Yosemite 3

After the wonderful sunset, I went back to the Curry Camp and ate dinner, then retired for the night into my tent. The power went out three times in the next hour and I made my bed with four blankets and my sleeping bag opened on top. I woke about 4:30 am from the cold and turned the heater on. I later found out that I had paid for All-You-Can-Heat which let me run the heater all night !

The warning labels above the heater were serious and funny.




I slept through my sunrise alarm which ended up not mattering as it was very foggy in the morning. When I finally made it out to the car it was 1 deg C (34 deg F).

After a terrible breakfast of really weak, burnt American coffee and gluey porridge, I wandered off to a couple of lookouts and wondered what to do for the rest of the day.

I went back along the trail to Lower Yosemite Falls as it was now lit up by the sun and looked better than yesterday.


I climbed the rocks along the west bank this time and photographed across the stream. It was early enough that there weren't many people there.


I decided to climb to the base of the upper falls.
Here's the 3D model. The path is the squiggly one towards the bottom left of the map. The trail rises 317m over the 1.6 km, just under a 20% slope. (1040 ft in 1 mile.) The switchbacks are to smooth out the rise to a more managable 5%, still tough, but walkable.


Here's a view of the falls and where I went. The trail continues up the green valley and then turns right to the top of the upper falls. The guide map suggests needing 6 to 8 hours for the full walk to the top of the Upper Falls.


This is about a third of the way up the first section. It's steep !


But the view was worth it.


Where the trail starts to flatten out, there is lookout called Colombia Rock.


I talked to a couple of girls who were working in the archives section of the National Parks Service and had come up for a quick walk before the Superbowl.


There were several streams running down the face of the rock and I was glad my shoes were waterproof.


They show up as large streaky patches on the rock face.


Looking up Little Yosemite Valley, with Half Dome on the left, Sentinel Rocks on the right and Libery Cap as the bump at the back in the middle.


The trail skirted the bottom of the rockface and was sometimes hard going.


First view of Upper Yosemite Falls, with the rainbow at the bottom and the pile of snow.


There was also snow along the trail, hiding in the shadows at the foot of the rockface. This is the bottom of the rock face where the trail goes downhill for a while.


Before starting back uphill with switchbacks again.


I cut off the main trail and scrambled to a lookout rock overlooking the middle cascades and the snow at the base of the upper falls.


Middle cascades.


Closeup of the rainbow and snow cone.


Looking up the green valley, the trail goes up and then turns right to the top of the Upper Falls.


Closeup of the Sentinel bridge carpark and viewing area. The carpark is top left of the snow area and the woodpecker tree is in the middle.


I made it back down safely and was lucky enough to see a coyote.




I then started the drive home, stopping at all the lookouts on the way.








A last look at Half Dome in the late sun.


Big Meadow.


One for the rock fanatics ...


There was a little bit of snow beside the road.


The sunset was very cool.


And made the trees very red.


I saw 7 deer on the side of the road on the way home.


And I was lucky enough that this doe didn't mind the headlights, the buck was standing to the right out of the headlights.