California, 27th October, Mist Trail
The morning dawned dull so we got up a bit later and I managed to get a picture of one of the resident ravens perched on top of our fire pit.
From then on it was another climb on a rougher path up to Nevada Falls at 6,000ft elevation. These are longer falls (594ft) and would be very impressive in the spring. At the top of the falls is a flat area of granite where we had our lunch and then took stepping stones across the Merced River to join the John Muir Trail on the other side for the descent. There is a bridge but it was being renovated and you would need it in other seasons.
John Muir was a Scot who came out to Wisconsin with his family when he was 11 years old. He visited Yosemite Valley at the age of 30 in 1868 and was so entranced he made his home there working as a shepherd for a while and then in a sawmill. He was a self learned naturalist and glaciologist and gained a reputation in these fields from writing for the New York Tribune. Ironically he observed how much damage the sheep were doing to the Tuolumne Meadows and brought Robert Johnson, editor of Century Magazine out to look and managed to seed the idea of a National Park to save Yosemite from destruction in Johnson's head. Johnson published an article which encouraged Congress to pass a bill in 1890 creating the Yosemite Park, run by California. In 1903 Muir brought President Roosevelt into the park and camped out with him under the stars. After that the park was brought under the control of the central government. Muir did not do this alone, other people such as Galen Clark who is buried in the graveyard in Yosemite Village, lobbied for the formation of the national park. He was the 'guardian' on the board of commissioners who ran the park from 1864 till it transferred to national government.
These handsome birds were always present, and descended whenever food was visible. When I was in Yellowstone I observed as a couple of them managed to access the locker on the back of a pickup truck and get the sandwiches out!
The plan for the day was to hike the 8 mile return Mist Trail up to Vernal and Nevada Falls which the guidebook said had water in all the year round. We did not have to take the car to the start of the track but simply walk through the woods at the back of the campsite.
The Mist Trail was all paved and stepped up to Vernal Falls and it took a couple of hours to get to the top. It was quite busy and we stopped on the flat area at the top of the falls for a rest, a snack and to take it in. We had bought an outer of Ritz crackers from Target at the start of the holiday, the ones with cheese in the middle and these made for excellent snacking on hikes. When these ran out we bought some filled with peanut butter which were really quite disgusting and adhered to the roof of your mouth so it needed a drink to remove the debris!
As you can see there was not much water in the falls. California was in drought and the snowfall the previous winter had been 20% of normal. Interestingly enough they recently (December 2014) have had torrential rain and all the waterfalls are flowing.
As we got to the top the sun came out and it got quite warm with the exertion of climbing, the last part of which was 600 steps which ran for ½ mile. The waterfall descends 317ft, which is not obvious from the picture 3rd below where you can see how little water was present.
From then on it was another climb on a rougher path up to Nevada Falls at 6,000ft elevation. These are longer falls (594ft) and would be very impressive in the spring. At the top of the falls is a flat area of granite where we had our lunch and then took stepping stones across the Merced River to join the John Muir Trail on the other side for the descent. There is a bridge but it was being renovated and you would need it in other seasons.
John Muir was a Scot who came out to Wisconsin with his family when he was 11 years old. He visited Yosemite Valley at the age of 30 in 1868 and was so entranced he made his home there working as a shepherd for a while and then in a sawmill. He was a self learned naturalist and glaciologist and gained a reputation in these fields from writing for the New York Tribune. Ironically he observed how much damage the sheep were doing to the Tuolumne Meadows and brought Robert Johnson, editor of Century Magazine out to look and managed to seed the idea of a National Park to save Yosemite from destruction in Johnson's head. Johnson published an article which encouraged Congress to pass a bill in 1890 creating the Yosemite Park, run by California. In 1903 Muir brought President Roosevelt into the park and camped out with him under the stars. After that the park was brought under the control of the central government. Muir did not do this alone, other people such as Galen Clark who is buried in the graveyard in Yosemite Village, lobbied for the formation of the national park. He was the 'guardian' on the board of commissioners who ran the park from 1864 till it transferred to national government.
This mountain to the right of the trees is Liberty Cap.
Coming down there were great views but the light was very harsh. At the bottom of the trail there was wildlife and some nice autumn colour.
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