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Participants: Tom Chester and Connie Vavricek
Date: 6 November 1999 (Written up 8 November 1999)Description: This is the kind of hike worth driving 8 hours each way for, as I did!
The view from Glacier Point, and indeed from nearly every point along the Panorama Trail, is to die for. Yosemite is a stunning place, one of the crown jewels of America's National Parks, and this trail gives you the best views period of any place in the park.
This hike is described in probably every hiking guidebook for Yosemite, including #68 in Hot Showers, Soft Beds, and Dayhikes in the Sierra by Kathy Morey, 1996, and #13 in High Sierra Hiking Guide #1: Yosemite by the editors at Wilderness Press, 1974, which has the best topo map of the area. Thus I will not give a general hike guide, and just describe some of the aspects of my hike with my sister.
To get to the trailhead at Glacier Point, we took the shuttlebus for $10.50 each. The bus left Curry Village at 8:05 a.m. and arrived at Glacier Point just before 10:00 a.m. after making four stops in the Valley. (The only other bus left at 1:00 p.m., too late to do this hike.) Although this took much more time than I expected, the trip was absolutely delightful due to the excellent commentary delivered by the driver. He spoke nearly non-stop from his own store of knowledge, and clearly was not delivering a scripted talk about which he knew little. The driver had an excellent knowledge of the history, geology, ecology and biology of the area, and gave many personal observations from living in the Yosemite area and hiking there for many years. I learned a few things, including that the bottom edge of the moss layer on the tree trunks indicates the maximum height of the snowpack.
The most difficult thing about this trail is breaking away from the stunning views to continue hiking. From Glacier Point one not only sees the breathtaking vistas of the Valley and the high peaks surrounding the Valley, but one can also pick out individual features directly below, such as the tents of Curry Village, the Ahwahnee Hotel, and the path of the Merced River.
On our trip, the fall color was beautiful. I can't say if this was the peak color, but it certainly seemed like it to me. Along this hike, nearly all the color was yellow in varying shades, with just a bit of red thrown in. A bonus was on the drive to Glacier Point, where there were stunning patches of vibrant red color to delight us.
The only thing marring our trip was that the Valley was nearly filled by light smoke, and a towering smoke cloud was seen to the east of the Valley. All the smoke in the Valley was due to prescribed burns of meadows, which coated our car with soot as we drove through the burn area. Fortunately, we were above most of the smoke in the Valley, and the vast amounts of smoke from the fire to the east were blowing north, which kept the air we breathed on the hike relatively clean. Nonetheless, by the end of the hike I was coughing infrequently due to the smoke, which I only smelled twice briefly on the hike.
Since this was November, Yosemite Falls had not a trace of water that could be seen from afar, which is apparently normal for this time of year. Fortunately, the other falls had enough water in them to still be beautiful, even though they were shadows of their springtime renditions.
Despite this being a weekend, there were only about 10-15 people in 4-5 other groups hiking this trail with us until we got to Nevada Falls, where there were perhaps an equal number of people. At Vernal Falls, the top of the Falls and the Mist Trail beneath was filled with people, who had done the short hike up from Happy Isles.
Curiously, the bugs followed the same pattern. There were only two gnats that bothered me along the trail until Vernal Falls, where some mosquitoes made their appearance. They bothered me only when stopped, but 4-5 bugged me simultaneously and one of my swats killed two of them. It was completely unclear to me why the freezing or near-freezing nights had not killed them all.
After leaving Glacier Point, we hiked through Illilouette Canyon, which had rivers of yellow color amidst the burned out trees from a relatively-recent fire. The Falls overlook was indeed vertiginous due to its precipitousness, but was very impressive and the Falls was charming even with its current amount of water.
The ascent of the other side of the Creek was slow for me due to the altitude but the effort was richly rewarded by the view from the high point on the trail. Every part of the Panorama Trail offers a different spectacular view of Yosemite.
We had lunch just north of the junction of the trail to Ottoway Lake, on some rocks giving a good overlook of Nevada Falls.
The descent to Nevada Falls was in total shade this time of year, despite the time of 2 p.m., giving the feeling that the sun was about to set. Both Nevada Falls and Vernal Falls made a great deal of noise for the amount of water in them. Nevada could be heard from many parts of the trail, but Vernal's noise was pretty much confined to the canyon below it.
The trail led directly to the top of Nevada Falls. We somehow missed the restrooms supposed to be there.
We descended from Nevada Falls via the John Muir Trail, the Clarke Trail and then the Mist Trail below Vernal, which of course had no mist at all this time of year. This option recommended by Morey is the best one for first-time hikers, since it gives wonderful views of Nevada Falls and close-up views of Vernal Falls.
Happy Isles looked markedly different from the last time I was there, due to the damage caused when 80,000 tons of granite (78,000 cubic yards) fell from near Glacier Point on 7/10/96 and due to the floods of 1997. The granite became airborne as it fell, reaching a velocity of 260 mph when it hit the talus slope above Happy Isles. The tangential velocity of the slab was 174 mph, which created a 174 mph wind blast that knocked down over 300 trees for 10 acres below the impact area, and deposited an inch of dust over 50 acres. Falling trees destroyed the snack bar, killing one person who was standing there, injured 11 other people, and damaged the Nature Center. This was "the largest vertical rock free-fall ever recorded seismically and it registered on seismographs up to 200 km away" (UC Berkeley).
See:
- UC Berkeley Seismographic Station: Events of Interest: The Yosemite Rock Fall of July 10, 1996 (detailed report)
- Jeffrey Trust's Happy Isles Rockfall (good series of pictures)
- Garry Hayes' Roadside Geology of Yosemite Valley and references therein.
- Ed Youmans' Yosemite Rockfall (pictures of the rockfall as it happened!)
Because the still-unrepaired stone bridge and gauging station are now roped off, one continues on the east side of the river to the main road, instead of the former bridge crossing. In the Valley, the signs showing the peak flood level in 1997 were very interesting.
We finished by walking to our tent cabins at Curry Village. We probably would have walked even if the Shuttle Bus had been running to Happy Isles.
One side note: even the heated cabins at Curry Village are incredibly cold at night, at least for me. In our cabin, the heater made the temperature 83° at head level, but the temperature was well below 60° at foot level. Since one's sleeping position in the beds is quite close to foot level, it made for very uncomfortable nights for me. And it was somewhat agonizing to raise my hand while lying in bed and feeling how much warmer it was at that level! The cold was made worse my first night since my head was right next to the screen window in the door, which allowed a cold breeze to chill my head and bed despite a "hanging cover" which was perhaps 80% effective in blocking the draft. I moved the bed away from the door the second night.
Trail condition: The trail was among the best I've known, an Interstate Highway of trails in good condition. The trail has asphalt pavement remnants running nearly-continuously from Illilouette Creek to Nevada Falls, largely intact on the upslope side of the trail. I'd love to know the history of this pavement, since in at least one place the pavement is intact next to a 4' opening between two boulders. Hence anything wider than 4' could not have easily passed that point unless its wheels were on the outside of the body and could ride up over the boulders.
Plants in bloom: None that I could see, but there was plenty of fall color, mostly yellow leaves and some red. The manzanita had tiny buds, getting ready for its bloom, which also surprised me. The manzanita blooms in January in Southern California, but I didn't expect that this would be true at Yosemite.
Weather and water consumption: Sunny, cool and a bit smoky. There were a number of fires burning in Yosemite Valley and in the high country to the east, and some smoke occasionally could be smelled along this hike. Fortunately, most of the time the wind blew the smoke away from us. The temperature was in the high 50s most of the time, reaching a high of 63° at noon for a brief moment. I consumed only 1.0 liter of liquids.
Bugs: None for most of the hike, except for two individual gnats, one on the Clarke Trail and one on the Panorama Trail. Below Vernal Falls there were mosquitoes, surprising to me for this late in the season.
Number of ticks: Zero.
Number of rattlesnakes: Zero.
Other pests: None. No bears were seen at all, to the mixed dismay and pleasure of my sister.
Recording number Mileage Time arrived Time left Altitude Comments 0 0.00 10:24 7100 Glacier Point. 59° Sign: "Illilouette Falls 2.0, Nevada Falls 5.2, Vernal Falls 7.0, Yosemite Valley 8.0". Sign for Pohona Trail: Sentinel Dome 1.5, Taft Point 3.8, Wawona Tunnel 13.8" 1 0.20 10:31 7100 Pohona Trail Jct. Left. 2 1.70 11:09 6250 Jct. Trail to Mono Meadows. Sign: Illilouette Falls 0.9, Nevada Falls 3.8, Yosemite Valley 6.9, Merced Lake 12.7". Sign: Mono Meadows 4.3, B.V.L. 11.2, Buck Camp 15.9, Ottoway Lake 14.5, Moraine Meadow 15.3, Fernandez Pass 18.5" 3 2.25 11:23 5950 Jct. Side Trail to view of Falls. 4 2.60 11:37 5800 Illilouette Bridge. 5 3.00 11:56 6000 Pavement remaining beginning here. Opening between two rocks less than 4'. 63° 6 4.00 12:42 6600 Just past peak elevation. 56° 7 4.50 12:57 6550 Trail Jct. Sign: "Illilouette Falls 1.9, Glacier Point 4.0". 58°. Sign: "Nevada Falls 1.1, Yosemite Valley 4.2, Merced lake 10.0". Consumed 0.65 liters before lunch, 1.0 liters after lunch. 8 4.75 1:30 6500 =7 after lunch 9 5.50 1:54 6000 Jct. Trail to Nevada Falls. Right. 10 5.80 2:03 2:11 5850 Overlook on other side of falls beyond bridge. The phone is gone south of bridge. 11 6.10 2:24 5950 =9. Right on John Muir Trail. Sign: "Vernal Falls 1.6, Yosemite Valley 3.3" 12 7.15 2:54 5450 Jct. Clarke Trail. Right. Sign: "Vernal Falls 0.6, Yosemite Valley 1.9" 13 7.75 3:24 5050 Restroom just before Vernal Falls. 14 7.90 3:34 5000 Left Vernal Falls via Mist Trail. 15 8.50 4:00 4500 Jct. Muir Trail. Right. 16 9.50 4:27 4000 Happy Isles Road and Bridge. 17 10.20 4:40 3950 Curry Village. Consumed 1.0 liter. I thank Mitch Gonzales for informing me that the damage to Happy Isles was caused by the rockfall and not the floods, and Daniel R. Gilliam for correcting an error in the date and pointing me to the dramatic story of what actually happened in the rockfall.
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Copyright © 1999-2000 by Tom Chester.
Permission is freely granted to reproduce any or all of this page as long as credit is given to me at this source:
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Comments and feedback: Tom Chester
Last update: 11 November 1999, with an update on Happy Isles damage on 23 May 2000 from Mitch Gonzales and on 13 September 2000 from Daniel R. Gilliam.