Illilouette River to Little Yosemite

I slept not too badly, but I woke up early, just before sunrise. I had to get up out my tent to make like a bear in the woods and then I sat in my chair in front of my tent, no one else was up, it was just me, immersed in the quiet stillness of the world. I sat and watched the sun rise over the mountain and gradually my companions got up and wandered off in different directions. we made our breakfast and packed up our gear. To be honest I was slightly reluctant to leave. It was one of the most peaceful places I had every been, but the trail was calling.

Today we would be hiking to Little Yosemite Valley, with a lunch stop at Nevada Falls. It was a beautiful walk, and the company was great but I encountered a problem. I had borrowed a backpack as I didn't have one this large, and for which I was very grateful as it meant I didn't have to buy one. However, although it was a good quality backpack, it was an older one and the straps were a bit worn and no matter how much I tightened them, they kept slipping. It meant that the backpack was not sitting right, the weight was wrong on it, and it made hiking very hard going.

To be fair, the hiking was hard enough, I was very slightly beginning to feel the effects of being at a higher altitude than I was used to, and a lot of the hiking was uphill...but it was all worthwhile. It was a beautiful walk, the scenery was spectacular, and the company was excellent, and Laura kept me informed about the flowers along the way so, all in all I felt very blessed to be there.

The section from the Creek to Nevada falls was uphill for quite a while and the it levellled out into a beautiful vista, at one point we walked through an area where the trees were still recovering from last year's forest fire, in another part the floor of the forest was littered with the largest pine cones I had had ever seen, and Laura shared the beauty of flowers along the path.

I was glad when we began to go downhill, which we did for quite a while on a winding pathway. we met and chatted to a couple of workers who were repairing the path, it looked like very hard work and involved shifting and setting boulders of all shapes and sizes. However, it was a great office to work in.

We reached a junction in the trail, the John Muir Trail went off to the left back down to Yosemite Valley, and the right trail turned towards Nevada Falls, which, from the sound of rushing water, didn't seem to be that far away. Sure enough within 15 minutes or so we were there. It was a very beautiful spot and relatively busy with day hikers and groups like ours passing through.

We spent some time there having lunch and resting. I crossed the bridge to the other side of the falls and was surprised to see that there was no fence stopping anyone from falling hundreds of feet to their death. In the UK there would be fencing, cameras, and probably staff to makes sure no one went too close to the edge, but children were running about and peering over the edge quite freely. You could feel the force of the water from 20 feet away, as it rushed over the edge of the cliff in a display of raw power and noise, it was a magnificent sight.

After lunch we all crossed the bridge, which was, to my relief, solid and well engineered and headed back on the trail to Little Yosemite Valley. The path quickly became steep, initially there were a lot of steps rather than a path, and with the heat, the weight of my pack and the altitude, I really began to struggle. I think Chris was finding it hard going also and despite having rested for about an hour at the falls, we had to stop and sit for 10 minutes rest. Whilst we were trying to catch our breath a hiker came by and looked at us and then asked if we had any permits for half dome, to which we said yes. He then asked if he could have one, to which we said no. I can only assume that having looked at us he thought that one of us was going to die on the trail and would therefore not need our permit. Being Scottish, I was so incensed at implicit suggestion that we weren't going to make it that I put my backpack on and set off once more. The ascent began to level out and the walk became a bit easier.

The trail split in two directions and so Meg told me which path to take and then she waited for Chris to catch up, his knee was bothering him a bit. The path was quite flat by this time for which I was grateful as I was really done in, but I had been assured that the campsite wasn't far away. The I saw Ethan and Laura coming back along the trail to meet us, Evan (who, it turned out, was a really great guy) went to look for Chris so he could carry his backpack for him. Laura offered to carry mine, which caused me a moral crisis, on the one hand it went against the grain to let her carry my pack for me and on the other, I was done in. I then remembered a camino rule that if someone offers you help you should take it, so I said yes. It was such a relief to take the backpack off, and within 5-10 minutes we had arrived at the campsite.

The campsite was quite nice, it was fairly level and different areas were divided by logs, so we were able to pitch our tents together. The ground was however, just dust a few cm deep, but a lot of the trails were the same, it gave new meaning to the phrase eat my dust, I had always thought that was just an expression, but on the trail, if you got too close, you were literally eating the dust stirred up by the person in front of you. The campsite also had composting toilets, which might not seem like much but it was better than the alternative.

We all got our tents set up, and got settled in. I went to explore the campsite, checked out the composting toilets and walked along to the Merced River, it was all very lovely.

After a very welcome dinner around the camp stoves, we all retired to our tents, the plan was to leave about 0530 in the morning to ascend half dome, Chris was going to stay at the campsite, so he very kindly gave me his much lighter modern backpack for the trip. With that we all went to our tents where our sleeping bags were waiting.Weiterlesen