Well, figured I'd give you all a little report after I attempted my Yosemite winter backpacking trip to Glacier Point...
My first attempt was the last weekend in January after that HUGE storm. The weather report for the next 5-6 days was nice, clear, and maybe a bit chilly.
I even managed to snag a reservation at the Glacier Point Ski Hut for Friday! So one night in the way to GP, one night at GP, and one night for the hike back. Simple!
Heading into Yosemite, the Badger Pass road was still listed as closed and the ranger at the entrance station said it was closed. Once I got into the valley I checked and they just opened it and were sending the shuttle buses up. Away I went!
Had to use my tire chains, but I made it. Got my wilderness permit and then checked in at the nordic center for the GP ski hut.
Horror!! The ski hut wouldn’t be open that weekend because the storm caused some electrical problems and the fire suppression system was not working.
I decided to go for it anyway. Kind of wished I’d decided to go to Dewey instead, but I really did want to see the views from Clarks Range View to Glacier Point in the winter.
Got about 6-7 miles in before I decided I had to find a place to camp. Unfortunately, I was on the steep part that overlooked Clark Range, so not very many open areas to camp. Since I left late from Badger Pass due to the problems with the ski hut causing me to think about my options at that point, it was about 4pm when I found a spot that would probably work. Way to close to the road (5-10 feet only), but I didn’t have much choice at that point.
Of course, sunset and sunrise over the Clark Range was beautiful and spectacular!!
That’s were the enjoyment ended.
Had a leaky air mattress that I had to keep reinflating all night (which led to not getting much sleep and it being colder beneath me than it should have been).
My new -20 degree bag did keep me pretty toasty though, so at least I didn’t feel like I was likely to freeze to death like I did in my Tahoe test trip.
And one of my tent poles broke when I was taking down my tent in the morning. I had an emergency splint, but that and the air mattress, plus a ill placed tarp under my tent which caused water to pool under the tent all night (learned my lesson on that…never again) led me to decide one night was good enough.
I made the trudge back to Badger Pass and called it a weekend two days early.
If I could have stayed at the GP ski hut I would have pushed for it, but with my gear not cooperating, I couldn’t push myself to continue (since I expected it to be two days to go to GP and two days back).
Got the air mattress fixed at home (it’s hard to patch them in the field since I had to put it in my bathtub to find the leaks
) and had an extra one, so planned to bring both for my next attempt. I’m a glutton for punishment.
But to try again I had to wait for the weekend weather to be good and find a good time to take a couple more days off work… Finally, everything aligned last weekend. Sunday looked a little iffy, but the weekend after that (this weekend) was showing more rain and snow for most of it (which didn’t materialize, unfortunately).
No luck getting a reservation at the GP ski hut, but I got myself on the waiting list just in case.
Deciding I could just do the hike with just camping (despite my prior problems), I set off from badger Pass again. Road was much better, so didn’t even need chains and I got up early, so was on the trail by 9am (as opposed to 11am in my first attempt).
Now the first part of the trail is a bit dull (especially since it was my second time through it in a month’s time), but once I reached the view of the Clark Range, it was again spectacular (it’s nice taking in this view at a leisurely pace… usually I just end up driving by it). Made it to my camping spot from my first attempt around 1pm, so I kept going. Made it about a mile further before I started getting some flat area around the trail and finally found a semi open area to camp in. Bonus points since it had a direct view of the Clark Range!
This time, I had a small tarp to use in front of the tent, but avoided putting it under the tent this time.
Air mattress worked fine and I didn’t even need the new one.
Sunset and sunrise were once again spectacular!
So, with a better night’s sleep under my belt and no gear problems, I continued towards Glacier Point. The ranger had suggested checking out Sentinel Dome area and there were some nice tracks to it along the fire road, so I went up and found a fantastic camping spot looking to the east with a spectacular view of Half Dome and all the surrounding peaks and valleys.
Someone had even already camped there and packed down the snow pretty well so I didn’t even have to do any of that myself this time.
At this point I had cell phone coverage, so I called the Nordic center to see if there happened to have been a cancellation… nope.
So I set up my tent and thanked mother nature for the view.
Then my phone rang and the Nordic center said there had just been a cancellation. Pretty much right after I had set up my tent and settled in.
Figures.
Now, the weather Sunday was looking to be much worse than it initially seemed before I headed to Yosemite (and it was a doozy in retrospect), so I really didn’t want to be out camping Saturday night. Without the bad weather coming I was thinking could goto the GP ski hut Friday night, then return to camp near Sentinel Dome Saturday night (could have even left my tent setup there if I tied it down better). So I decided to stay at my glorious camp overlooking Half Dome.
But it was still only about noon at that point and I did want to see Glacier Point in the winter, so with only the minimal gear I needed (and a few things I’d want if I changed my mind and stayed at the ski hut after all
) I made my way down to glacier point. Spectacular in winter!
Pretty much had the whole area to myself for an hour or so before some skiers showed up. Did look into the ski hut (the shop/grill building) and salivated having heat, a bed, and a leather couch to enjoy, but with the bad weather for Sunday coming and figuring starting from GP in the morning would add 1-2 hours to my return time, I decided to head back to my camp near Sentinel Dome.
Spectacular sunset and sunrise!!! The light over Half Dome changed about 3-4 times in various hues and intensities during sunset. Including a dark orange that almost spotlighted only Half Dome.
No problems that night.
Since I had mostly a downhill hike from my camp near Sentinel Dome back to Badger Pass, I actually ended up making it back in only 6 hours (which is what I took during my first aborted attempt from my camp 4 miles closer). I was very surprised at how fast I made it and I sort of wished I had taken a little more time out that way to see Taft Point or just more sightseeing in general.
But the forecasted storm pushed me to try to make sure to make it back to Badger Pass that day. The fact that the day was pretty beautiful with only a few more clouds than the last day didn’t really make it seem like there was a storm coming, so I was tempted to say out longer. But there was a pretty strong wind blowing that day and I started to get the idea that mother nature wasn’t going to let me stay out there.
And of course it was a very strong storm, so in retrospect I made a good decision. Even sitting it out in the GP ski hut Saturday night and Sunday probably wouldn’t have been a good idea. I did cross my mind that there would have been cancellations with the storm coming and considered doing that, but it may have taken until Monday to be able to go back to Badger Pass so I chose the safer choice.
I should have just taken the extra day off work and started Wednesday, but at the time I didn’t like the look of the long term forecast for this weekend (that now looks very nice) and Sunday didn’t look that bad at that time.
So not perfect, but a very enjoyable trek anyway.
Will try some more winter camping next year.
My idea to follow the Pohono Trail or even take the Panoramic trial down the valley turned out to be impossible (especially this year with the huge amount of snow we’ve had). Panoramic hadn’t even one set of tracks in it and I’m sure Pohono would have been VERY hard and I didn’t see many tracks headed that way from Glacier Point.
So survived my first 3 winter backpack camping experiences and learned a good deal from them.
Of course, took a lot of pictures.
All the highlights on my successful three day hike here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskSc6RqdALL of the rest of the pictures here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskTf7ypjAnd my first single night attempt here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskQkqgTo