Hello Everyone! It’s been a busy two weeks in Yosemite National Park, but a really good two weeks as well. Since I last wrote, I ran back-to-back 6 day hiking tours in the park with only a day in between, but both groups were really good and I definitely enjoyed my time with them. The weather was actually pretty cool for the first week but heated up considerably for the second. Of course the 4th of July has also come and gone and I can think of few better places to celebrate America than in our beautiful National Park System. There were no fireworks in the park or in the entire county since it’s mostly very dry forest, but we made up for that with stunning views from the newly reopened Glacier Point Road. I’ve been back in San Francisco for a few days of relaxing and planning and now I’m off to L.A. to run a 10 day trip which will take us to Joshua Tree National Park, Lake Havasu, Grand Canyon, Vegas and Yosemite, dropping us back in S.F. at the end of the month.
I’m always quite fascinated that I can run the exact same tour back-to-back and it is an entirely different trip. Different groups with different abilities and interests coupled with openings and closings in the park and a holiday weekend thrown in to boot and these last two trips only loosely resembled one another. Both were great though and I’m really happy I had the opportunity to run them both especially since one was a last second switch in my schedule. I had tweaked my knee a little bit on my last trip to the desert and have been really careful with it on these hiking-focused trips but I’m happy that it is healing well and will hopefully be back to 100% soon.
We set out on the first of the two trips on June 25th. After a nice lunch at the Iron Door Saloon in Groveland (California’s oldest saloon), we had a nice hike in the Tuolomne Grove of Giant Sequoias just inside the park entrance. These beautiful trees are the largest things by volume that have ever lived on the face of the earth. They start out as a tiny seed inside an egg-sized pine cone and can live for over 3,000 years under the right conditions. They are immense and majestic and always a sight to see. From there we dropped down into Yosemite Valley, made a photo stop up at magnificent Tunnel View, hiked to the base of Bridal Veil Falls and then made our way out to our hotel in El Portal, just outside of the park for the night.
We were up early the next morning to hike the Mist Trail past beautiful Vernal and Nevada Falls. A relatively cool June has kept the snow from melting too fast in the mountains so all of the waterfalls in the park are still going strong which is great for both the park and the state of California. As the name implies, the Mist Trail can get quite misty and it definitely was while we were out there. The trail takes you up a number of granite steps and past Vernal Falls for incredible views and a sizable soaking. We spent some time drying out on the top of the falls and then most of the group continued up to the top of beautiful Nevada Falls for lunch. After a nice long break we took our time coming back down from the waterfalls and stopped for a well-earned ice cream break at the bottom.
The following day some of my passengers tackled the always-challenging but unparalleled Four Mile Trail up to Glacier Point. I took the rest of the group down to see the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias in the southern part of the park. While we had already seen some of the big trees on our first day in the park, the Mariposa Grove is different and well worth a visit, especially since our scheduled day in the high country was cancelled due to snow. We hiked out to the Grizzly Giant, Yosemite’s biggest tree which is thought to be over 3,000 years old. The Giant’s branches are larger in diameter than any other non-Sequoia in the park. It’s really quite something and well worth seeing. We continued past the Giant on the loop trail which is pretty badly burnt out from last summer’s Washburn Fire. After our time in the grove, we spent some time at the Wawona History Museum which has some of the old stagecoaches and buildings from the park’s early history. We returned to the main part of the park after we finished in Wawona and some of us went out to Lower Yosemite Falls before we met our big-hike hikers and headed on back to our hotel.
On Wednesday we meandered out to Mirror Lake in the morning which is still pretty full of water and is living up to its name. Usually by this time it is back to Mirror Meadows until the late fall. From there my group had some free time in the valley and I drove my van to the end of our afternoon walk. We spent the afternoon with a naturalist from the Yosemite Conservancy who took us on a nice stroll around the park. In the late afternoon we headed out to the meadows underneath El Capitan to watch the rock climbers making their way up one of the world’s largest monoliths. There were actually quite a few up there and we spent about an hour watching them climb and descend the rock.
We drove out to Hetch Hetchy Reservoir on Thursday morning and did a nice hike around the shoreline to the waterfalls. We were hoping to get to Wapama Falls, but there was so much water in Tueeulala Falls that we ended up turning around there. It was pretty hot out in Hetch Hetchy and the waterfalls were quite refreshing. After lunch we made a beeline back to San Francisco where I said goodbye to my group after a wonderful trip. I took myself out to a delicious Italian seafood dinner at Fino and then a quick drink at The Summer Place before falling into a very deep sleep with no alarm set to wake me up in the morning.
Friday was my only day off between trips and I started my day with a great breakfast at David’s Delicatessen. In the afternoon I went out to Tiburon to meet a friend and we had a nice afternoon walking around town and chatting and then had some gelato before catching the ferry back to SF. From there we took the bus out to The Presidio where we caught an outdoor screening of Top Gun – Maverick on the Parade Grounds. They couldn’t start the movie until the sun went down and it got cold and misty out there. I was really glad I brought a blanket to wrap up in! It was a fun afternoon and evening though and a nice way to spend my time off and decompress between trips.
I didn’t have to meet my group until 6pm on Saturday so my friend and I spent the day at the beach. She even went for a swim which was more than I was up for in the chilly Pacific. It was nice to have a relaxing day in the sun and we had a really nice lunch at the Beach Chalet before I dropped her off and headed up to Nob Hill to meet my next group. After our meeting I went to an Improv show just down the hill. I have seen several improve shows before and they were always just plain bad. This one was not – in fact it was really great and I enjoyed it very much. The four people doing it were really talented and funny and I was glad I gave it a shot (the comedy show I was aiming for was sold out so this was the backup). This was the only 48 hours I had off this month so I’m glad I made the most of it.
Sunday morning we were up and off to the park again. The first two days of this trip were basically the same with hikes to the Tuolumne Grove and up the Mist Trail to the waterfalls. It was the 4th of July weekend, though and the park was a madhouse. Yosemite was so great last year when the reservation system was in place. It got busy, but was never chokingly so - which is what we found when we tried to make our way into the valley. Cars were absolutely everywhere – parked in places that were definitely not meant to be parked in. If people could see the difference between the 4th of July last year and this one, they would understand why the reservation system was in place and why it needs to return (which it probably will in some form in 2024). Regardless, I made adjustments as necessary and we still enjoyed our time there. We left our hotel on the mornings of the 3rd and 4th at 6am and barely found parking when we arrived in the park. On the 4th, we avoided the valley altogether. Glacier Point Road was finally open after a year and a half of construction, so we enjoyed a wonderful hike to Sentinel Dome and Taft Point and spent some time at Glacier Point. While on this hike I ran into one of my fraternity brothers from Penn State who I hadn’t seen in 20 years! We even got to see some daring slackliners at Taft Point which is pretty courageous when you’re 3000’ off the ground, even if you are harnessed in. I haven’t been up there in a very long time and it was so nice to see something different for a change. Unfortunately the early start caused me to forget the SD card for my camera which was just terrible on such an amazing day. I had my phone with me, but it just wasn’t the same. It was still a nice day.
The park cleared out quite a bit on the 5th which was a relief and my group enjoyed some quiet time in the valley in the morning after a late 7am departure and a big buffet breakfast. We did our afternoon walk with the Yosemite Conservancy with my friend Marty who is always great and does an amazing job. The following day we enjoyed our hike at Hetch Hetchy and then got back to San Francisco in time for me to join some of my colleagues at trivia night in the Castro. It was nice to see everyone in a social setting, but the trivia night was terrible as the guy doing it didn’t seem to have many of the right answers himself. After some late night tacos I headed back to my hotel and once again crashed hard after a good trip.
I’ve had a few days to relax here in the city which has been wonderful after such a busy month. I got to the Cable Car Museum and the San Francisco Historic Society Museum, saw a fun production of A Chorus Line, hit the gym every day, had some nice meals and generally just caught up on some rest. I went to a Giants’ baseball game with my friend Rob and his son Nolan and I even had time to see the new Indiana Jones movie which was also pretty good. The last few days I’ve been preparing for this upcoming trip, sorting through gear, grocery shopping and making some plans for the group. It’s going to be really hot out there in the low California desert this week with temperatures coming in above 110° (43°C)! Thankfully we’ll be in a hotel out there but most of the trip we will be camping. It’s a trip for young people, so I will have 6 passengers with me, all of whom are under 27. In fact all but the oldest of the 6 were born after I started my guiding career! But not to worry, I’m sure we will have a blast on our trip and I’m really looking forward to it.
I hope you’re all having a great summer out there. I’m not sure if I will get this newsletter out next week, but I’m definitely going to try. If you don’t hear from me, know that I’m out having a fun week and I’ll get back to you when I can. Thank you, as always, for reading.
-Mike