After spending Mother’s Day with Derek in San Jose, Jim and I headed into Yosemite for a 5 day backpacking trip. Last year, we only spent one night in the park which was not enough time to really go anywhere. Yosemite had reported 50% more snow than last year so Jim and I threw in our snow gear before leaving Seattle.
As the trip got close, we were finally able to get a weather report. There was snow forecasted for our 4th day. Oh well. One bad day out of 5 is not bad.
Our goal for the trip was to circumnavigate the Clark Range going over Red Peak Pass at 11,000 feet and coming out via the summit of Cloud’s Rest, the high point just east of Half Dome. We would start and end the loop from Glacier Point.
When we arrived Glacier Point, we found about half the people as we had seen the year before. And Half Dome had a small patch of snow still on top.
The waterfalls in the valley were so very beautiful. Wow, that’s a lot of water coming out of the high Sierras.
Jim and I were expecting snow patches on the trail but we were pleased to find only dirt. After the first mile, we saw no other people for the rest of our trip.
After 4 miles, we hit our first creek. The water was running high so we could not rock hop. We quickly put on our Crocks and waded across.
When we hit the next creek crossing, we were surprised to find no bridge. We were on hiking trails. This was a full blown river. Our goal of circumnavigating the Clark Range ended only 4 hours into Day 1. Time to come up with Plan B.
After studying the maps we had with us, we decided to follow the hiking trails up over Buena Vista Ridge which would loop us back to Glacier Point road where we could hitchhike back to Glacier Point. It was a shorter trip but with a name like “Buena Vista” it had to be pretty.
That night we found ourselves camped on a beautiful, flat knoll with a view of Mt Clark. We sat in the evening light, in shorts and tee shirts, enjoying the soft, dry ground.
Day 2, we woke to blue skies and a hot sun. We were in short and tee shirts before 10 am. This area was full of granite domes.
As the trail climbed, we had views of the Half Dome valley as well as the entire Clark Range. We would be back to climb in there.
Around 1pm, we hit the snow line as we climbed to Buena Vista Pass. We were eager to cross over the pass since it was south facing and bound to have less snow.
Late in the afternoon, we came to Buena Vista Pass, our high point of the trip. We took a minute to climb to Buena Vista Ridge for a view. The name did not disappoint.
The high point had a bunch of flat granite slabs. Big ones.
The granite covered about half a football field. There was intermittent dirt. It took Jim and I about 30 seconds to decide to be done for the day and camp here. We both agreed, it was the nicest summit camp either of us had ever had.
There was even a large dirt patch with large blocks on both sides, perfect for our tent and offered wonderful wind protection.
Jim decided to hike up the high point on the ridge, Mt Bruce, while I stayed behind to make water (melt snow).
We enjoyed mountain margaritas and queso dip as we tried to identify all the peaks in the Clark Range. We both slept with smiles on our faces.
We woke to high winds. Good thing our tent was in this protected nook. In the end, even our protected nook couldn’t save us from the wind. But after dropping less than 100 feet, Jim and I were in the trees and out of the wind.
Today was forecasted to be cloud and spitting wet snow but we still got views of the near by granite slabs.
As we dropped the snow, we kept looking for the snow line. For some reason, this south side had more snow than the north side. We are still not sure why. Good thing we had 2 GPS units and hiking trail maps to follow. They weren’t the most detailed maps but they were enough to keep us at least near the trail.
Today, we would hike past 3 lakes. The first 2 were completely snow covered while the third was partly melted out.
Finally, we got below the snow line and picked up the trail. Then the sun came out and dried up our rain gear. Our goal for the day was to follow the trail into the next basin and camp for the night. This would put us in great position to do a short day on Thursday which was our forecasted bad weather day.
As we followed the trail over a ridge into the next basin, we found ourselves back on snow. We would cross the creek and climb out of the basin to find a dry spot to camp.
When we hit the creek, our stomachs sank. This was a freakin raging river. Where are all the bridges? It was hard to believe that this river would be crossable for the average hiker in 6 weeks or so.
It was time for Plan C.
Since Jim had seen some pretty big bear tracks in the basin, we decided to go back to the trail junction and cross over a neighboring stream to find dry ground and a place to camp. Let the bear have the basin.
After camp was setup, we decided to use a “Life Line” and call in some advice from people with a computer at their finger tips. We love our InReach.
From here, we had 3 main trip options….
- Go back the way we came. But that would mean going back over Buena Vista Pass in the bad weather.
- Continue straight downhill from where we were camped aim for the town of Wawona. But this would all be off trail and we didn’t have very good maps. Plus if we got to the town of Wawona, we would be on the wrong side of the Merced River. Big question was is there a bridge?
- Go back to the creek (ragging river) that we could not cross and hike up to the headwaters to find a snow bridge. But this would involve hiking up river at least 2 or 3 miles, back into the snow zone.
Slowly, 1 by 1 responses to our questions came in… Our weather had gotten worse. We were now in a winter storm warning. Definitely did not want to go back over Buena Vista Pass. No one could find a bridge over the river to Wawona if we went down from here. That left going to the head waters and looking for snow bridges.
We tried to sleep but all night we heard heavy, wet snow hitting the tent. Every inch would make the hike up to the headwaters worse.
In the morning, we were delighted to see only a few new inches of snow on the ground and blue sky. We quickly packed up and headed out.
The creek we had crossed the night before was running higher than the day before so we ended up climbing up stream about 500 feet until we found a trust worthy snow bridge. The new snow was deeper up here but still very manageable. The blue sky made the 2 mile hike up stream go very quickly.
At the headwaters of the ragging river, the stream split into 3 creeks. We would cross them after they split. As we approached each creek, we would hike upstream until a suitable snow bridge was found.
Before long, we had successfully crossed all three creeks which meant we were on the other side of the ragging river. Success!
By early afternoon, we had reach the trail again. Directly across from where we had left it the day before. It had taken us 24 hours to cross the creek.
We were on the other side of the creek and back on our trail. The trail was under several feet of snow but it was there, according to our maps.
All day, it had been alternating between sun and heavily snow. Jim had made about 10 clothing changes. Around 5pm, it started to snow with no signs of stopping so we began looking for a place to make camp, protected from the weather.
We found a dense clump of big trees. After several minutes of digging, we had dry ground to sleep on. Up went the tent and we climbed inside to wait out the storm.
We woke to blue skies and a foot of new snow.
Travel in the new snow was slow and tiring but it was so pretty.
We lost the trail several times over the next couple of hours. We had to navigate with the GPS and a compass. Weather was due in around 1pm but it never showed. We enjoyed the sun though it was quite a bit colder than the days before.
Just before 3pm, we heard a snow plow. Yeah! We were near Glacier Point road. Soon we hit the Bridalveil Campground still mostly under snow. As we walked through the campground and headed to the main road, we noticed something odd. There were no cars driving to or from Glacier Point. Our car was at Glacier Point. 8 miles down the road.
We used the InReach to contact Jim Aga and find out Glacier Point road had been closed and not due to open back up for 3 days. Jim and I could not deal with the thought of walking 8 miles of road in our hiking boots so we decided to dry everything out and take a break.
After a 2 hour break, we began the 8 mile walk to retrieve our car. In the meantime, Jim Aga kept working on the problem of how to open the gate at the end of the road so we could get out.
As we walked, we wondered what we were going to find that was causing them to close the road. Tree down? Snow? Ice? In the end, we decided it was just precautionary since there was water on the road and it was freezing every night.
We reached the car in under 3 hours, drove back to where we had left our gear, and ate dinner in our car with the heater on. We decided to sleep in the tent in the middle of the road. It was the coldest night we had.
At 5:30 am, we decided to get up and drive to the road entrance and assess the gate. It was locked. Jim walked around and found a working pay phone. Jim Aga had told us to call 911. Jim did that and the 911 operator was able to identify the phone booth and gave us the combination to the lock. That was way too easy.
As we drove out of Yosemite, we tried to name all the people we knew would have enjoyed our adventure. Let’s just say the list was very short. Good thing we have each other.
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