July 9, 2017
Yosemite Valley to Mile 944.5
Pacific Crest Trail Thru-Hike: Day 66
The View from Glacier Point
I’m glad we stayed, even if by mistake when we missed the only YARTS bus back to Tuolomne yesterday. We left our tent at the backpackers camp at about 4am to hike up to Glacier Point. We’re sitting up here now in the shade of an evergreen tree, with the shadow of Half Dome in the background. Alex is snoring and farting and I just wrote my mom the card with the story of the fiery waterfall.
There aren’t too many people out yet, and we got to see the sun hitting El Capitan on our ascent at just the right moment to light it up fiery red and pink.
We climbed at least 53 switchbacks to get up here, and the view is absolutely worth it. When we got to the top of the climb there was a parking lot and a foursome walking up to the viewpoint from their car.
“Oof, this is a bit of a hike,” one of them said, as the walked 100 feet up the nearly flat path to the overlook. I just smiled to myself.
Still undecided if we’ll go to Tunnel View or not. Also need to find a place to charge the battery and I need to buy more food, so we probably won’t have time.
A Day Well Spent
We had a really relaxing rest of the day in the valley. We sat in an air conditioned cafe and charged the Anker, I posted on Instagram and ALMOST caught up to present day, we had a few Sierra Nevada tropical IPAs, I went grocery shopping and got an amazing rice and lentil curry combo for dinner (that we can use for Lentilicious photos).
After Glacier Point we went back to camp and packed our stuff, then still had time to go back to the cafe, have a few beers and a salmon-olives-cheese-crackers snack. We finished writing our postcards, sent them out, talked to a couple that’s planning to do the JMT this year, and got in line for the YARTS bus.
Out of the Valley and back on Trail
On the bus back to Tuolomne Meadows we met a really friendly couple from Vancouver, listened to the bus driver tell the people in the front seat his entire life story, got off at Tuolomne, walked 2.5 miles and found a campsite with a panoramic view of pointy, sharp, strange mountains and a majestic dome.
We’re having a campfire and I’m hopeful we’ll be able to make it over Benson Pass tomorrow but it will be quite a push—20 miles just to the top of the pass. We’ll see!
View from (almost) the top of Glacier Point
El Capitan right at sunrise from the Glacier Point trail
Bridal Veil falls from the Glacier Point trail
Curry sauce and Lentilicious lentils with brown rice. Best meal we’ve had in days.
View of Half Dome from Glacier Point
View of Tuolomne Meadows from the PCT