I had a couple of trips to Yosemite In October and was able to knock off three of the classic day hikes that have been written about before. I had the weekend of the 3-5 of October set aside months ago to head up with a friend who wanted to do, amongst other things, the Ledge Trail. When AndrewF posted about his Teneya Canyon trip here, I commented (as did Basilbop) and Chick-on threw out an offer to take us down Tenaya Canyon. This then morphed into a combo trip with my buddy Jeff and me driving up with Old Dude (aka Mike, who would act as our chauffer and Sherpa for the weekend). Jeff and I would be doing the ledge trail on Saturday, and then driving up to the Sunrise trailhead to meet Chick-on, Basilbop and JustKeepWalking (who was a "definite maybe" as she was still rehabbing from a bad back) for a group trip down Tenaya Canyon. The trip was further complicated by the weather the weekend before, which forced Chick-on and his wife to delay their trip until the few days before we were to meet up.
So in the end the plan was to have three cars coming from three different places, converging on the Sunrise trailhead, on Saturday afternoon. 6 of us were planning to hike in and spend the night, with 4 likely to head down the Canyon on Sunday, to be picked up by Mike at the Awhanee. There were lots of moving parts to the weekend, but between cellphones, walkie-talkies, smoke signals and the like we were pretty sure we could find each other. We also needed the requisite permits, which added to the “what if” scenarios.
We met Mike at his house mid-day on Friday and scooted on up to the Big Oak Flat permit center, where we were fortunate enough to be able to get the day-before permits for the Sunrise Creek trailhead. We did get “the look” from the ranger when we let her know that we were going down the Canyon. She let us know that there were already at least 3 SAR trips in the canyon over the summer, she made sure that we had the appropriate gear, and gave us our permit. We headed down to the valley, had dinner and beers at the pizza deck, and texted and emailed the others that we had permit success
Saturday morning we started out behind Curry Village. I was not sure where the Ledge Trail began, though I thought it was closer to the backpacker’s parking lot based on AnotherDave's recent report. Jeff thought that he had spied the start of the trail the weekend before, coming out of the ruins of the old Curry cabin back stairs…so off I went after Jeff, through the remains of the old Curry Cabin and up a use trail that led up to somebody’s well used and illegal camping spot a hundred feet up or so…and no further. Knowing that, from there, anyway up was correct at that point, we worked through steep trees and brush
to the base of the cliff,
where we quickly found the old orange arrows that generally showed the way
We got to the turn and enjoyed the views
We found the lower, exposed portion to be a bit more fun than the upper, brushy portion.
Reaching Glacier point at about 11:30, we had lunch and checked our phones for information on our meeting with the rest of the group, to be held later in the day. While we had been worried about JKW’s status, it turns out that Basilbop had suffered an injury on the way up (Really? Raley’s?) which had us bummed out…but certainly no more than Basilbop.... and we got word that Basilbop and JKW were going to head home to recover. Double bummer.
So Jeff and I made our way down the 4 mile trail, where Mike was waiting for us at the trailhead in the Valley, and we zipped up to Olmstead point, where we found Chick-on perched up on a rock (where else?) waiting for us. He hopped in, and we were on the Sunrise trail by about 5, and soon down in the Tenaya bowl, admiring the granite and views, which were glorious with the late evening light and the fall colors
Making camp at dark, we did our evening chores
And then set aside our wilderness experience for an hour or two as we got updates (great cell phone reception there!) of the Giant’s 18 inning win against the Nats.
Sunday morning we were up early, ate and packed, leaving much of our stuff for Mike to haul back to the car. Waving goodby to our Sherpa, Mike,
we headed up to the lone boulder,
over to the shrub dog area,
and down into lost valley and then down into the gorge
It was a great trip, seeing familiar sites from unfamiliar locations
The keys to a safe trip were good weather, low water, and an experienced leader who had done the route before. Fortunately we had all three.
We met Mike at the Awhanee parking lot, toasted our successful completion of the Tenaya Canyon downclimb.
Fast forward to this past weekend when I was back up with a different group on an annual outing. This year’s goal was the Diving Board. We had Friday lunch at the Iron Door in Groveland, where the bartender instructed us on the propert technique to get one's dollar bill successfully stuck to the ceiling
Turns out one of our group had never seen the Valley in the daytime, so we drove in and spent Friday afternoon watching climbers on El Cap, then driving around the Valley, and eating Pizza at the Pizza deck. After dinner, we drove back past El Cap, and decided to have one more look on a clear, moonless night, and counted more than 20 headlights up on the wall…it was as if the stars came right down to the Valley floor. I wish I had my good camera and tripod to take a shot. If you get a chance to check out October climbers on El Cap on a moonless night, I highly recommend it.
Saturday morning we hit the trail at Glacier point as the sun's rays were just lighting up the high country
crossed over the Panorama Cliffs area
and stepped off trail just past Liberty Cap, whose shoulder gave a great view of our potential routes…either the slabs route at the base of the back side of Half Dome, or the gully route, which I had taken once before.
The slabs route, although well defined by Chick-on in various posts, had us concerned, so we opted for the gully route
Which led up to the ridge to the base of the Diving Board
And finally the diving Board itself, which we crossed via the crack…some of our party were less than thrilled
To the spot where we re-created Ansels Adams famous photograph “The Monolith”, albeit without snow and with people
The route back to Glacier point was non-eventful. Although I saw too many examples of people who were going to get back to their respective trailheads late, cold and very tired. We were back at Glacier point just after dark, about 12 hours after we started.
So three Yosemite Fall Classics were in the books. And while I wrote this the Giants beat the Royals in game 1!
had nothing to do with the trail and all to do with people going both off trail....AND off route....rather than sticking to the trail.
