Six Weeks/14 Parks
2008
We don’t care what gas costs!
The Mist Trail
The John Muir Trail
Clark’s Point
Lake Tenaya
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CA
7/11/08
Man, was it cold this morning! It’s tough going from 85º at 5:30 AM yesterday to 39º today. Nobody was ready for that. But we carried on and got ourselves down to the valley where it was quite a bit warmer. There was still a lot of smoke in the air. We parked at Curry Village, walked to the Happy Isles Nature Center and then started up the Mist Trail, first to the Vernal Falls Bridge an then to the falls themselves. This is a *very* popular trail (crowded) with a 1000’ ascent that some people just don’t realize is waiting for them.
A ranger that we met along the trail told us that if we went a little higher, we would cross the Muir Trail, which came back down a more indirect route and was warmer but less crowded. Little did we know that it would provide some of the most beautiful views of the mountains around Yosemite Valley!
After lunch at Curry Village, we drove about 1.5 hours back up Tioga Road through the park to Lake Tenaya. It was funny to watch these beach kids go swimming in a lake. This lake has a beautiful sandy beach and bottom, with lots of sparkling quartz crystals. The water is pure snow melt, but warm near the surface. It was fun to work on our tans with the mountains all around us
Words and photos cannot describe the intense wonder of the falls cascading down from 1000 feet, sending spray over the steps of the trail, making rainbows in the air above the rocks below. The trail was narrow, especially a the top. Some of the hikers were nervous at the thought of the trip down over those wet steps, which made the ascent on the crowded trail all the more difficult.
