I somehow got it into my head that we should do a backpacking trip in Yosemite for the upcoming memorial day weekend. I tried to get wilderness permits on Saturday but failed --- everything was snatched up when I hit refresh. But I tried again on Sunday, and saw that there were 6 spots available at Little Yosemite Valley which guaranteed a Half Dome permit, so I grabbed them. What many people don't realize is that a wilderness comes with a guaranteed entry into Yosemite National Park the day before, as well as use of the Backpacker's Campground in the valley proper, so even with a 2 day permit starting on Sunday, we got full access to Yosemite for the entire 3 day weekend.
Hotels in the area were expensive as heck because of memorial day, so we opted to just drive in on Saturday morning. Traffic was free flowing and we made it to Yosemite's Big Oak Flat at 11:00am. We showed the Wilderness Permit and Boen's Every Kid Outdoors Pass, we got into the park for free. I noticed that at least 2 cars in line ahead of us were turned away because of the park's new reservation policy, where reservations were needed to enter the park between 6am and 2pm.
Driving into the park, we still had difficulty parking near the visitor center, but eventually found a spot and walked to get the wilderness permit, where we opted to pay $10/person for the half dome permit. We also paid for the backpacker's campground $8/person. With the money we saved from not staying in the hotel, we bought lunch in Yosemite village. I'd forgotten how mediocre the food was and how slow the service was. That's probably the main reason you should bring your own food.
After lunch, we drove to North Pines campground, where there was a 15 minute parking spot so we could drag all our camping equipment into the backpacker's campground. Since we drove the minivan, we could bring both car camping equipment and backpacking equipment, allowing us comfort for our night in Yosemite Valley. When the tent, sleeping pads and sleeping bags were all setup, we drove out to do the newly renovated Bridal Veil falls trail. The falls are nothing short of stunning with the volume of water so high that we got spray even while far away.
It was a short hike, but for returning to the car instead of doubling back Xiaoqin found some trails that looked promising. We didn't realize that much of the trail was still under water because of the high water level, so we had to do several stream crossings as part of the hike. Returning to the car, we drove to our parking spot next to the Curry Village, where we would leave our van overnight.
We needed to walk to the village for dinner anyway, so we hiked to the lower Yosemite Falls along the way, admiring the beautiful trails and views of both upper and lower falls. Dinner was relatively fast at the Yosemite Falls Lodge's food court, and then we took the bus back to the Curry Village, where we took showers before bed.
Getting up the next morning, I realized I'd left our ham and cheese in the fridge at home, so we had to pay a morning visit to the village store for both breakfast and lunch supplies. The store didn't open until 8:00am, but by the time we'd packed everything up and driven over there it was already 7:30am. The alternate breakfast places were all jammed with people so we just made instant noodles and waited for the store to open.
We drove to the special Happy Isles parking lot reserved for people with wilderness permits. (they don't actually check, as far as I can tell) There we repacked our backpacks and put all food in the bear locker. We filled our water bottles, and then Boen had to poo. He ran off before I was ready, but we were reunited when he was done with the bathroom.
We walked up the same Mist trail we had done last Fall, and the Vernal falls now sounded like a jet engine. We refilled our bottles at the Vernal Falls viewpoint, and then proceeded up the steps where we got thoroughly doused by the spray from the falls. Looking behind us we could see rainbow halos, and we got thoroughly soaked. The price of the baptism was the crowds, where we frequently had to stop because the narrow steps could only allow one party at a time through the critical sections.
Past the top of Vernal Falls, the crowd thinned considerably and we stopped for lunch just prior to the bridge. Unlike the Vernal Falls, the Nevada falls trail doesn't go directly under the falls, but even then, we could still occasionally feel the cooling mist from the falls, which was how big they were.
At the top of the Nevada Falls, at the intersection with the John Muir trail, we met the ranger who issued us the permits the day before! He told us that the trail went up a bit more after that and that at Little Yosemite Valley we'd done half the elevation gain for Half Dome. He was right of course, and we arrived at Little Yosemite Valley around 1pm. We were pretty tired. By the time we pitched the tents, fetched water to refill water bottles, and loaded all the food into the bear canister it was 3:00pm. With nothing better to do, we decided to do half dome on Sunday instead of waiting till Monday morning. Boen resisted but it turned out that he didn't understand that if we did Half Dome today we didn't have to do it tomorrow.
The hike up to Half Dome is 3.5 miles, but it's a challenging 3.5 miles because while the approach itself was a challenging 1000', the final subdome was a series of steps, which combined with the cables would go up another 1000'. And of course we were tired from carrying camping equipment to Little Yosemite Valley. When we got to the sub-dome, Xiaoqin picked up a pair of gloves rather than using her biking gloves. The steps were difficult, but Bowen upon seeing the cables said: "That looks scary!" The views from subdome were gorgeous, where we could see snow-covered peaks all around us.
At the bottom of the cables, Bowen and Boen hesitated, but then decided to commit. Once they were committed they made great speed. Xiaoqin followed, and I brought up the rear. I was surprised by how slippery the granite was --- on previous visits I don't remember my soles ever slipping on the rock, and I had relatively new shoes! I then remembered that it had possibly rained the day before, and also the cables had only come up on Friday, so that explained why there wasn't a pile of gloves at the bottom of the cables. What did make everything easier, however, was that there was next to no traffic on the cables as a result of the new permit-based system.
At the top, it was windy, but the kids found snow and ice! It was already 6:15pm, so we quickly took a few pictures and then went back down. I anticipated the descent to be more scary than the climb, but it was also easier and a lot faster. This was where gloves were useful, as you could do a bunch of mini rappels and that made the descent go a lot faster than in the uphill direction.
Descending the steps were even harder than climbing them, since the eccentric motion at the end of a 9 mile hike felt like an insult to the joints. But we met another hiker going down (he said he did half-dome without a permit), and made it to our campsite before it got so dark that I needed to break out my headlamp.
We made dinner, brushed our teeth, and then went to sleep quickly, exhausted by our efforts.
The next morning, we woke up at 6:00am to the sound of birds singing, made our hot breakfast, packed up our camping equipment and hiked back down to the John Muir trail, opting for the longer but less knee cracking descent to the valley. Even here the effects of being here in Spring made for a different experience than last fall. Not only was the top of Nevada falls much louder and faster, the weeping wall didn't just weep, it rained! We made much slower time than we expected because every corner had something to see.
It being so early the traffic was very light, and there was none of the traffic jams we saw the previous day on the Mist trail. We arrived back at the car by 12:30pm, and then had a 1 hour drive to lunch and another 4 hour drive home because of the increased traffic.
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