2/25. Wednesday. Drove to Yosemite National Park hoping to see Fire Fall, the last 2 chances of this year. I'm aware of this Horsetail Falls in Feburary would catch sunset with a flaming orange. But this year, there's no permit required. So, with a quasi-optimistic forecast, we were trying our luck.
First thing first: shopping. Bought water, isobutane gas can, and a bunch of groceries.
2nd, get a CA Golden Bear pass. The closest, with a minor detour, is Millerton Lake. There's a state park office here. The lake is deserted. Saw only 1 other car. The picnic tables are disappearing into the grass.
2+ hour drive into Yosemite on 41. It's not as pretty as hwy 140. Other than a small section of construction, where a pilot car was used, all is smooth.
I've never seen Yosemite Valley snow covered. It's lovely. Even when I came in January once, no snow in the valley.
Most of this snow is from last week's snow storm. Otherwise, Horsetail Fall would be dry.
First stop: Bridal Veil Falls. Short walk. Very snowy. A lot of water.
View of Yosemite Falls across the white meadow.
Driving around to the north park road. Checked into Yosemite Lodge. It has many identical looking buildings, with diffent names (which is not visible on all sides). Easy to get lost. Ours has the closed swimming pool in front -- helps me to orientate myself. Left the car there, and walked.
Walked to lower Yosemite Falls.
A lot of snow. Did a bit of scrambling to get closer. Being sprayed wet.
Checked out the museum. I've been to the valley many times, but don't remember ever looked into this museum.
It houses some huge weaved baskets with nice patterns, and the photo of the lady who made them.
Must take months to do.
An employee there was grinding a tree nut.
I got to talk to him. Learned about the cones.
The large and sturdy cone belongs to Foothill Pine - a locally common pine, endemic to California foothills.
Its seeds are spread via the cones tumbling downhill.
Next door is the Welcome/Visitor Center. A large section is devoted to climbing history in the valley.
Many photos, gears, rescue. Quite interesting.
Here are the many routes on El Capitan.
Its next door is Ansel Adams gallery, which is really a store selling santified reproductions of Ansel Adams' photos.
There're also other photography books for sale. Most interesting is by Jimmy Chin, again, on climbing.
Also inquired about the trail condition up towards Half Dome : no good, too much snow.
The lady also said, if we wanted to see the Fire Falls, we should start walking asap.
There's a time table printed for everyday: when the "fire" starts and when it disappears.
Went back to the hotel (it's on the way, picked up some food, and more clothes),
then joined the every-increasing trickle walking west towards El Capitan picnic area.
We saw people setting up their lawn chairs, blankets and tripods at various viewing areas.
We stopped at maybe the furthest west. Waited. The setting sun was trying to break out of the clouds.
However the clouds got thicker and thicker, soon, we couldn't even see the top of Horsetail.
People started to trickle out.
Saw just behind us, the setting sun was painting red on Sentinal Rock.
Tomorrow, we have one last chance.
2/26, Thursday. Had breakfast on the balcony. Chilly, but sunny.
Checked out shortly after 8am. Drove to Happy Isle for Mist Trail.
The parking lots were completely covered with snow. The park's bus got closer to the TH.
The Mist Trail that goes by Vernal Falls was closed due to icy condition.
Reroute to JMT, which got to the top of Vernal Falls.
On the way, it was too snowy, we put on micro-spikes.
View is excellent here. You can see Vernal Falls below, and Narada Falls ahead.
Walked down to the river above Vernal Falls.
Found some slabs without snow, had an early lunch, ~11am.
Didn't continue to Narada Falls.
On our way back, started seeing more hikers.
Half of them wore spikes.
Back on the bridge, more people now. View of Vernal Falls from the bridge. It was sunny now.
Hurried over to Ahwahnee Hotel for the 2pm guided walk.
The meadow on the way looks so lovely, we stopped to take a photo.
There were about a dozen people showed up for the ranger's tour.
As always, nothing starts on time. We spent quite a few minutes over the naming right of Yosemite's hotels (they were trademarked and changed during 2016-19).
Our guide works for NPS, and lives in the park for free, a perk of NPS.
Ahwahnee is the brain child of Stephen Mather, the first director of NPS.
Designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood. A few interesting tidbits:- From start digging to guest arriving is only about a year (opened in July 1927, so it'll be it's centenial next summer).
- The wood-looking beams are actually concrete.
- All the timbers were shipped in (not collected from inside the park).
- Very expensive to maintain. It just went through a 16 million restoration, but we still see water damage.
- Earlier guest would take hotel properties home as souveniers
- The taperstry with indeginous patters are Persian.
Parked at the designated parking lot for the Fire Fall.
Ate dinner in the car. Bundled up, and joined the ever growing number of tourists walking a mile west to see the waterfall.
It's quite orderly. Not as crowded as I worried.
Here's where we stopped at. The owner of this big lens on the bottom right of this photo has a 2nd camera. He sat in a lawn chair covered with a blanket.
Today, the sun was shining, and at exactly the advertised time, the waterfall turned orange.
Not bad.
On our walk back, I realized that I lost my phone. Thankfully, found it in the snow where we were watching the spectacle.
By the time we were back in the car, it was dark enough to need headlamps. Drove out of the park following a long string of tail lights. After about 3 hours, stopped for the night at Tulare CA, ~45 min south of Fresno. It smells like sewage. Initially I thought some homeless problem or people dumping garbage. I talked to the security guard, who said that it's common, due to the large dairy production here. Summer would be worse!
