Welcome! Log In Create A New Profile Recent Posts
Yosemite Falls

The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (61% of Full)


Advanced

Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers

All posts are those of the individual authors and the owner of this site does not endorse them. Content should be considered opinion and not fact until verified independently.

Forum List Message List New Topic Print View
KatyAnderson
Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 16, 2014 06:13PM
This from Yosemite Nations FB page:

"Yosemite National Park is now started offering overnight stays at the #GlacierPoint Ski hut, is now accessible by the recently-opened Four-Mile Trail.
They have availability at the Glacier Point Ski Hut for hikers, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights starting Friday, January 17. Access to the hut is via the 4-Mile Trail. Guests should call the Yosemite Mountaineering School Office 209-372-8444 for reservations or more information."
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 18, 2014 02:21PM
Is the four mile trail actually four miles?
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 18, 2014 05:02PM
No.

.
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 19, 2014 01:30AM
Quote
Paris92
Is the four mile trail actually four miles?

The original route was very close to four miles. The modern version is a bit more.
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 19, 2014 10:11AM
It's about 20% longer now versus the original trail.

It now clocks in at 4.8 miles from its trailhead in the valley to Glacier Point (and about 4.7 miles to the Glacier Point Ski Hut).


.
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 20, 2014 04:05PM
I'm still puzzling over the exact length. Here's the signage.

1. "Big Red" (as I call it), near the bottom, just over 0.1 mile from Southside Drive:



2. The old bearproof steel sign at the Glacier Point end of the trail, less than 0.1 mile from Glacier Point proper:



3. The signs at the Union Point junction:





The Valley-to-Union-Point distances at least agree, though the makers of Big Red may have copied a number from the Union Point sign. I assume those signs were made at different times and may reflect data gathered by different means.
Reply Quote
wherever
Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 20, 2014 06:35PM
Quote
gophersnake
I'm still puzzling over the exact length. Here's the signage.

[......................................]

The Valley-to-Union-Point distances at least agree, though the makers of Big Red may have copied a number from the Union Point sign. I assume those signs were made at different times and may reflect data gathered by different means.

Come on, Gophersnake. You're just trolling for comments, since you are an expert on this. Those signs are older than you are, and some date back to before the trail was upgraded. Plus, there was a hotel up there, the Fire Fall point, and the trail junction in between. Any of those could be the point to which the distance was calculated.

For me, the relevant distance would be from the road to the ice cream cooler at the tourist stand. I'm estimating 4.7832 miles. That's surface distance, not the horizontal projection of it onto a Mercator map. I'm not allowing for erosion at one of the switchbacks. I am allowing for thermal expansion in the summer, and Lorentz contraction due to the earth's spin.

For those of you who don't know the history, here is one of the threads on this topic. Check out the map by Chick-on, which shows the current trail in yellow, and the old trail in red.
http://yosemitenews.info/forum/read.php?3,66049,66049
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 20, 2014 10:47PM
Quote
wherever
Come on, Gophersnake. You're just trolling for comments...
grinning smiley I got one, I got one!!!

Quote

...since you are an expert on this. Those signs are older than you are, and some date back to before the trail was upgraded.
Thanks, but not such an expert, really. I'm still studying the history of that trail and there's a lot to go. I've heard that those signs are pretty old but I don't have much info on just how old. Since they're not all the same style/shape, the different batches were probably made years apart.

Quote

For me, the relevant distance would be from the road to the ice cream cooler at the tourist stand. I'm estimating 4.7832 miles. That's surface distance, not the horizontal projection of it onto a Mercator map. I'm not allowing for erosion at one of the switchbacks. I am allowing for thermal expansion in the summer, and Lorentz contraction due to the earth's spin.

I'll be sure to check it out with my pedometer next time I go up there. It's such a drag taking precisely 26-inch steps, though. tongue sticking out smiley
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 22, 2014 05:51PM
Quote
gophersnake
I've heard that those signs are pretty old but I don't have much info on just how old. Since they're not all the same style/shape, the different batches were probably made years apart.

Do you know where the steal came from?
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 21, 2014 06:56PM
Quote
wherever
Those signs are older than you are, and some date back to before the trail was upgraded

I wouldn't bet on it. I may not be old, but I've been young for a very long time. winking smiley

I found some info here that says those steel signs with burned-through lettering date back to the 1950s:
http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/yosemite_resources/recent_years.html#page_771

Quote

Another sign type in the war years [1940s] involved routing white-painted letters on 1-1/2-inch-thick redwood planks about four feet above the trail, but these also fell prey to bears, perhaps attracted to the oil used, as well as to hikers for campfires, souvenirs, or simply as acts of vandalism. A last resort in the 1950s involved burning lettering into iron plates and cementing the signposts into place.31

[31. Bert Sault to Jim Snyder, 9 July 1975, in Separates File, Yosemite-Trails, Y-46, #42, Yosemite Research Library and Records Center. Evidently Landscape Architect Thomas Vint was not favorably impressed with the new iron signs for aesthetic reasons, but agreed that they were necessary to solve the problem of signage in the backcountry. Notes taken by Carl P. Russell, “Conference July 30, 1952,” in Box 78, Box A—NPS files, 1938-1953, Development Part XII, Yosemite Research Library and Records Center. The metal sign program in Yosemite was initiated with designs by signmaker Lee Buzzini and welder Bill Kirk. Douglas H. Hubbard, “Yosemite Bears Chip Teeth,” Yosemite Nature Notes 34, no. 3 (March 1955).]

So "Big Red" must be an example of the first kind of sign. I wonder if it's actually the original from the 1940s or if NPS has replaced it with another one of the same kind. For whatever reason, it seems to have survived unburned, unvandalized, and ungnawed.
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 19, 2014 03:34PM
Seems like this would be very cool, to hike up and stay at the cabin.
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 19, 2014 05:04PM
Quote
Paris92
Seems like this would be very cool, to hike up and stay at the cabin.

I'd have to be deaf first.
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 19, 2014 05:16PM
Too many people snoring?
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 19, 2014 05:41PM
Quote
Paris92
Too many people snoring?

That'd be anything >0 for me.
Reply Quote
avatar Re: Glacier Point Ski Hut opens ... for hikers
January 20, 2014 06:38PM
Do you think this is really popular on weekends? Sold out?
Reply Quote
Newer Topic Older Topic
Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login