[Bill Menke’s Journal, December 12-18, 2010, California].

December 12, 2010. I drove up in the morning from Madera CA, in the Central Valley, where I had spent the night in a motel. The valley was clouded over, but I reached clear skies once I gained some elevation. This was the same pattern that I observed from the air as I flew in yesterday. The Sierras and Coast Range were clear, but the Central Valley was blanketed by a thick layer of low clouds.

Bass Lake, a few miles from the town of Oakhurst, is a long and narrow lake a half mile wide and a few miles long, set in a wooded valley between two low ridges of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The lake is anthropogenic, impounded by a dam on its south end. Cedar Bluff campground is about halfway down on the west side, and consists of a few loops of drive-up style campsites, set among tall Ponderosa pine trees, and an accompanying picnic area on the lake shore. The lake level was very low, with a wide swath of tan alluvium exposed along the shore. I walked a bit along the shore, watching Canada geese and ducks swim in the lake. Patches of fog hung above some of the adjoining woods. I then located the campsite, #1, that I had reserved and left a note saying that I had arrived. I was among only a few other campers. The area was pretty empty, not withstanding it being a sunny and reasonably warm Sunday.

Mariposa Grove. I then drove to the southwest entrance of Yosemite National Park, paid my $20 entry fee (for a one week permit) and stopped first at the Mariposa grove of giant Sequoia trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum). A little snow was on the ground, especially in shaded areas under the trees, so I wore YakTrax on my boots as I walked some of the paths beneath these big trees. I first visited the lower grove. Many of the Sequoias have surprisingly large side branches, giving them a much stouter appearance than merely a scaled-up Christmas tree. Their trunks are reddish brown in color and were lit up beautifully in the morning sun. Many had holes in their trunks at ground level, opened up by forest fires of the past. My first reaction was that, sadly, these trees would soon topple. However, I came across a sign that included a photograph of one of the trees taken in 1870. The hole in its trunk seemed no different in size than it did today. The tops of the trees are living and green, so the holes seem not to be a major impediment to growth. I then walked the trail to the upper grove. The trail is fairly high up on a hillside and passes through areas that are drier, rockier and more open than by the parking lot, though still with many large Sequoias. It never gets quite high enough to see the top of the canopy, however. The trail actually goes through one large tree, through a hole that looked to have been more or less natural, judging from the way that the bark has healed along the edges, though its shape had been evened out a bit with saws. The forest was not 100% Sequoia. Interestingly, some Ponderosa pines were astonishingly large, too. A fair amount of oak and other hardwoods grew as ‘underbrush’.

Chilnualna Falls. I then drove over to the hamlet of Wawona and hiked up to Chilnualna Falls. I was starting late for a long hike, the time being 1:30 PM, but the day was very clear and beautiful and I did not want to waste it. The parking area, near the end of Chilnualna Falls Road, is rather hard to find, mainly because it is right next to a rather ugly and out of place McMansion. The first segment of the trail ascends right next to the creek, and passes close to a small waterfall. It then moves a little further away from the creek and climbs, by an endless series of switchbacks, up into the gorge. Wawona Dome, a neighboring, large, rounded and mostly bare granite peak, is visible during most of the hike. The trail has a pretty even grade and is well maintained, making hiking easy, except for the sensation of ascending yet another switchback. Several places along the trail are especially interesting: a flat, open patch with bushes on a hillside overlooking the creek; a side trail where one can walk down to the creek, itself; a straight section that passes a few tall Ponderosa pine trees. I finally reach a spot where I can see across the gorge and view the main waterfall, a narrow ribbon of water in a cleft, still above me in elevation but close enough to give me the sense that I have time to reach it. Finally, after yet more switchbacks, the trail follows the base of a granite wall where some blasting has been done to open a passage. Finally, I reach the top of the main waterfall, where I can view the stream plunging down into a deep cleft. I see little of the main waterfall, itself, from this vantage, but I have a nice view of Wawona Dome and can look down into the chasm that I have ascended. A little upstream, however, is a smaller but very beautiful waterfall, surrounded by several granite tors. I walk up to its base but cannot spend much time there, for I must hurry back down. The time is now 4:05 PM, and I have only an hour or so of daylight left.

As I hurry back, the sun begins to set, lighting Wawona Dome a pastel pink. I get about two-thirds of the way down before the light is so dim that I need to don my headlight. I take the stock trail the last quarter mile, so as to avoid the section of the hiking trail along the lowest waterfall. The sky is now dark, though a quarter moon provides a little light. The last section is a steep paved road.

I sight a fox on the side of Chilnualna Falls Road as I drive back to Bass Lake.

Back at Bass Lake, I cook dinner at the picnic table at my campsite. A raccoon jumps up and starts licking a empty packet of cheese sauce that came with the prepared maracaoni and cheese dinner I am making. I successfully shoo it away, but it is very bold and backs away only after my making quite a lot of noise. I can see its eyes, glowing yellow in the light of my headlight, under a nearby bush as I eat. I lock everything back in my car when I’m done eating, so as not to encourage it or its friends. I then stroll down to Bass Lake and sit at the picnic area for a while, gazing across the lake and looking at the stars, Jupiter and the moon, all of which are very bright. The evening is still only begun, about 7:30, yet I turn in early.

Upper Yosemite Falls, December 13. The night has been peaceful and not especially cold. I eat breakfast of corned beef hash, eggs and coffee. I am startled when an animal rushes toward me. I initially take it for a small fox, but am relieved to discover that it is a young dog that only superficially looks foxy. It has a shaved body, but a long bushy trail. I play with it a bit. The morning is sunny, but with a bit of an overcast.

I then drive to Yosemite Valley, which takes about an hour. The last section of the road passes through a tunnel. I stop at both ends. At the first stop, I can see the lower part of the valley and a waterfall (not the famous one) on the valley wall. The second stop looks into the upper valley. This is the famous view with the very recognizable Half Dome in the distance. I a treated to wonderful views of Upper and Lower Yosemite falls as I drive through the valley itself. I park at the day lot near the Visitors Center.

I hike along a trail that winds east through the flat part of the valley, following its northern wall. The stream from the waterfall flows nearby. I sight several mule deer that are grazing among the rocks and bushes near the stream. I then cross the stream via a bridge or board walk that affords a great view of the lower falls. The bridge is crowded with visitors. I continue eastward along the trail, which at times runs close to the steep granite slabs that compose the side of the valley. I then begin my ascent to the upper falls. The trail ascends by many, many switchbacks. I pass a trail crew of two men and a woman building a fitted stone retaining wall along the side of the trail. They and other crews have been busy over the years, for most of this very heavily used trail is paved and reinforced with such stone work. I also pass a fellow hiker who excitedly shows me a video clip of a grizzly bear he has just sighted. I guess that it was just a little off of the trail, but I did not see it. I stop at a view point and gaze at the upper falls. I am now just a little below its base. I can see its top, where it comes out of a narrow cleft in an otherwise very vertical cliff face. And I can see its base, where the water rains down onto a bare field of boulders that are partially covered with ice and snow. Several subsidiary waterfalls are at its base. The huge wall of yellow to tan granite is streaked with water stains in places.

Continuing on, I pass an iron gate, chained in an open position. A sign says that it is closed during time of danger of ice falls. The trail now follows a gulch, partially-vegetated with bushes and one small stand of tall Ponderosa pine. It has its own little stream. I climb steeply uphill through a series of switchbacks. I pass several patches of snow, especially against the sheer eastern wall. Finally, I cross the stream and plod through a snowy section of the trail to reach a second iron gate, also chained open. I walk a few hundred yards through a flat section, past some impressive granite tor and a few gnarled trees and reach an overlook. It affords a great view of Yosemite Valley. I can see its steep walls and the meandering stream at its bottom and, of course, Half Dome and the other surrounding peaks. I sit down for a while and eat a snack. I then take a narrow and steep side trail, complete with iron handrails, down to vantage point where I can see the top of the Upper Falls, themselves. Like yesterday, there is a smaller falls a little upstream of the main one. A spend a few minutes gazing at the falls and then head back. The time is 3:15 PM and I am again short of daylight. Just as I am leaving, the guy who sighted the bear shows up. He, too, is worried about the approach of evening, but figures he has enough time to take a quick look. I then begin the endless set of switchbacks back down. I wear my YakTrax to cross the snowy section and then take them off, for my boots give better traction on the bare rock. The trail crews have essentially paved sections of the upper trail. But they’ve made the surface smoother than I would like. I cannot find as many arrest points for my toes as I would like, and have to be very careful not to slip. A few people are still sitting at the mid-way overlook, as I pass it. The train crew is just wrapping up their work. One of them tells me that they laid 5 stones today – about average, with a 12-stone day being their record. Today was their last day of the season; except for paperwork, they are done until March. I still have a little daylight as I reach the bottom. The sun, which had been mostly obscured by clouds since about 1PM, peeks out for a moment, lighting up the top of Half Dome a bright orange. I stand in front of the Visitors Center for a few minutes, watching the sunset. The clouds along the western horizon are lit up red. A layer of mist is starting to form in the valley.

A mule deer crosses the road in front of me as I drive back to Bass Lake. Fortunately, I am driving slowly and so it does not come dangerously close.

Back at Bass Lake, I cook a tuna melt for dinner. No raccoons bother me, but I think that I can see the eyes of one, glowing under a bush. I walk down to the lake shore, like I did last night, and watch the stars. Cassiopeia and Orion are in clear view. I awake once during the night, and look outside my tent at the stars. The moon has set and they are especially bright and beautiful.

Willow Creek and Angel Falls, December 14, 2010. I have corned beef hash for breakfast, again. The night was cold and clear and a little frost is on the ground. The morning has a bit of sun shining through a thin overcast. I drive to the Willow Creek trailhead, on the north end of Bass Lake. There is a nice swim area where the creek flows out into the lake (or where the lake would have been, had it been full of water). The water flows down an arching slab of smooth granite and into a deep channel.

I scout around and find a trail that follows the south side of the creek. The creek is flowing across granite slabs along a series of small cascades. This looks like a great summer swimming hole, or rather a series of hundreds of such holes. The main trail is easy, but there are so many side trails – and many heading down toward beautiful sections of the creek – that my progress is slow. Side trails peter out and in places I am scrambling over boulders and up and down the steep but wooded sides of the valley. I cross a road in about a half mile. The trail goes by a cabin, crosses a tributary via a small foot bridge, and then resumes following the valley. I pass several substantial falls. The beige granite is full of black xenoliths and occasional felsic dikes. The creek has worn many potholes, some five to six feet in diameter, some complete circular wells and others only partial. A six-inch diameter water pipe leads out from the top of one set of falls. Nearby is a small rectangular area surrounded with a chain-link fence that encloses some filtering equipment, or so I suppose. It sports a Christmas wreath. The trail passes several more substantial waterfalls. Once of these is called Angel Falls and another Devils Slide, though I don’t know which. Certainly there seemed to be more than two falls of impressive size. The top area of one particularly big one was fenced off and signed as having very slippery rock. The granite everywhere in the gorge is very smooth and polished, and for the most part I avoided walking on it. The last section of waterfalls that I visit is a straight V-shaped gully with the creek running at its bottom. I imagine that it would be very hard to climb up out of it! The trail then enters an open, bushy region with little soil and a rocky, gravely surface. The trail is hard to follow, though I do occasionally come across a small cairn that might have signaled its location. I more or less bushwhack through this area and then into a wooded area beyond it that follows the creek. I cross a small tributary creek, walking from stone to stone. If there is a trail here, I can not find it. The way on looks relatively easy, but I go no further. On the way back, I try to find a vantage where I could get a good look at the falls with the fence, but do not have any luck. I stop for a snack besides a big pool along a flat wooded section of the creek. It has been created intentionally by a boulder dam as a swimming hole and must be great on a hot summer day. Light rain begins for me, however. I donned my rain coat and hurry back.

In the late afternoon, amid light intermittent rain, I cooked dinner of macaroni and cheese with Spam. I ate it under a little awning at the picnic area by the lakeshore.

Rain, heavy at times, fell during the night. The tent leaked rather more than I had hoped and I slept quite a bit less than I had hoped. I had been planning to leave for San Francisco at 5AM, but left at 3AM in disgust. I dried everything out by hanging it, piece by piece, on the front seat of the car, and directing the air from the heater on it. It was all dry, five hours later, when I reached San Francisco.

Big Basin Redwoods State Park, December 16, 2010. Last night, while staying at a hotel in San Jose, I applied sealant to all the seams of my tent. And I bought a nine-by-nine foot plastic tarp at Home Depot - just in case. I drove up to the park via Routes 9 and 236, which ascend the east flank of the Coast Range. The morning was clear and the views were great. One valley has a very picturesque layer of fog covering its floor, with the upper flanks and surrounding hills in bright sun. I stopped at one overlook within the Park where I could look out onto the top of the canopy. The trees did indeed look unusually big, but are not nearly as impressive as when seen from the side!

I checked in at the Park Headquarters and was assigned campsite #185 at the Sempervirens campground - Sequoia sempervirens being the California Redwood, of course. A large contingent of recue related trucks were parked at the Park Headquarters. A 57 year old hiker, Jonathan Ian Frank, had gone missing five days ago and still had not been found. I was given a flier with his photo and instructions on whom to call if I encountered him. I never saw him, however, and learned two days later that he had been found dead near Berry Creeks Falls. He had shot himself in an act of suicide. Thus, his death was not a hiking accident.

I set up my tent at my assigned campsite, which has ten huge Redwood trees arranged (but not by any human being) in a circle, with a picnic table in the middle. I then took a day hike. I first took the Sequoia Trail to Sempervirens Falls, passing some beautiful and tall Redwoods along the way. The falls are modest in height, just a small stream flowing off of a 20 foot high, overhanging sandstone cliff with a pool beneath. But they were beautifully lit by the morning sun. I then crossed over to the Skyline-to-the-Sea (hereafter, Skyline) trail, ascending Slippery Rock, an open, sloping meadow with patches of bare rock pavement showing among mosses, grasses and low bushes. Many of the low, surrounding trees were hardwoods with colorful bark, mosses and berries. I then took Skyline through many groves of Redwoods. Some parts of the trail are cut into the hillside, midway between the little stream at it bottom and the ridge crest. I am always fascinated by having to look down into the gulley to see the buttresses of the Redwoods and then to look way up to see their crowns. They are unbelievably tall trees! Skyline continues up onto the ridge crest, where the Redwoods petered out and were replaced with hardwoods – mostly oaks and some holly. I passed by several streams, each with large clumps of overhanging fern. In places, the trail crossed patches of sloping sandstone pavement. A flat pathway and, sometimes, foot holes, has been chipped into the rock. These open areas provided nice view of neighboring ridges. Some of the sandstone was weathered into smoothly sculpted shapes – knob and bumps that I could imagine resembled various kinds of animals. I ascended as far as the Basin Trail junction, and then turned about, for I judged I did not have enough time to walk the loop.

I took Skyline all the way back to Park Headquarters. It follows a picturesque stream. I stopped a few sections where a wide point bar dry afforded access to stream level, and looked into pools of water, ferns and rushes. Fallen redwood trees spanned the stream in places.

Back at camp, in the dark, I cooked eggs and cheese sandwiches and black bean soup, all washed down with instant coffee. The picnic table where I was sitting move a bit, and (unsurprised) I looked up to set raccoon standing on the table, licking leftover eggs from a bowl. Shooing it away proved even harder than the one in Bass Lake. It jumped back on after my first attempt. I had to resort to beating a spoon against a pan to make noise.

The night went fine. I had put the tarp over the tent and, although some light rain fell, everything stayed dry.

December 17. Light drizzle was falling in the morning. I cooked breakfast of corned beef hash and coffee during an interlude.

Afterward, I strolled along the Redwood Trail near the Park Headquarters among particularly large Redwoods. I visited both the Mother of the Forest and the Father of the Forest trees. The former, 329 feet, is the tallest tree in the Park. I passed an amphitheatre with redwood log benches. A sign indicated that a nearby tree, now laying on its side, had fallen in the 1980’s.

I walked a short loop up to Sequoia Group Camp, taking a trail there and the service road back. I passed several interesting groves of Redwoods and say a buck.

I then took the Dool Trail to Middle Road, doubled back again, and then took the Creeping Forest Trail. The rain had begun to get quite heavy, so I had lunch sitting inside a hollow, trailside Redwood. Taken together, Dool and Creeping Forest almost form a loop. However, instead of closing the loop, I took Skyline to the Meteor trail. This trail was the most impressive of the ones that I walked during this visit to the Park. It runs through a deep and narrow valley, with huge Redwoods towering above. I passed a small control burn, with smoke and some flames among deadfall. Meteor took me back to Middle Road, which I took in the direction of Park Headquarters. Middle Road is pretty high up on a ridge, so mostly oaks and pines grow along it. I passed one open spot which might have afforded a nice view, had the weather not been so closed in. A side trail went up to a summit where, a sign indicated, the sea could be seen. I sighted a doe as I passed by the Dool intersection. I also see a brown salamander along a wet section of trail. I then took Gazos Creek Road and Skyline back to Park Headquarters. The rain was now heavy, and though my clothes were fairly dry, my rain suit was getting pretty saturated.

Back at the campsite, the rain was too hard and I was too tired to make a hot dinner. I had sandwiches while sitting in the car, listening to the radio and using its heater to dry off my gear. I had no trouble at all sleeping. The tent, now covered with the plastic tarp, stayed dry, even though heavy rain fell during the night.

December 18. I was lucky in that the rain tapered off in the morning. I made a breakfast of eggs and cheese sauce at the picnic table beneath the ten huge Redwoods, before packing up and heading off. I flew back to New York in the late afternoon.