Falling for Yosemite

10-07-2001

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - The three crown jewels of America's National Park System, Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, are all tributes to the foresight of 19th-century visionaries who recognized that the magnificence of stupendous geologic formations and the vastness of unbridled nature should be preserved much as we found them for benefit and enjoyment of future generations.

In fact, Yosemite's development as a national preserve can be traced to a single spring evening 98 years ago.

	The north wall of Yosemite Valley, featuring the 3,593-foot vertical rock El Capitan, rises above grassy meadows. (Photos - David Bear)

It's easy to visualize the tight knot of campers circled around a crackling fire in a forest clearing along a wide meander of the Merced River in the broad valley that great glaciers gouged deep into Sierra bedrock over the past 50 million years. Flush with melting snow, the river would have been ripping at its gravel banks as it rumbled past, competing with the low clatter of the forest as it was descending into dusk.

To the north, across the valley, slanting beams from the low-setting sun illuminated the sheer, sharp-browed slab of granite soaring seven-tenths of a mile above the valley floor. Those rays made its quartz and feldspar crystals shimmer gold and simultaneously cast its monolithic neighbors into deep shadow.

On the green valley's near side, Bridalveil Creek spun a ceaseless ribbon of white, as it cascaded over a sheer precipice 64 stories high. Here the sun illuminated the bridal veil's misty train, weaving a faint arc of rainbow as a heavenly barrette.

		If you go ... For Yosemite information: 209-372-0200 or www.nps.gov/yose. For lodging reservations: 559-252-4848. For camping reservations: 800-436-7275.

"On this site President Theodore Roosevelt sat beside a campfire with John Muir on May 17, 1903, and talked 'forest good.' Muir urged the president to work for preservation of priceless remnants of America's Wilderness. At this spot one of out country's foremost conservationists received great inspiration."

I almost breezed past the historic marker, as I steered my rented convertible up the access road toward Yosemite Lodge the last Monday of April. After attending an editors conference in San Francisco, I had only a few days to grab a glimpse of a national park I knew I could happily spend a month exploring.

It isn't surprising that I almost missed the sign. The unadorned wooden placard is planted inauspiciously at the edge of a tiny parking lot. Although I had the road to myself, in the summer traffic through here can slow to a crawl, so perhaps visitors might have an easier time spotting it.

The main reason the sign is easy to miss, however, is that stupendous view of Bridalveil and El Capitan with which it competes. That scenery has captivated not only presidents but also countless photographers, not least of which was Ansel Adams, whose image of this scene defines most people's impression of Yosemite.

It takes just one glance to see this place is special.

Although Roosevelt is popularly credited with creating the park, in fact, much of the 7-mile-long Yosemite Valley was set aside five decades before this campfire chat took place. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln deeded the valley to the state of California. In 1890, Congress set aside 750,000 acres of adjacent "reserved forest lands" as Yosemite National Park.

However, it took years of intense lobbying by Muir and other conservation-minded people to get the valley transferred back under federal control, and it became part of the national park system in1906.

	Glacier Point, at an elevation of 7,214 feet, is one of the most dramatic overlooks in Yosemite National Park. The profile of Half Dome rises above the valley in the foreground.

Now an often exciting four-hour drive from San Francisco Airport (and, I'm told, six from Los Angeles), Yosemite attracts more than 4 million visitors each year. The vast majority arrive between June and the end of September, which also are the hottest, driest months in the Sierras, when daytime temperatures on the valley floor can reach 100 and the celebrated cascades can shrivel to nothing. It's also the season for road construction and forest fires, managed and otherwise.

Although the roughly oval park incorporates 1,170 square miles, or nearly 750,000 acres, 94 percent of which is designated wilderness, and has 263 miles of roads and 800 miles of hiking trails, relatively few of those visitors get very far from Yosemite Valley.

With all the things to do and see, who can blame them? In summer, there's a full slate of naturalist-led activities, day and evening walks and talks, hikes, camera walks, children's and evening programs, museums, living history displays, films, plays and concerts. For those who are inclined, there's horseback riding, white-water rafting and rock climbing.

The valley also offers accommodations and amenities aplenty, in a variety of prices.

Over the decades, the stately, plush Ahwahnee Hotel has hosted royalty and celebrities, from JFK and Queen Elizabeth to, more recently, Shania Twain and Monica Lewinsky. Its high-ceiling, glass-walled main dining room ranks among America's most scenic places to enjoy a fine meal.

Yosemite Lodge, with its ample campus of 245 comfortable guest rooms, each with two queen-size beds, offers less pricey hospitality. The Mountain Room Restaurant and Garden Terrace offer a choice between relaxed, high-quality dining and a hearty one-price, self-serve buffet line with an elaborate salad bar, soups, pasta and carved-to-order meats.

Curry Village, with 103 cabins and 327 platform tents, provides low-cost lodging, along with a highly communal experience. Housekeeping Camp adds another 266 rustic camping shelters. Those arriving with their own tents or RVs will find sites to set up camp in the three Pines areas. Yosemite Village encompasses a range of services, including a Park Store with a Giant Eagle-size grocery section.

Most park visitors will spend their days exploring the valley by foot, Roller Blades, bicycles, car or the free shuttle bus that runs regular loops between 19 strategic stations. Those who remember will show up for sunset at the Tunnel View turnout to enjoy the classic view of Yosemite Valley.

Some visitors may undertake longer excursions to one of the park's three groves of giant sequoias. The most famous, the Mariposa Grove, is located near the park's southern entrance, some 45 miles from the valley. The Merced and Tuolumne groves are closer, only five miles up the twisting Big Oak Flat road.

Along the way, drivers will encounter impressive feats of highway engineering and will pass hillsides blackened by forest fires last year. This summer was a relatively mild one for fires in Yosemite. This month's rains should bring it to an end, but even still, a managed burn of some 8,000 acres still smoked up the valley most mornings and evenings in September.

More physically focused families will venture up the steep but relatively easy hour ramble up the John Muir Trail to the top of Vernal Falls. One loop known as the Mist Trail treats each walker with a personal rainbow.

Some will continue even farther along the Merced River to the top of Nevada Falls, where the sheer escarpment is bridged by a wooden truss. It's a more demanding, two-hour round trip, but the view from the top is incomparable. The sign at its edge warns simply, "If you go over the falls, you will die." No one who sees this abyss can doubt that advice.

From this high point, those who have the desire, time and stamina can hike four more miles to the top of Half Dome, the solid mass of plutonic granite that tops out at 8,842 feet. Although it's an even longer hike from Nevada Falls, the railing edge at Glacier Point, at 3,214 feet above the valley floor, is one of Earth's most exhilarating overlooks.

On another day, these hardy visitors may make the even more demanding, 7-mile round trip hike from the valley floor to the top of Yosemite Falls, which is North America's highest, plummeting a total of 2,425 feet in three magnificent leaps.

	The wind-scarred, twisted trunk of a Jeffrey pine at Yosemite National Park is one of the most photographed trees in the world. The tree, which died during a drought in 1982, sits on the summit of Sentinel Dome.

The first mile of the trail traverses a series of 66 tight switchbacks rising straight through a forested grove that's taken root on an old rockfall. At the top of this ladder, another mile of trail runs laterally back across the sandy flanks of the side wall. Rounding a tight bend, hikers catch their first stunning glimpse of the upper falls, which towers in the distance.

The plunge is so far that although Yosemite Creek is yards wide and feet deep as it roars over the edge, its cascade dissolves into spray and reforms into watery plumes that re-dissolve again before they boom into the boulders at the bottom, creating sort of a perpetual rainbow engine, at least when the sun is up.

At this point the trail climbs more steeply though another series of switchbacks landscaped up a side valley. Occasional streams of melt water course over the granite pebbles fitted into a stone embankment at each turn. A sheer wall of granite towers so high along one side, it's easy to get a neck cramp trying to see the top. Shade becomes elusive.

Eventually, of course, there's the exhilaration of actually getting to the top of the trail, where it leads off into the high country or cuts back over the moss-carpeted cliff and crosses the creek a few yards upstream from the edge of the abyss.

Though Yosemite Point is still half a mile farther and more than 100 feet higher than the bridge, this vantage was plenty high for this hiker who gets edgy around sheer drops of half a mile. My trepidation wasn't helped by another of those terse warning signs for those who might be inclined to do a little wading. "If you fall into the water, there are no second chances."

In late April, when days were relatively cool and all the falls were running fast with snow-melt, both these climbs up and the views from the top are breathtaking. Making these two treks in the heat of summer would be another matter entirely. No matter what time of year, hikers should leave plenty of time and carry more water than they think they'll need, especially if they're accompanied by children.

Serious rock hounds even spider their way 3,593 feet to the top of El Capitan, an expedition well beyond my comprehension.

But despite all these activities, visitors who focus only on Yosemite's prime attractions still miss nine-tenths of what the park has to offer. With 800 miles of marked trails, peace can be found in many places in Yosemite, even in the height of summer.

There's the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, the 8-mile-long lake situated at the lower end of the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River. Before it was dammed in 1923 to provide water and electricity to San Francisco, this valley was a narrower version of Yosemite. Although no water activities are permitted on or in the 300-foot-deep lake itself, a waterfall-studded hiking trail threads along its northern rim, providing dramatic views as well as access to the upper canyon and high country beyond.

More than a dozen 10,000-foot-plus mountains stand eternal sentinel duty along the park's eastern flank, several rising above 13,000 feet.

	El Capitan, rising above the Merced River, is believed to be the largest single block of exposed granite in the world. Rock climbers from around the world attempt the vertical cliff face.

Their pinnacles are mirrored in countless, nameless glacial-melt lakes and wreathed by alpine meadows carpeted with marsh marigolds, showy lupines, monkeyflowers, Lewis paintbrushes and Jeffrey shooting stars. There are forests of black oak, Ponderosa pine, incense cedar and sequoia. Black bears abound in the back country, and the skies are patrolled by falcon, eagle and Steller's jays. At night, great gray owls haunt the woods.

The Pacific Crest trail passes through here on its long trek between the borders of Canada and Mexico, but you can hike up a dozen other trails and ramble along a ridge line. Stand on a high pass, with the waning sun in your face, waxing moon at your back, and the sublime silence of Yosemite will echo in every fiber of your being.

And here's another bit of Yosemite common sense:

The park is open year-round, and the show never stops.

Although the grass was just greening when I visited in late April, all of the waterfalls were going crazy. In the fall, when leafy color reaches its peak, the days are cooler and crowds considerably smaller.

The weather can be wet and dicey in November and March, but from Thanksgiving through February, Yosemite is white and wonderful. At only 4,000 feet, valley temperatures are relatively mild. The snowy blanket and open woods make animals easier to observe.

Yosemite also offers downhill skiing. When it opened in 1934, Badger Pass was California's first ski resort. Now it has nine runs, state-of-the-art snow grooming and a variety of attractively priced lift and accommodations packages.

Badger Pass also has more than 90 miles of fee-free cross-country ski trails, as well as other networks around the park, both groomed and natural. (The one I visited in the Tuolumne Grove of giant sequoias still had broad patches of snow, with trail markers situated 15 feet above the ground.) There are ranger-led snow-shoe trips, interpretive cross-country ski tours, hut-to-hut skiing and, for a real adventure, a guided Trans-Sierra Expedition.

What could be more magnificent than ice skating on a starry evening under the moonlit profiles of Half Dome and Glacier Point, with a crackling fire as refuge if you get too cold?

So if you didn't make it out to Yosemite this summer, don't worry. Almost any time is a good time to go.

[Back to Articles Main]