September 2008 Archives
We got up early on Sunday morning to get a head start on the crowd we were sure we would encounter on our hike to Little Yosemite Valley. The valley itself isn't a popular destination, but it has the distinction of being between two of the park's major attractions: Vernal Fall and Half Dome.
We left Curry just before seven and reached the Happy Isles trailhead (a mile away) just as the first shuttle bus released its payload of Vernal Fall/Half Dome pilgrims.
It was a trial slogging our way through the pack of people climbing the John Muir Trail. Past strollers and children and grandmothers we went. The folks we passed in the first few hundred yards seemed in cheerful spirits. Those we passed as we got closer to the Vernal Fall Bridge seemed to have had the cheer sucked right out of them.
Beyond the bridge, we opted to avoid the Mist Trail and continue up the less-traveled John Muir Trail. We climbed the switchbacks at a steady pace and Nevada Fall soon came into in sight. It was still flowing, but not with the same exuberance it typically displays in the spring.
Usually, at this point, the trail resembles a small stream. On previous journeys, we had to dodge water dripping from overhanging rocks and jump over puddles, but this time around, the trail was nearly bone-dry.
When we reached the top Nevada Fall, we took a moment to look over the edge before finding a quiet spot by the water to snack and soak up the sun. There were surprisingly few people around. I chalked it up to the fact that most people who seek to summit Half Dome get a later start.
When we reached the second restroom on the John Muir Trail (the first is by the Vernal Fall Bridge), M turned back (she had only wanted to go as far as Nevada Fall).
Beyond the restroom, the trail becomes another set of rocky switchbacks. These lead to the entrance of Little Yosemite Valley. At the top, I continued for a short distance until I found an opening to the Merced River along the trail.
I hopped across a series of large rocks until I was standing in the middle of the river.
I stood there for several minutes, reveling in the beauty around me before reluctantly returning to the trail. I wanted to stay longer, but I had promised M I would catch up with her, so I couldn't afford to linger.
The return journey was uneventful. I stopped several times to take the same photo of the valley.
I also stopped several times to let people climbing the trail pass. During these encounters, the typical exchange was a smile or a simple greeting, but on more than one occasion, the exchange went like this:
Hiker: Are you coming back from Half Dome? How was it up top?
Me: I couldn't say. Today, I only hiked as far as Little Yosemite Valley.
Hiker: (with undisguised disappointment) Oh.
Slowed by growing sense of inferiority, I never caught up with M. Thankfully, she was at the trailhead waiting for me and hadn't had to wait long (ten minutes).
All told, it was a 9.5-mile hike with just under 2,000 feet of climbing, which was not as strenuous as hiking to Half Dome, but still enough of an effort to make me hungry. Once we were back at Curry, we grabbed pizza and beer from the Pizza Patio and spent the rest of the day relaxing in the valley.
Since the opening of the iTunes App Store, I've downloaded a number of free and not-so-free applications. While I was initially enamored with every download, time has been a useful sieve, separating the applications I actually use from the ones I thought I'd use. Here is a list of my Top 5 favorite iPhone applications:
Mono Lake is roughly 75 miles away from Yosemite Valley. According to Google Maps, the trip takes roughly two hours. Normally, we beat the travel time estimate by several minutes, but we stopped so many times along Highway 120 (a.k.a. Tioga Pass Road), we reached Lee Vining and Mono Lake an hour after Google said we would.
We were on the road by 7 AM and were at Olmsted Point by 8 AM, where we spent an inordinate amount of time and energy searching for marmots without luck. I've seen plenty of marmots, but M has yet to spot one in person. If she doesn't see one soon, I fear the whole thing could grow from a simple desire to an obsession on par with the quest for the Holy Grail. While M was searching, I snapped this photo of Tenaya Lake.
Before leaving the park, we stopped by one of the most magnificent meadows I had ever seen. The sight of it filled me with such awe and joy, I felt the urge to sprint across it, fall on the ground, and stare at the trees, mountains, clouds, but something stopped me (likely the stodgy old man in my head known as Mr. Sanity) and I simply photographed it.
Beyond the park gates were two impressive lakes: Tioga Lake...
and Ellery Lake, which was smack dab in the middle of a wind tunnel. I got out of the car and could barely stand long enough to take a picture.
Past Ellery Lake was Tioga Pass, the highest automobile pass in California, roughly 9,945 feet above sea level.
From there, it was downhill to the tiny town of Lee Vining, which has a population of roughly 500 people. After getting our bearings at the Mono Lake Committee Information Center (Marker A), we made a quick detour to Panum Crater (Marker B), which is part of the youngest mountain range in North America (or so claims its parking lot sign).
The crater has two trails: the Plug and Rim. Because it looked like it would give us a better view at the top, as well as an idea of what was at the center of the crater, we took the Plug Trail.
After spending an hour wandering around the crater and getting blown around by the unrelenting wind, we finally reached Mono Lake, the day's main attraction. We visited the South Tufa area (Marker C). Normally, the entrance fee is $3 per person, but we had an America the Beautiful pass, so we didn't have to pay (or, we already paid, depending on your point of view).
According to the state's website, Mono Lake covers 65 square miles and is one of the oldest lakes in North America. It has no outlet and is nearly 2.5 times saltier than the ocean. It's the salt that creates the lake's signature tufa towers.
While the woman at the visitor center said I should drink some of the lake water to taste how salty it was, I decided to play it safe and take a few steps into the lake instead. After my feet had a few minutes to dry, they (and my sandals) turned completely white.
From there, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at the Whoa Nellie Deli. I had the Ragin' Cajun Jambalaya, which was delicious. All of the dishes were rather expensive, but the portions were generous. I also filled the tank while I was there. Gas was $4.79 a gallon -- a dollar more than the average.
After lunch, we made a quick stop at the state's Mono Lake visitor center and then the county park on the lake's northwest corner (Marker D).
If you want a nice place to picnic, the county park is ideal, but if you want the best views of the tufa towers, then South Tufa is the place to go.
It was nearing 3 PM and we wanted to get back to the valley in time for dinner, so we hopped in the car and made the return journey in a little over two hours (there might have been a short nap by Tenaya Lake along the way).
We dined at the Mountain Room Restaurant to celebrate my birthday (the not-so-big 3-4) and then called it an early night because the next day we planned to hike to Little Yosemite Valley.
For an ambiguous length of time, I've been feeling the unambiguous need to redesign this site. I had never liked the look and feel of it, primarily because it looked and felt like every other Movable Type blog on the web.
Of course, I never did anything about it because every time I started digging through the templates and default style sheets, my head would start spinning. If I managed to survive the spinning and started to fiddle with properties, I would inevitably break my blog and have to restore the backup copy. It was easier to stick with the status quo.
All of that changed yesterday morning.
"I don't care if the whole thing implodes. The status quo must go! I'm going to make this blog unique!" I proclaimed to my computer screen. "Or, at least less unoriginal."
After a morning and a half of tinkering, this is the result:
For future reference, here is a list of the major changes:
- Replaced photograph banner with hand-drawn sketch
- Added a menu bar with links to unique pages and actions (contact, subscribe)
- Moved the archive listings to their own page (accessible from every page)
- Lopped off a column to give the page a cleaner look
- Consolidated badges (Flickr, Twitter, etc.)
- Drained the color from the pages to give it a clean black and white look.
I'm still undecided if I want to keep the badges on the page. I believe some of them add value, but part of their value stems from my ability to remain active on those other sites.
For the most part, I'm happy with how the site looks. There are a few things I want to add, but first, I have to address a massive backlog of content (of the written variety) I still haven't posted. And in the end, what good is presentation if there isn't any quality content?
The idea came to me while I was shaving this morning and I sat down this evening and tried my best to sketch what I saw in my head. I tried my best to capture McCain's chubby cheeks and Obama's enormous ears, but I'm still not happy with the results. My appreciation for the skills of political cartoonists and caricaturists has grown immensely.
Also, while I was drawing, I may have been watching an episode of Hole in the Wall on Hulu. It's the dumbest brilliant show on television.
(p.s. Oh, and the show is nowhere near as cool as John Ralston's very cool Hole the In Wall comic series.)
Song on my mind... "This Boy" by The Beatles. And if you watch the video below, I'm sure it will be on your mind, too.
A
Over the Labor Day weekend, M and I headed to Yosemite for a four-day getaway. It was a trip that almost didn't happen. We had been looking for a place to stay in the valley for several months without luck. I would have been happy taking our chances with a walk-in site, but I doubted M would be keen on the idea, so I kept checking daily (sometimes hourly). With only a few days to go before the impending weekend, a spot in Curry Village opened. As soon as I saw it, I booked it.
The drive that Friday morning was surprisingly smooth. The new Highway 152/156 interchange was open and bottleneck-free. The new Highway 140 by-pass bridges, with their improved angles to allow longer vehicles, were also open and we reached them just as the 15-minute stoplight turned green.
We arrived in the valley just before noon. If the temperature hadn't been in the nineties, I would have grabbed my pack and gone for a quick afternoon hike, but the heat tempered my desire to the hit trail. Instead, we cooled our heels in valley.
We visited the Ansel Adams Gallery (they have a blog) and I discovered two very funny children's books. Both involved a character named Scaredy Squirrel, a squirrel so scared of everything, he never leaves his nut tree. The tales focus on the adventures he has when he strays from the safety of his tree (and routine).The artwork and stories cracked me up. I felt so guilty for standing in the middle of the store, reading and laughing, I bought the books. Now that I have them, everybody who visits will be forced to read them, too.
Also in the gallery were the paintings of Penny Otwell, an artist who lives in Yosemite. If I'm not mistaken, I mentioned her a couple months ago. It was nice to see her work in person.
Afterward, we took a quick peek at the Ahwahnee to see how the other half dealt with the heat. (They deal with it in lavish style as far as we could see.)
As evening came and the temperature dropped, we walked from Curry to Sentinel Bridge to watch a Half Dome sunset. It was a splendid, short-lived sight.
After the sun had set, we retreated to the village to get an early start on sleep since we would be waking early on Saturday to visit neighboring Mono Lake (a ninety-minute drive from the valley). I drifted off with visions of the evening's sky.
It isn't a bad way to fall asleep.
I'm in the process of teaching myself jQuery, a Javascript library, for work and fun. To help me out, I've been toying around with the Flickr API and created a simple album (a.k.a. photoset) viewer.
It isn't much, but this (learning Javascript and more) has been occupying a lot of my time, so I thought I would share some of it (since it's also eating into what would normally be my writing time).
(Or, Writing Away the Aches)
I've been feeling bit out of it the last few days. I'm used to the occasional aches and pains. It comes with not being as young as I used to be (an irreversible condition as far as I know). But this week, it seems most of me is aching.
I tweaked my right hip last week some time. It likely happened while I was playing Wii tennis. I don't hold back when I play. It must be my inner-Nadal. Anyway, I didn't think much of it when I hiked over the weekend, but once I returned, I could tell I aggravated it and now I'm feeling it big time. It means I won't be hitting the trail this weekend (much to my chagrin).
I've also been feeling pain in my wrists and upper arms, the result of sitting in front of the computer at work too much. If I were simply sitting, it wouldn't be so bad, but it seems my posture is less than stellar when I'm at my desk. Relaxing in front of the computer when I get home probably doesn't help it either.
I hope with some changes (like taking actual breaks at work and resting this weekend), the aches and pains will subside, but while I'm experiencing them, they aren't fun. Of course, I've found that talking about them (or at least blogging about them) helps. This entry by itself was the equivalent of 100mg of ibuprofen.
