Upper Yosemite Falls

What’s the saying? The greatest of journeys begins with the first step.  My first step was getting out of bed. Up at six am to beat the crowds and because I wanted to hike to Upper Yosemite Falls. The trail starts off with switchbacks (180 degree turns) that snake all the way to the top. I was huffing from the gitgo. I was on the trail at 8am and there were already people coming down. I kidded one couple about running down part of the trail. They said there were trying to make three falls in one day. I asked another couple where they were from. When they said Denver I commented ‘you must be use to this.’ The girls said they were use to the altitude, but not the climbing. Well that’s my problem, I live at 700 feet and I’m climbing a 7000 footer. On one section of trail the mist from the falls covers everything. It’s dripping wet with puddles all over. It was interesting to hear the falls close-up; the roar, mist hitting the leaves, the deep drumming as the water hits bottom from 1500 feet. There were points where I was so winded I ignored the scenery and just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. It took me three hours to reach the top, but what a spectacular sight with the green water vanishing over the cliff. Then as I peered over the edge half the water turned to mist and the rest collided with the valley floor. Since I was already up there I decided to trek over to Yosemite Point one mile and 45 minutes away. An incredible view. I thought it would be easier to hike down, but the trial is so steep it was a little precarious. At the end I had spent 8.5 hours on the trail, covered 10 miles total with a 2700 change in elevation. That, I think, is a good day. Except, I think I’m going to lose two toenails, Maybe I should save them as kind of a medal. (click photo for slideshow)

I also ran across two more snakes. This time without the dancing. The same black and brown snake, I found out it is a California striped racer, as from Kings Canyon and a Kingsnake (red-touches-black-venom-lack) at the end of the climb.

Most of the pictures in slideshow are from my iphone. I was test driving an app call GPS Motion X. I was able to download the tracks to Google maps, but not the pix. You can see where the iPhone lost GPS signal. Here’s an iPhone video.