-Yosemite photo, but something I photographed recently. This is from Big Sur last week and the image goes good with what I'm listening to right now: the Grateful Dead concert from 10-19-990. Enjoy.

From the Archive's #2

Rojo and I sat in this spot with this view and had lunch on our Grand Canyon of the Tuolomnee dayhike. We also saw it in black and white. Enjoy an oldie/outtake from September.

From the Archives

An outtake from June 29th, looking down on the upper part of the Yosemite Falls trail. Its been over a month with nothing new, so I thought I might post a few from the archive for a short span. There has to be a few left over from this year. Enjoy.

Scenes from the Grand Canyon of the Tuolomnee (Last Week)

It took me awhile, but here they are. Postcards of a trip thru the Grand Canyon of the Tuolomnee last Wednesday, Sept 7. We have the following views: a) Hetch Hetchy; b) the view down into the entrance; c) Indian Hieroglyphics in Pate Valley; d) a nice sidewalk; e) the view from the top of the rim after Muir Gorge; f) Waterwheel Falls. Enjoy.

A River Interlude

Coming back from the Mariposa Fair last Sunday the 4th of Sept, we stopped at the Red Bud Picnic Grounds on HWY 140 and Laura fed Holden. I went down to the Merced River, and it was sunset and took a few snapshots. Enjoy.

North Peak > Mt. Conness

On Wednesday, August 31st, we had a simple plan. Climb the Northwest Arete of North Peak and continue on to the North Ridge of Mt. Conness. I had done it about a decade ago with Pat Kolker and didn't remember anything unusual about it. There are two towers on the North Ridge that require rappelling to continue, which sounds straight forward. Rappelling means going straight down with gravity. Needless to say we summited. However, it ended with hours of climbing in the dark and a descent in darkness on a very non-moonlit night. And a headlamp that whose batteries were dead halfway down the trail. Luckily, it could have been colder (it was warm enough). The trip went like this: we left the Valley at 5am. We started hiking at 7am. We summited North Peak at 11am. We spent around 5 hours on the 3 different rappels throughout the afternoon. We summited Mt. Conness around 11pm. We finally got to refill our water at Alpine Lake on the descent at 1230am. We reached the car parked at Saddlebag Lake at 330am. And I drove us back to the Valley, getting home at 530am. I sold the trip as being 8-9 hours- maybe next time. (We now, and forever, will remember the direction of each rappel on the climb.) The top three postcards are from the first half, North Peak. The bottom three are from the second half, Mt. Conness. After the second tower I put away my camera while we got serious because it was getting late. Enjoy these snapshots.

You Can Dance if You Wawona, You Can Leave Your Friends Behind

A couple of days ago, Rojo and I reunited after weeks apart and spent the day walking from the Gacier Point Road to our buddy Joe's house in Wawona. A marathon day, as Jason calls them, since they are about 26 miles. This one took us out to Ostrander Lake and then cross country to Hart Lake and over Horse Ridge to the Buena Vista trail. We took some snapshots of Buena Vista Lake and then continued to the famous Royal Arch Lake for lunch and a refill of water. At this point we were at the halfway mark, and as we were to find out, the rest was all downhill from there. We passed a couple more beautiful lakes and then put our heads down and marched on through the forest without much of a scenery change until near the end when we found ourselves standing at the top of Chilnualna Falls. This was at 3:30pm in direct sunlight and with all our dogs barking and looking for the finish line. We spent a little time on Joe's porch waiting for him to arrive home from work, then had a beer with him, and then got a ride back to our car and the valley. Another fine day. The postcards are of the following: the first looks out over the Tuolomnee area from above Hart Lake; the second is Royal Arch Lake; the third is Jason moving over big pieces of granite on the cross-country part of the hike, the best part, the choose your own adventure part. Enjoy.

The Object of Our Desire (Mt. Florence)

It was a great day of traveling through the Sierra's two weeks ago, but not a day for finding our way to the top of Mt. Florence. We settled for the fact that we got to the last lake underneath Florence, and then rested and had lunch before heading back. There was lots of cross-country travel and moving through snow and boulder fields and past lakes and creeks and over passes. All in all a good day with my buddies, Shane and David. And now we know the most direct way to that obscure object of desire, Mt. Florence. Enjoy a few of the postcards from that day.

The Complete Circumnavigation of Tenaya Canyon

So with our one day off of work this week (Rojo with his job, and me with a brand new baby) we got out into the park and circled Tenaya Canyon. What this involves is the following: parking the bikes at the Mirror Lake trailhead, walking past Vernal and Nevada Falls, summiting Clouds Rest, walking to Tenaya Lake and having lunch, continuing to Olmstead Point, walking around Mt. Watkins and down the Snow Creek Trail to Mirror Lake finishing with the final paved mile down to the busstop where our bikes were locked up. 30 miles is a pretty good day hike. The bottom postcard shows some of the final steps leading to the summit of Clouds Rest with Half Dome and the valley beyond. The second snapshot is of Rojo contemplating the reason why we are moving forward with this plan- Tenaya Lake still looks far away and still further from our destination of the valley floor in the other direction. The third postcard is from the trail towards Mt. Watkins with Tenaya Canyon below us and the summit of Clouds Rest visible across the canyon walls, where we had been standing 3 hours earlier. By that point it was just one foot in front of the other, although we were traveling through new scenery for us which was picturesque. Now its time to come up with a new plan, and a new trail loop. Enjoy.

One Rim at a Time

We started out strong today, David and I, and with some strong convictions: go for the rim-to-rim hike, repeating last years traverse of Yosemite Valley and therefore saving the reversal direction for the Fall with Rojo. This was the last quick jaunt around the valley for the summer before the baby arrives any day now, and a nice way to tie up all the times I spent this year on the various trails of this venture. And even with all the GU's and Cliff Blocks we could stomach we only completed half the hike. By the time we reached Camp 4 at the 6 hour mark, I was calling it quits. It was 1pm and the heat and the Georgia mugginess of the whole day had put an end to it. And you know what? I don't feel bad about stopping. Sometimes 16 miles is enough, and I will save the hike again for a better day. The rest of the afternoon was spent with my very pregnant wife getting things ready for the addition of another family member, and we still don't know whether it will be a boy or girl. At least for a few more days. The bottom postcard is part of the trail on Snow Creek in the morning, and the top postcard is overlooking the valley from near Yosemite Point, which is in the lower right of the snapshot. Enjoy.

Triple Waterfalls

Rojo and I had plans this morning for the reversal of our famous Yosemite Valley rim to rim trail from 2010. The plan was to park at the Mirror Lake bus stop again and then head over to and up the Panorama Trail, down the 4 Mile Trail, walking across the street and up Yosemite Falls and proceeding to cross the north rim to Yosemite Point going behind North Dome and coming down the Snow Creek Trail to Mirror Lake. Last year we did the opposite loop. However, the weather moved in last night and we had rain all evening and all morning and we canceled our big plans at 530am and made new ones for something also exciting: if the weather broke we would do the almost-famous triple waterfall day- Yosemite Falls then Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls. So after a pleasant breakfast at the Ahwahnee Hotel with my 38 week pregnant beautiful wife Laura, Rojo and I left for Yosemite Falls around 11am. It hadn't really stopped raining, but it wasn't very heavy and besides was mixed in with the torrential windswept falls spray being blown onto the trail. The top snapshot gives a small postcard view of the visibility from the summit. We then turned around and headed back to the car and drove over to the Curry Village backpackers parking lot and walked to Happy Isles. At the junction where the Mist and Muir Trail split a ranger asked us if we were prepared to get wet- we nodded and kept going. Because of the weather there was not the usual June summer crowd on the trails, but going up the Mist steps was like being in a car wash, or falling in the river. Nothing was dry, and we had never seen anything like that in the past ten years. Near the top of the steps for Nevada Falls was water rolling down places I had never seen also. We elected to return via the Muir trail because we were tired of being wet all day, the bottom postcard giving a good view of Grizzly Peak with Yosemite Falls behind it, and a neat perspective for the distance covered today.....granted we drove between the two points, however we were on top of the Falls several hours earlier and managed the triple waterfall day just fine. Another beautiful outing, another backyard boogie.

June Outakes (4 Mile-Panorama Trail)

Since its been awhile, I thought I would post a few snapshots from our walk up to Glacier Point and down a few weeks ago, after work. Enjoy.

The Other Side of Half Dome...

....lies Mt. Watkins. The usual response to people hearing that you went to the summit of Mt. Watkins: Uh, Where's Mt. Watkins? But its okay. It doesn't have a trail to the top and probably doesn't need one. Today we found ourselves on the summit after hiking up the Snow Creek trail, followed by a forest stroll and shrubbery shuffle, and ending with a game of granite slab walking. All for something to do simply to pass the time. Enjoy some postcards from today in Yosemite.

It Wasn't too Loud, 'Cause We're Not that Old

....although the sound of the water coming from the Falls was booming that day but in a good way. Last Wednesday I spent the morning following one of those nice long Yosemite sidewalks to the top of Yosemite Falls with Rojo, Rojo's Dad Chris and Tony. We snuck in a quick hike to the summit while the clouds were rolling into the valley and covering all of Glacier Point across the way. Parting ways back at the Lodge hotel found the sky letting loose with a little rain as I walked home. As I write this now days later it is back to complete overcast and rain again for another summer weekend. Life in Yosemite. Tough. Enjoy the postcards, in the top one we discovered water....haha.

P.S. (I had a lot of fun Chris and Tony, lets do another one next time.)