Staying in Yosemite Valley takes far more forward planning than Rachel and I can manage, so our plan was to get a backcountry permit instead. However, there’s still a lot of snow in Yosemite, so our options were pretty limited. We ended up choosing a short 15 mile overnight trip going up the Yosemite Falls trail and down Snow Falls.
Yosemite is particularly nice at this time of year as all the waterfalls are flowing. On a previous trip I’ve stood underneath Yosemite falls, but that certainly wasn’t an option this week, as you can see from the picture.
Despite the late spring, it was really hot hiking up out of the valley, so we were very glad of the spray from the falls, and eventually a cooling breeze as we reached the valley rim. From Yosemite falls we headed up the valley rim towards North Dome, but quickly encountered large amounts of snow. All the north-facing slopes were still thickly covered which made navigation tricky at times.
We finally reached a relatively snow free valley above Royal Arch Falls, and found a nice campsite with a nearby spring for water. We’d been there about half an hour when the local bear dropped in to see what was going on. He was more interested in eating the tops of the young pine trees than in us, and didn’t stay long enough to be photographed.
After a peaceful night, we headed on to North Dome and a fantastic view across the valley to Half Dome. We didn’t have far to go on the second day, so took our time and explored various side trails, including Indian Rock, with a rather nice arch at the top. Navigation was again difficult as we had about three miles of solid snow, deep enough that the trail signs were all but obscured. Finally, we descended back into the valley.
This was a great overnight trip. The views from North Dome are some of the best in the valley, and once we got beyond the top of Yosemite Falls we were pretty much on our own. Yosemite is spectacular in the spring, and a backcountry trip is by far the best way to enjoy it, despite the long hot climbs out of the valley.
One of the secrets of backcountry trips in Yosemite is that you’re allowed to camp in the backpackers campsite in the valley the night before and after. However, the river was so high with snowmelt that the campsite was partly underwater and the bridge back to our car was awash. We had to move the tent as the rangers were expecting higher water than the previous day, but happily woke to find the water hadn’t reached our new pitch.
Saturday we had an easy day visiting all the usual Yosemite views, but beat a hasty retreat as all the weekend visitors invaded the valley.
Wow, cool picture of the bear!
I’ve only even seen them in silhouette at dusk; one time my head torch lit up the eyes of a VERY large black outline in the bushes about 10 metres in front! Needless to say we backed away pretty quickly trying to look as big as we could ourselves! Were we scared? Petrified!!!
Indian Rock looks like an amazing feature. How big is the gap under the arch?
The arch at Indian Rock is pretty small – less than 2m high and maybe 5m wide, but it’s in a very odd place, right on the top of the hill.
Rach wants to know about El Cap after watching climbers on it. How hard? And how long does it take? And have you climbed it?
Sorry, no we haven’t climbed El Cap. We planned to in 2003 but failed to get our act together enough to even get on the wall! 🙁 It can take several days to climb – it’s a vertical mile high! We would probably take three or maybe four days to make an ascent given no unreasonable crowds or slow teams in front of us on the most famous and popular route, The Nose. The Nose was first climbed in 1958 taking 47 days, however, the current record is just 2 hours 37 minutes! 😮 It’s not silly hard; a lot (31 long pitches) of steady aid (A2) climbing (using the gear, not the rock, to progress upwards) and middle grade free climbing (5.10, about E2). But it is a massive undertaking, the physical and psychological strain of being plastered to a massive rock face for so long is very serious. Imagine dragging everything you need up behind you, including all of your water for several days of hard work in strong Californian sunshine!
The other classic route is Salathe Wall (A2 5.10). It was Salathe Wall that the ITV show Adrenalin Junkie saw “Junkie” Jack Osbourne get dragged up. A friend of mine, Steve, was the safety consultant on that adventure…
Is that black stuff on the snow fall-out from Iceland?!
Fantastic pictures.
Did you enjoy the burgers and fries in the valley with free top-up cokes? Makes me laugh. You really see the extremes of the States.
We missed out on those, although we did have the burgers in Kings Canyon. :yum:
WOW!!