Yosemite's Happy Lexicon (with apologies to Franklin Pierce Adams)

These can be a hiker's happiest words:
"Dewey to Crocker to Stanford."
Trio of rim points, as high as the birds,
Dewey to Crocker to Stanford.
Each one offering a most inspiring view,
Of the valley and El Cap and Half Dome, too --
If you should visit, there's a hike you must do:
"Dewey to Crocker to Stanford."

My goal for Black Friday was to be as far away as possible from the insanity of shopping malls and outlet stores. Hiking in Yosemite was the perfect way to achieve it.

After filling up on Curry Dining Pavilion's breakfast buffet (eggs, hash browns, sausage patties, pancakes, cereal, and coffee for $8), we drove to the McGurk Meadow trail head on Glacier Point Road for a hike to Dewey Point. We were also going to visit Crocker and Stanford Points, but they weren't the headliners on this trek.

From the road, the distance to Dewey Point is 3.9 miles. From there, it's 0.6 miles to Crocker Point and an additional 0.7 miles to Stanford Point. Doing some fast math, the out-and-back distance is 10.4 miles.

The toughest part of the hike was finding the trail head. On our first pass, I accidentally overshot it and ended up at the Taft Point / Sentinel Dome parking lot. We backtracked and found it, just west of the Bridalveil Creek Bridge, by pure chance. The only sign of the trail head's existence was a post without a sign.

We found a place to park off the road and started out. It was 10:15 a.m. and 36 degrees.

The first mile was a gradual descent through the forest. I had hoped the sunlight would reach the ground to help me warm up, but the trail was well-shaded. After a few minutes, we came across a log cabin built in the 1890s by a man named John McGurk (source: Trails.com).

Beyond the cabin, the trail left the forest and crossed McGurk Meadow. The last time I saw the meadow, it was covered in snow. That was in January of 2006, when we snowshoed to Dewey Point. Now, the meadow was gold instead of white.

From the meadow, the trail meandered back into the forest and began a climb that would continue all the way to the point. After another mile, the trail merged with the Pohono Trail, which runs from Glacier Point, through Taft and Dewey Points, to the Wawona Tunnel.

After a good deal of climbing (mostly mild, with a few steep spots thrown in), I noticed the wind picking up and I took it as a sign that we were getting close. When we reached the point, I was struck by how different it looked without snow.

I walked to the edge and braced myself against a boulder to photograph the valley. The wind was blowing so hard, I could barely keep my eyes open and tears were streaking down my cheeks. Breathing was also difficult. Inhaling wasn't a problem, but exhaling was a different story. I found that yelling and hollering helped. The view was exhilarating.

Crocker Point was a short, downhill hike from Dewey Point. Two-thirds of the way there, M's foot began to hurt, so she turned back. The plan was for me to catch up with her after I visited Stanford.

The view at Crocker was still impressive, but not as spectacular as the view from Dewey.

From there, it was a steep, 400-foot descent to Stanford Point, named after Leland Stanford, the former California governor and cofounder of the Central Pacific Railroad, according to Richard Hartesveldt's Yosemite Valley Place Names. For the curious, Crocker Point was likely named after Charles Crocker, an associate of Stanford, and Dewey Point was named after Admiral George Dewey, the hero of the Spanish American War.

It was early afternoon when I started the return trip. As I reached Dewey Point, M radioed to say she had reached the split in the trail. Shortly after that, I lost reception. I was still two miles behind her, so I picked up the pace.

When I reached the trail head, it was 3:15 p.m. and the temperature was in the low forties. I expected to see M waiting for me, but she wasn't there. I tried the radio, but it still wasn't working. I checked the car and ventured down the road, but she was nowhere to be found.

Worry washed over me. Had the pain in her foot been too much? Had she strayed from the trail and gotten lost? Had she accidentally taken the other trail?

I dismissed the first two possibilities right away. If her foot had been hurting, she would have stopped and I would have stumbled upon her. As for straying off the trail, that just wasn't something M did. That meant she must have taken the other trail. It also meant she could either be backtracking towards me or heading towards Taft Point.

Unable to contact her to find out which way she was going, I decided to leave a note on the dashboard and retrace my steps on the trail to see if I could regain radio reception. After a quarter-mile, I did. M was okay.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"On the trail -- heading towards the trail head. I'm almost there," she replied through heavy static.

"You are?" I looked around, bewildered. "I think you're on a different trail."

I doubt she heard that last part because the radio cut out again.

I continued down the trail. A few minutes later, I met a family of four coming from Taft Point. They were only the third group I had seen all day. I asked if they had seen anybody matching M's description and the mom told me they had seen her heading towards Taft an hour earlier.

I thanked them and broke into a run. I sprinted by McGurk's cabin, through the meadow, and into the forest. As the trail began its ascent, I slowed, figuring all I was doing was wasting energy.

I was almost at the split when M and another hiker came around the bend. The hiker's name was Henry. M had run into him as he was coming from Taft Point and he had pointed her in the right direction.

An overwhelming sense of relief washed over me. The three of us hiked back to the trail head. Before parting ways, we thanked Henry for all of his help.

By now, the sun was setting and the temperature was dropping. As we drove back to the valley, we passed at least three or four dozen cars speeding towards Glacier Point. I didn't know why they were in such a hurry until we reached the Wawona Tunnel and saw the view.

Despite the excitement at the end, the hike to Dewey, Crocker, and Stanford Points was wonderful and I would highly recommend it to anybody visiting Yosemite.

You can find more photos from the hike at Flickr.

And now, to end this lengthy post, I leave you with this thirty-second video clip I took at Dewey Point. Please excuse the yelling in the beginning. That's just me trying to breathe.