JMT Hiking Day #1: Glacier Point to Little Yosemite Valley. Aug. 5, 2014

6.6 miles.  Minimal overall elevation gain -- but -- you begin by hiking down about a thousand feet, then you hike up several hundred feet, then down again, then up again, etc.  This is not a flat trek.

We were up at sunrise; the first shuttle bus from Curry Village to Yosemite Lodge would leave just after 7am, and we wanted to be on it.  We packed our things as quietly we could, since sound travels easily throughout the tent camp and we didn't want to be the cause of another person's interrupted sleep.

This was the moment to shed every ounce we didn't need to carry.  The girls opted to leave some drawing material; they left these items on the bear box opposite ours.  A family with small children was staying in that particular tent cabin, and the girls figured the kids wouldn't mind some extra crayons and pens.  I left all the miscellaneous papers I was carrying (airplane boarding passes, receipts, etc.) in the recycling bin.  Thus relatively unburdened, we walked through Curry Village to the shuttle stop.

This large fellow bade us good morning as we passed.

A coffee shop was open, so we quickly ducked in to buy bagels, cream cheese, and orange juice.  We ate our breakfast on the bus stop's bench.

The shuttle arrived, and the outgoing female bus driver asked what our plans were.  We told her we needed to be dropped off at Yosemite Lodge so we could take the bus to Glacier Point.  She asked if we were doing a day hike; I told her no, we were going to walk all the way to Whitney Portal.  She was impressed by the girls taking on such a feat, and she and the other early bird passengers asked us a lot of questions about the trail and our plans.  They were all very supportive and positive.  It was a nice way to begin the day!

A kind fellow at Yosemite Lodge took our picture as we waited for the bus to Glacier Point.  This bus is a tour bus, meaning most people take it to hear the driver talk about Yosemite Valley as they ride to a beautiful viewpoint.  I looked for other JMT hikers, since a certain number of permits are given to would-be thru-hikers for each day of the summer.  I knew we couldn't be the only ones who had permission to begin the thru-hike from Glacier Point that day.  We were the only thru-hikers at the bus stop, however.

The bus arrived, and everyone piled in.  The driver made me put my backpack in the luggage compartment in the underneath of the bus.  I didn't like that, even though it made sense considering the bus was completely full.  I'd much rather have placed the pack on my lap, even though I would have been a bit smushed.  I worried about my pack -- the only pack in the huge space down there -- rolling around, falling over, sliding from side to side, and getting generally trashed.  That's what I do, you see -- before every long hike, before each one of our adventures, I worry and fret over something for at least an hour before chilling out and focusing on the task at hand.  There's always something, some detail, I obsess over.  I think that's my way of mentally preparing.  I worry and fret beforehand, then, while we're actually hiking/camping/whatever, I'm as cool as a cucumber when anything happens that needs a clear head and fast action.

The driver was a witty and informative guy.  He told the passengers all about Yosemite's history as we wound our way up the mountain road to Glacier Point.  His jokes were actually funny (many tour guides are cheesy...this guy wasn't) and, by the end of our ride, I had forgiven him for separating me from my backpack.

We arrived at our destination, got out of the bus, retrieved my backpack (which was, of course, perfectly fine), looked up, and saw this --

Wow.  The girls ooh-ed and aah-ed, and we immediately agreed that starting the JMT from Glacier Point was just fine.  Who cares about Happy Isles when you can begin your adventure from a place such as this?  After staring at Half Dome and the surrounding peaks and valleys for a solid ten minutes, we excitedly found the beginning of Panorama Trail and began what would be a twenty-two day adventure.

Panorama Trail begins up at Glacier Point and winds its way down the side of the mountain toward Illouette Falls.  From Illouette Falls, we'd climb up the other side of the valley and meet the official John Muir Trail near Nevada Falls.   That trek is about 5.5 miles long.  From there, we'd hike another 1.1 miles to our day's destination -- Little Yosemite Valley (LYV).  Our permits mandated we spend our first night at LYV.  Our first hiking day, therefore, would be relatively short.  We didn't mind -- 6.6 miles was just the right amount of mileage for our first day.  We wanted to take it easy and soak in the views.

LYV is three-ish miles from Half Dome.  We could see Half Dome and the surrounding peaks as we walked through the enormous pines toward Ilouette Falls.

The girls and I stopped often to take photos.

The sun was bright and I made the girls wear their sunhats and slather on the sunblock.  The hats were bought especially for this trip -- when we hike in New Hampshire, we're in the trees so often that we usually don't need hats or sunscreen.  Here, however -- sun sun sun, almost constantly.  We never felt hot, though.  The day was, for Yosemite, cool.  I was grateful for that, since I'm not a hot-weather hiker.

We reached Illouette Falls in time to see a couple of deer enjoying the water.

The deer were still drinking as we crossed the bridge.  Once on the other side, however, we found ourselves between the deer and their escape route.  They became nervous and tried to dart into the trees, but we were on the only path they could take (the immediate walls of the valley were too steep for them  to climb).  I hurried the girls down the path so the deer wouldn't feel trapped or threatened.  As soon as we turned a corner and reached a more open area of forest, both deer bounded right by us and disappeared into the forest.

We began the climb up the other side of the valley.  The switchbacks were gentle but, for us, slightly irritating.  This was our first day of hiking switchbacks and we had to get used to the idea of hiking more miles for the sake of a gentler climb.  In New Hampshire, the trails get right to the point -- our paths go straight up and down the mountains.  We're used to extremely steep, rugged, and no-nonsense hikes.  The trails on the JMT, as we would find, almost always went back and forth up a gazillion switchbacks which, in our minds, added unnecessary miles to the day.  The good thing about switchbacks, though, is that the trail never becomes steep.  On the entire JMT, there was one and only one section that felt steep (the short trail up Glen Pass).  Heading up to Nevada Falls on our first day, we began our adjustment to Sierra hiking and realized that, even though we could sometimes see exactly where we'd end up, we were not allowed to simply hike in a straight line to that destination.

The views were continually stellar as we made our way to Nevada Falls.  In addition to the views, we also finally began seeing other hikers.  There had been a few as we'd left Glacier Point, but they were day hikers taking their time and we'd quickly outpaced them.  Now, we ran into what seemed like folks out for more than just one day.  We'd later discover that most of them were headed toward LYV, and that most intended to hike up Half Dome the next day before returning to Yosemite Valley.

We reached the intersection with the official John Muir Trail and became excited all over again.

Now on the official JMT, we hiked the short distance to Nevada Falls.

There were dozens and dozens of people hanging out at Nevada Falls.  A few were IN the falls which is, to put it bluntly, idiotic.  In the photo below, I'm standing on a bridge and looking away from the actually waterfall.  See the two candidates for the Darwin Awards?  They're in the water, which has strong undercurrents.  They're standing on smooth, slippery rocks.  The water between where they're standing and where the falls plunge off a cliff is fast-moving.  If they were to slip, they'd be carried between those rocks and...

....fly over the falls.  In the photo below, I'm standing in the same spot but looking to my left, where the falls pour over the cliff.  The only way to safely view these falls is from the bridge, where smiling Sage stands.

There are multiple signs (and fences!) to keep people out of the water, but...well...apparently, some folks can't read.

We took a break here (safely on the rocks, away from the water) and ate.  The girls opted for Gatorade gels and some fancy Vitamin-jelly beans (a parting gift from Hugh).  The snacks were easy to access since I carried the canister in the top of my pack.  Usually, I pack most of the weight at the bottom of my backpack but, for this trip, I wanted easy access during the day.  Therefore, for our entire hike, the canister was carried at the top.  This unusual weight distribution never bothered me.

There are compost toilets near the falls.  As the girls used them, I got my first glance at what would be a common site along more populated areas of the John Muir Trail -- Stellar's Jays.  They're like the White Mountains' Canadian Gray Jays.  They are cute, bold, and hungry for whatever food you happen to be eating (we didn't feed them).

From the falls, it was an easy 1.1 miles to Little Yosemite Valley.  LVW is a large camping area in the trees, a couple tenths of a mile away from the Merced River.  We found a spot, set up the tent, stored our canister in the provided bear box, and played cards.

Having fun at our campsite in Little Yosemite Valley

The girls wanted to visit the river before it became too late in the day, so they changed into their swimsuits and grabbed their hiker towels, cameras, and sunglasses.  We walked to the river and put our few belongings on a small space right in front of a kind fellow who was filtering his water.  The river was crowded with folks getting water, taking a swim, and generally hanging out.  It was a perfect swimming hole, so the girls enjoyed wading in their bathing suits while I washed up a few items of clothing.  I took our "Kitchen Sink," the clothes, and the girls' cameras a good distance away from the river, per Leave No Trace rules (and my desire not to have the cameras get wet).  As I did the wash, I saw a large bear, yellow-brown in color but black in species, plod along the trail.  He/she was headed for the water, so I turned my head and shouted, "BEAR!" as loudly as I could.  No people heard me -- I was too far away -- but the bear marked my voice.  He/she stopped, then turned slightly and ambled through the woods, away from me and away from the splashing and happy shouting down by the river.  I hadn't meant to scare or deter the thing, I'd just wanted to give the girls a heads-up.  It was good to know, though, that yelling had an effect on bears.  From that moment on, I wasn't worried in the slightest about any bear encounters we might have.  I hadn't been all that worried to begin with, since we have bears in New Hampshire and I frequently see them around my house.  Still, the bear's reaction to my loud voice was comforting. 

I returned to the river and...Alex's sunglasses were gone.  The nice fellow was still there, filtering his water, so I asked if he had seen them.  He said he hadn't.  When it was time for us to go, Alex became upset about not being able to find them.  Sage's were right there, but Alex's weren't.  Sage's look like kid-sunglasses, but Alex's look like expensive adult shades.  They weren't expensive, but they look like they were.  Again, we asked the fellow about the glasses, since he had been standing right there.  Both Alex and I were sure she had brought them and put them right there.  Again, the fellow said he hadn't seen them.

I was now experiencing that awful feeling of simultaneously suspecting someone of wrongdoing yet not being completely sure and therefore not wanting to hurt that person's feelings.  Alex insisted she had brought the sunglasses, and I remembered her walking down the path with them.  Yet this guy seemed nice, and hikers, as a general rule, are good people.  This guy obviously now knew we were suspicious, and I hated that, because he genuinely seemed like a good man.  It was akward all around.  He left good-naturedly, insisting he hadn't seen anyone take them, and that of course he hadn't taken them himself.  The girls and I walked back to our site, searching the trail in case Alex had dropped the shades (though she insisted she hadn't).

An hour later, a family walked by our site.  We asked if they had seen any sunglasses anywhere...and yes, they had.  They had seen some in the middle of the trail, so they had picked them up and put them on a rock beside the path.  We walked with the family to the spot in question and -- there were the glasses.  

I felt awful for suspecting the fellow of taking them.  We visited his site, I let him know we had found the shades, and I apologized for having interrogated him.  He was extremely kind about the whole thing, but I felt bad for making him feel awkward.  I also knew that I had created a bad vibe with another hiker, which I regret...but, at the same time, Alex and I both remember her having those sunglasses at the river.  Oh well.  Unfortunately, I knew that when one creates a bad vibe with someone, that vibe usually comes back to kick you in the behind at some point, in some way.  It's karma.  Or, as one of the only laws of Wicca goes, it's the Law of Three.  The vibes/energy you put out there will return to you with three times the original strength.  This was our only bad-vibe moment with anyone else on our entire hike...our twenty-two days were, with the exception of this one instance, filled with happy-hiker-positivity.  This one bad vibe did indeed come back to us, though, with three times the strength and then some, a few days later.  It took the form of a HAPE scare with Sage...but we'll get to that in a later post.

The sunglasses had been found and hiker relations had been smoothed over as best I could, so it was time to eat.  We feasted on sesame-wheat crunch sticks (lots of protein and fat, with a fair amount of carbs) and almonds.  Thus sated, we brushed our teeth, changed into our pjs, and got into the tent.

A few minutes later, close to sunset, I heard the voices of some guys who were trying to find a tent site.  The campground was close to full by now, so they pitched their shelters in a tiny space right next to us.  I went out and introduced myself, and I let them know where the bear box was located.  Turns out these six fellows were from Dartmouth.  We were all happy to see fellow New Hampshire-ites!  After exchanging pleasantries, I went back into our tent.  We would end up leapfrogging these young men for the first half of our hike.  I believe they ended up finishing at Whitney Portal one day before we did -- but more on that later.

The next installment of this journal, Little Yosemite Valley to Lower Cathedral Lake, will be posted on Friday, September 12, 2014.