Notes from Yosemite Trip

[GetOutThere]

East coast based backpacker just back from Yosemite for the second time. Spent 10 days in the park Oct 4th - 13th. Did Sunrise Lakes and Cloud's Rest, Ten Lakes, North Dome, Panorama Trail, Sentinal Dome at night, saw bear on the Valley trails two days in a row. Great Trip. Here's some notes:

Stay away from Rt 41 into the park with the road construction there, although seems they are almost complete at this point. We got stopped every day going that way and for at least 20-30 min at a time. Otherwise, that road is cool, curvy, fast, tight, and banked just right, it's hard to not go fast if the road is clear. You could Gran Prix if you could use both sides, omg! But watch out for the abyss! Not advocating this at all, just saying. The Rangers do patrol, we saw two times where they had people pulled out of their cars.

It's always a trip dealing with the permit program. We got to the valley office 10:55 one day, no line, and were told to go wait outside until 11:00 for permits. Maybe had something to do with the computer program not allowing access til then, but jeez, they wouldn't even talk to us till 11.
Had a better experience at the Wawona office wear the nice young lad talked our ears off, but even though his computer told him that ten lakes would definately have openings that day, he could not do anything for us till 11:00 either.

Always fun getting the permit quiz each and every time, even if the computer shows them you pulled three permits in the last week already; How far from the trail should you be? Do you have the right canister? Where can you have a fire? What do you do with your "poop" (we're not kids lady) tissues? What do you do if a bear comes into camp? I get it, but how about asking me about my backpacking experience?
In the Ten Lakes area the Rangers changed our permits to be 200 feet off the trail instead of 100, camping only on 'durable surfaces" and not in "previously impacted" sites, so no fires since no fire rings were set-up at 200 feet....

This was very interesting to us, we were told by the Rangers to store our bear canisters "in camp" 20-40 feet away so that we could hear if any bears came to investigate, and if so, we were to "be the dominant animal" and scare the bear away from camp and the canisters. Out here the rule is at least 100 feet away downwind, so hopefully there is never any contact with the bears. Their theory we were told in essence was; That they were trying to teach the bears that the canisters are associated with humans and anything associated with humans was bad to be investigating. Dunno, but that's what we were told. Anyone else been told this out there?

We ate at the famous Mobil in Lee Vining, dozens of flys all over the place, omg, not good, buddy got really sick that night from the pizza, I had the fish taco's, not real good either, I mean, compared to the seafood we have out here it didn't rate well. Not much else to choose from for eats up there this time of year though, so pack some food with you if you're taking the trip to the end of Tioga Rd, and you should take the trip to the end of the Tioga Rd, or take your chances.

Just fantastic country out there! Couldn't get enough of it. Got to get back in the Spring when the water's flowing.

Cheers,
SB

[AlmostThere]

I can tell when someone's not from around here... the things the rangers tell you are becaaaaaauuusssseeee.... people don't listen! So they repeat and repeat and people still don't listen. I was standing in the Wawona office listening to a couple argue with the ranger that they were going to eat all their food, stay the night, and hike back to the car in the morning first thing so they did not need a bear canister. The ranger patiently repeated many times that they need to put all trash and hygiene items in the canister, and they WERE GOING TO CARRY ONE. Or no permit.

You are going to get the same exact treatment each time. None of the other folks are kids, either, but they still leave toilet paper all over the place, still leave the bear canister in the trunk of the car because they planned poorly and did not leave room in the pack, and still get fined by a ranger for not having it ~~~ or ~~~ the bears get their stuff which they "cleverly" put under a rock. Because of course a rock you can pick up is insurmountable to a bear that routinely tips over logs and 200 lb boulders looking for bugs. Riiiiigggghhhttttt....

Someday I will post a gallery of pictures online containing all of the idiotic bear bag hangs (in Yosemite where it's illegal) where the food is all of a few inches over the roof of their tent, or hung off the end of a dead tree, or just sitting on a rock in camp, no one around. And yes, absolutely, get up and scare the boogers off. Some bears have figured out how to get into canisters. Given enough time, these ursine ensteins will soon figure them all out, and then we'll be expected to tote steel lockers or something worse than a heavy plastic barrel.

[bill-e-g]

Bingo.

11:00am. That is the time to get permits for the NEXT day. So if you were told to buzz off
then ALL permits were taken for the SAME day. This is highly unlikely. You must have
said some words to them to indicate you either wanted only certain THs or you wanted
a permit for tomorrow.

Ten Lakes. Ridiculous number of people just don't follow the rules on that little sheet o
paper called a permit they gave you. No new fire rings. Rangers continually are removing
new rings. With the extremely dry conditions this year they really didn't want people to
have fires at all.... so one way to do that is to tell you to camp where there aren't any.

41. Yeah, that's a fun road. Until you hit the road boulder going 35 and won't use the
$!@##! turnout.

Bears. Eastern Bears are more aggressive. Our bears in Yose are weiner dogs.
Bears already associate the can with peeps so I dunno what they talking about.
Having the can 100 ft. away or 2 ft. away makes no difference imo. I always
have mine within arms reach. If a bear comes by you won't know anyway.

Mobil Fish Tacos. LMAO! Ditto that. Over-rated. I won't ever stop there again either!

Have fun out there!

[bill-e-g]

One last item.

Toilet Paper. Unfortunately the vast majority of society believes that if you set some
toilet paper down in the woods it magically goes poof.
Sorry. That's not how it works. What happens is that it sits there for weeks
since we get so little rain. Wildlife comes by and takes some for their nests
and is happy until some rain finally comes ...
Anyway, it's disgusting. Pack your TP out. Or wipe your booty with wet ones and pack those out.
If people knew how to properly poop in the woods this wouldn't have come
to fruition. Less than about 5 years ago they never mentioned TP when getting
a permit.

On that...

Have fun out there

[orion]

I have never, not once in two decades, had trouble getting a permit, except maybe when the wilderness ranger is out to lunch and you have to wait around. The way I look at it, any time and place that would have all the permits taken is not a time and place I'd like to hike.

[GetOutThere]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for replying. Not being from around there....I welcome your comments. More than well aware of why the Rangers repeat and repeat. We get it. Been at this for oh, forty years and we follow the rules, all the rules, to the letter, all the time, no exceptions. We are guests and we treat the Wilderness that way. And realize that some say this and don't, so that' why the Ranger spiel. No problem with that.
No problem with the bear canisters either, just how we were told to use them. We like the canister's and *$%@ hanging your stuff in a tree. If I could tell you how many hours I've spent trying to find a decent hang!!! The canisters are multi-use, you can sit on them, use them as a mini-table, transport delicate objects in them, see how far you can roll them, lol, and go get yourself a snack late at night with ease.
Got to quizz the local Rangers out here though about keeping the cans so close to camp. As one said, bears are more aggressive out here. Probably true, although everytime I've encountered one, they just turn tail and run. I'll note that, over 30 years of hanging food, I've never had a hang disturbed. Understand that there are problem areas across the country where bears are more "educated" and Yogi scores often.
Understand the need to move established campsite areas periodically. Also understand the reasoning behind not moving them, limiting fire rings, and keeping the erosion in one place. In general, IMHO, this is the best practice for preservation in congested/poplular areas. And please, if you tell me to camp at a new established distance please have established fire rings there.
Ya, the TP. We just bury it out here. But we are wet, more often than not. You're right, you're so freaking dry out there. Felt like Pig-Pen from Charlie Brown walking in a cloud of dust most of the time. So understand how it would not decompose. Not to TMI but we use a baby wipe, a few sheets packs small, fits into the bear can easy and one does the business at hand, goes into the ziploc and de-oderizes a bit.
And speaking of that. Freaked me out just a little bit visiting mother nature in the dark knowing there could be lions around. Any tips on this for us not from around there? aside from doing it quick? Lol.

Cheers, have a wicked good one!

[dan]

Just a few comments,
You got most of it down. But to clarify a few things....

Hanging doesn't work very well in Yosemite--the bears are persistent and have all night. I used to do it, and it takes several minutes to get a rope over a high, long branch. Bear canisters are now required because most people didn't do it right (not high enough up the tree, or not far enough out on the branch, or not high enough off the ground). I keep the bear cans within sight of camp, just not right next to the tent as I'd rather not have the bears too close to me.

As for TP, I double bag the used TP. Triple bag or thick bags may be better.

As for lions, you mean mountain lions? I've never seen a mountain lion ever in the wild. I've seen plenty of bear (and in other states grizzly bear and wolf), but near a mountain lion. I think they are more common in the foothills, and keep to themselves. The main problem at night is tripping and freezing your butt off when it's cold and you're not fully dressed

- Dan

[GetOutThere]

Hi Dan,

Yes, I see the reasoning for the bear canister's out there. Trees are bigger, farther apart, branches are higher, bears are more abundant and have learned more. In the east the trees are much smaller (felt like we were walking in the land of giants out there) but more of them and the terrain much more dense in general, more opportunity for a proper food hang out here I think.
But we are now canister converts. We were reluctant to convert at first but now that we've used them, that is all we'll use for overnights. Just so much more convenient, less time consuming, less worry. Never like carrying more weight but seems like a worthwile trade-off in this case.

And yes, the mountain lions is what I meant. Was not really unnerved, I'm sure sightings are very rare, but was definately looking around and had it on my mind after my "buddy" much to his amusement, made sure to remind me of the fact that they are out there as I left camp in the dark. After all, what are friends for?

Definately agree with what one of you said about not being on the trails that are full up. For sure, we go out there to avoid the crowds as much as possible, get a great workout, disconnect from the grid and enjoy the solitude and quiet whenever we can get it. Of course while also taking in some must see's, like Clouds Rest and North Dome. We stayed off of Half Dome to avoid the people and the freaking cables. No thanks. This time of year, at Clouds Rest and North Dome we saw maybe 10 people on the trail all day in each place. Not bad over 8-10 miles of travel.

Anyways, thanks to everyone for replying and for all the information. Kudos to you all. Great place, great people out there, so big, so wide open, so much freaking granite! We really had a great time. Next time we pass thru we'll be on the Pacific Crest trail. See ya then!

Cheers!
Steve

[orion]

There are mountain lions in Yosemite and in the Emigrant Wilderness. Met a hiker who had spotted one in the Cathedral Range a half hour before we crossed paths, seen signs (prints and scat) in Slide Canyon, and a deer kill in Emigrant (that was the spookiest, just a jawbone and a chewed spine.) Still, I wouldn't worry about them, they stay away from people.