Day 14 – Yosemite Take 2

Yesterday was incredibly frustrating. I was determined to have a better day today. I have to say; I started the day off right. Like always, I was up before dawn. I got everything packed up, and was off into the park.

I would first like to add that while everyone is enjoying gas at $2.60 per gallon at home, I paid $4.99 per gallon to fill up today. Frustrating…

As soon as I made it into the park, I saw a fox run across the road. It was a fairly large fox. I’ve only seen one before, and that one was much smaller.

I drove straight through without stopping and made it to Camp 4. Camp 4 is located right in the heart of Yosemite Valley in between El Captain and the Upper & Lower Falls. The campground sits about 40 yards from the base of the Mountain. I later saw a sign saying that Camp 4 is on the national registry of historical places. Apparently, rock climbers have been coming to Camp 4 for over a 100 years. This is not suprising considering the setting. I really would have liked to spend more time here. I would say that the camp was made up of about 5% Americans. There was people here from all over the world. They created a makeshift community revolving around rock climbing.

Anyway, so here I am staying at one of the most beautiful places on Earth. No reservations. Just walk up and pitch your tent. 6 tents to a camping area. All for just $5 dollars a night. Im sorry, but you cant beat that.

Anyway, my first hike of the day was to mirror lake and half dome. I was not aware that mirror lake is dry during the fall, but the hike was still nice. I decided to break off from the paved trail, and take a trail through the woods. Turns out it was a horse trail. I walked over a mile on a horse manure filled trail. Hahaha. It was still awesome.

The next hike was up to Vernal Falls. This hike was pretty challenging. Not due to the terrain, but the altitude change is fairly significant. Right from the beginning you start climbing. After 1 mile, you make it to the footbridge where you can see the falls. This wasn’t good enough for me, so I decided to hike to the top of the falls. It is another .3 miles to the base of the falls, then 600 granite stairs cut out of the side of the mountain to the top. This was by far the hardest part. You are pretty high at the base of the falls, and 600 stairs at altitude is a taxing task.

The entire experience was absolutely worth it. I stopped about halfway up the falls and had a sandwich. The sun was getting low at that point, so the mist was putting off a cool rainbow.

That was the best part though. On the way down, I walked by a woman and over heard her saying that a bear was across the ridge. Sure enough, right across the stream that the falls emptied into was a brown bear. First bear I’ve ever seen in my life. Lucky for me, it was a few hundred yards away on a different slope. I watched the bear for a while, then made my way down the mountain.

At the bottom of the mountain, I saw a small gathering of people. I walked over to investigate. Just off the road there were three 6-point buck sitting there. I was probably 15 feet from them. They just sat on the ground chewing away, not paying attention to us at all.

Later that night, I was able to get a shower. I hadn’t showered in a few days. It’s amazing how luxurious a gym room shower can be… when you stink. Haha.