Ledge Trail Condition

[TicTacToe]

Does anybody know the current condition of Ledge Trail (from Curry Village to Glacier Point)? I'm wondering if it's safe to scramble it after the rock slide in October 2008.

Or if you have climbed it in the past, would you help to share your experiences? Thanks!

[jpcal]

http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/~davea/yosemite_6_05.php
This site shows it, however from a few years ago. I'd be scared to go up this trail from the various accounts that I have read about it.

[bill-e-g]

Here's more:

http://yosemitenews.info/forum/read.php?1,2743,page=1

Alot of people ask. But either think otherwise or are too inconsiderate to post their experience.

[TicTacToe]

Jpcal & bill-e-q, thanks a lot for your replies!

I guess not too many people scramble it each year. Almost all scramblers said they met nobody else on the trail. That's probably why there is not too much information on the web.

[dan]

Here's an old thread about the (closed) Ledge Trail above Camp Curry:
http://www.yosemite.ca.us/forum/viewtop ... edge+trail
Old Ledge Trail above Curry Village.

The trail was built in 1918 (before that it was more of a cross-country route) and closed because of the high accident/death rate and rescue costs. I see it on a 1956 map, but it's gone from a 1964 map. A 1928 rescue account:
http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/guard ... dents.html

From Yosemite Valley Place Names (1955) by Dick Hartesveldt:

LEDGE TRAIL—Although long used as a route to Glacier Point, the trail was constructed in 1918. It starts in the Camp Curry bungalow section and climbs steeply along Staircase Creek for 3,200 feet as the shortest route to Glacier Point. The name LEDGE is possibly for the overhanging ledge of rock seen on the lower part of the trail. It does not follow a ledge at any point.
http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/yosem ... e_names/#l

From Pathways: A Story of Trails and Men (1968) by John W. Bingaman:
Ledge Trail

In 1871, James M. Hutchings had been guiding parties of hikers to Glacier Point over a most hazardous trail, which he had blazed up the Ledge and through the chimney and which climbed 3,200 feet in approximately one and a half miles to Glacier Point. This was the Ledge Trail.

In 1918, it was repaired by the Park Service. It was a dangerous climb because it was partly built of solid rock, and extremely steep, much like a staircase. Rock slides occurred frequently causing accidents to climbers. Only up-travel was permitted by the park regulations in later years. After several major floods, rock slides, injuries, and deaths to climbers the park authorities deemed it necessary to close this trail to all hikers. The Author assisted in rescue parties several times on this trail.

It was April 9, 1928, when the Author rescued Miss Edna May Wilbur, daughter of Curtis D. Wilbur, Secretary of the Navy, and Miss Ona E. Ring, of Lindsay, California. The girls without a guide became lost at night while trying to descend the steep Glacier Point Ledge Trail. In responding to the girls cries for help, and with the aid of ropes I was able to haul them back more than 100 feet to safety from a narrow ledge 2,000 feet above the floor of the Yosemite Valley.



http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/pathw ... rails.html