The Saturday Morning Run goes to Yosemite“Okay, everybody. Here’s the deal. I’ll take you to there – and I’m pretty sure you’ll be impressed, but you have to promise me something first.” Fifteen of us are standing on the porch of cabin 21 in Curry Village in the pre-dawn darkness. Our itinerary lists this as “Sunday 6 am: The intrepid few meet on someone's porch for the hike to the amazing Secret Spot.” And, here we are. The intrepid few turned out to be fifteen including Eric and his two boys, Elliot and Jackson. These guys got up at 4 am in Mariposa to be here by 6. That’s the way the whole trip has gone, overwhelming enthusiasm has been our approach to everything. “The promise is you won’t tell anybody, ever, where it is. You can show it to anyone you like, so long as you do two things.” Back in the 1920’s people were searching for a place with a view of four major Yosemite waterfalls. People tried the most obvious viewpoints without luck. Then using cartography tools someone predicted where it might be, and they proved to be correct. The four falls are Yosemite Falls, Nevada Falls, Vernal Falls, and Illilouette Falls. The Sierra Club built a railing around the spot and steps on the steepest parts of the approach. “The first thing is, you have to personally take them there – no giving directions – and the second thing is, you have to get them to make this same promise. Agreed?” And, with that, fifteen of us are off in the dark to see one of the most special places I know. I had originally floated the idea for a Yosemite trip on the Saturday Morning Run website back in early spring, but I wasn’t sure I could generate enough momentum to get the core Saturday group on board. Then Jamie had the idea of combining Yosemite with Jack Kirk’s 100th birthday planned to be held in Mariposa – only an hour’s drive from the Valley. So I mustered the most enticing email I could and within two days ten or twelve of us were in for sure and a few others maybe. By the end of two weeks we were up to twenty and this thing was starting to look like a whole lot of fun. Reservations in Yosemite are difficult, at best. If you’re planning a year in advance you’re in pretty good shape, but who does that? Carmen and I like the Curry Village Cabins with bath. Unlike tents and tent cabins, you can bring your stuff inside without worrying about bears and it’s only a ten-foot walk from your bed to the bathroom rather than having to fumble with clothes and shoes and squirm through a hundred-yard trudge to the community bathrooms to read the “closed for cleaning” sign. So I checked the dates we wanted and, of course, there was nothing available. Carmen and I had been through this many times before and I had finally taken the time to write a computer program that checks for cancellations every few minutes and text messages my phone if there are any. I set this to work and got one or two cabins in the first two weeks – I needed eleven. Besides the trip to the Secret Spot, we did two runs in Yosemite. The Friday we arrived we started from Glacier Point, three thousand feet up the cliff almost directly above Curry Village. This is where they used to build a huge bon-fire every morning and then push the embers off the cliff after dark making a falls of fire to compete with nature’s watery versions. The Park Service decided this wasn’t really in the spirit of things and ended the tradition in 1968. Glacier Point looks out over the Valley from its middle. In almost every direction the views are overwhelming and this is a perfect place to begin our adventures. From here we ran down to Illilouette Falls. There’s a great pool and water slide at the top and Doug and I dove in while everyone else watched. Doug provided much entertainment by smacking a ledge on his way down the slide. The water was wonderful and we were dry within minutes of getting out. Panorama Trail leads from Illilouette over to Nevada Falls. Here the Merced River leaves Little Yosemite Valley and begins its tumble down to Yosemite Valley proper. It starts with the 700-foot Nevada Falls drop. We spent lots of time here both days goofing around, leaning on the railings looking down the cliffs, and getting lost in the falling water. From here, it’s down the Mist Trail to Vernal Falls. In spring and summer sections of the Mist Trail are shrouded in mist from the falls. Being here in late September meant it was dry for us, but the falls and river provided all the grandeur we needed. The Mist Trail ends in the Valley and it’s a half-mile level run through dogwoods, pines, and cedars to Curry Village, our new home. Four weeks earlier, as I’m pulling in the driveway at our house, my phone beeps with a message, “cabins with bath, 29th and 30th.” I run inside, bring up the Yosemite Reservations site and punch in the dates. They’re still available! As quick as I can, I fill in the form and submit it. Reservation confirmed. Yes! The site doesn’t tell me how many are available so, just in case, I go back to see if there might be another… and there is! I grab it and check again, and there’s another, and then another, and another… Now I’m like a drug addict, more, more, more. Finally, I force myself to stop and take stock. I’ve just booked nine cabins and I already had two. That covers us all so I decide to get one more just in case someone else signs on. Within a day Eric wants in so the extra cabin is gone. Then Scott and Pam join up, and Stan and Mel and the kids, and Chesley, and then Jeff, and I’m back to searching again. Eventually we have thirty-one people. I got the last two cabins we needed with a week to spare for a total of sixteen – all in a row – our own little section of the Village. Every evening, after the run, we’d disappear into our cabins for a shower and a change and then wander out to the porch of cabin 21 for the evening wine and cheese social. This was great fun. Seems like everyone brought two or three bottles of wine, three or four kinds of cheese, crackers, grapes, olives, bread, and more. We sat around for hours reliving the day, laughing, talking, eating, drinking and having a great time. Then sunset would happen and we’d walk two porches down to watch Half Dome steal the show in the dimming glow. Then a bunch of us would head off to the Ahwahnee bar for dinner and drinks. The first thing on our itinerary for Saturday was “Saturday 7am: Meet on someone's porch to walk over to the Ahwahnee for breakfast.” Our path from Curry strolls through the Ahwahnee meadow just as the cliffs begin to catch the morning light. The Ahwahnee is a grand old hotel completed in 1927. Breakfast in the dining room with its massive cedar log construction and huge, floor-to-rafter windows is one of life’s great pleasures. After breakfast we all meet back at cabin 21 for the run up to Half Dome. This is about fifteen miles round trip with 4,800 feet of climbing so we’re planning to spend most of the day at it. We climb back up the Mist Trail to the top of Nevada Falls where we were the day before, then through a part of Little Yosemite Valley and up through forest, sometimes stopping to smell the Ponderosa pines – the bark has a pleasing vanilla-like scent. Jim takes a misstep and lands hard on his forearm. This quickly swells to near the size of golf ball, but he perseveres. Eventually we come out onto steep, open granite slabs and steps. There are many, many people going both up and down here. People of all shapes and sizes, all either determined to make the top, or really happy for having done so. The last part of the climb is class-5 rock climbing, meaning ropes and hardware are required. Fortunately, the Park Service has provided that for us in the form of steel stanchions bolted to the rock with two parallel cables running along them all the way to the top of the dome. And the scene here is amazing – as though on a crowded Sunday in Muir Woods all the people decided to go rock climbing in the same place at the same time. As you approach the base of this, you see a pile of hundreds of gloves. You rummage through the pile and choose a couple, maybe a pair, maybe not. There are inevitably one or two couples at the bottom discussing the ascent. One is saying to the other, (could be the man or the woman, seems to be about fifty, fifty), “You’ll be fine. Just look at your feet, don’t look down. I’ll stay right behind. It’ll be okay…” And you grab a cable in each hand and begin pulling yourself up. You really have to see pictures of this. When we were here, there were perhaps two hundred people at a time on these cables. People are trying to go up and down. If you try to stay between the cables you barely move for the traffic jam. We all eventually went to the outside, working our way up hand over hand on a single cable. But even here there are people going both directions so you’re constantly letting someone cross under or around, or crossing over to the outside of the other cable. And this is all taking place on class-5 rock! This went on for hours while we were there and it must happen every day, or at least every weekend day, with no supervision or organization of any kind. And yet, I’ve never heard of anyone falling. The top of Half Dome is as spectacular as it looks from below. If you have the nerve to sit on the edge, an eighteen hundred foot cliff drops straight away and then slopes steeply for another three thousand feet to Yosemite Valley. We took the same group pictures a million people have taken before us on the brow of the dome with the meadows and El Capitan as backdrop. And they’re just as amazing as they are for all those other people. At one point, a guy next to us pulled out a ring and proposed to his girlfriend. She didn’t hesitate to say yes and our whole corner of the dome broke out in applause. Eventually, we took our turn as the down traffic on the cables and then ran back to Nevada Falls and down through the fiery fall colors along the Muir Trail to Curry Village and our evening wine and cheese.
Melanie and Stan and their two kids, Kate and Tommy heard about this trip at the last minute and signed on. They didn’t run with us, but they were great fun at the wine & cheese socials. On Saturday, as we were leaving to walk the half-mile stroll through the meadow for dinner at the Ahwahnee, Tommy grabbed my hand and decided he would be my guardian for the evening. Although Melanie thanked me for putting up with him, in truth, I loved every moment of it. There’s nothing like being adopted by a kid to make you feel good. It’s still dark as we leave the main trail and head off into the woods to pick up the Secret Spot Trail. Eventually, we come to old stone steps and other indications of the old trail. We stop to regroup. The morning light is beginning to glow on the cliffs and The Apron, a broad sweep of granite sloping steeply up from Curry Village dominates the Valley. We round a corner onto a rib of granite running down from the peak above us. The ground ahead drops away and we walk out onto an eagle’s nest ledge with open air below our feet on three sides. There is a rusted railing running around the ledge and the views are breath taking in all directions. Everyone is impressed. Roger keeps grinning and saying this is the best thing he’s seen on the whole trip. Eric can’t stop beaming and the kids are really excited. Everyone is staring out into the views. You just can’t get enough of this place. It’s as though human senses can’t quite absorb all that they know is here. Later Sunday morning, after breakfast, we drove to Mariposa for Jack Kirk’s 100th birthday. Quite the event and we got an eye-opening tour of his amazing property… but that’s another story. There are many photos and descriptions of the fun in the Yosemite sections of the Saturday Morning Run website: http://satrun.songbirdsoftware.com. Other trips on the Saturday Morning Run drawing board are a three-day ski trip to Royal Gorge in January, Yosemite in the spring, and a week in Wengen in the Swiss Alps near the Eiger next September. And the Secret Spot? Well, I can’t say where it is, but I’d be glad to take you there. |