Hiking from Tenaya Lake to the Yosemite Valley is a spectacular hike. The hike goes over Clouds Rest which has spectacular views. We then took the relatively short side trip up to the top of Half Dome. This is probably one of the best ways to climb Half Dome because you are hiking down instead of up from the valley. Hiking up from the valley is a very difficult day hike.
As you will see from our story of this trip, the amount of snow left over from winter can affect when you should take this trip. Snow on the trail can make the hike much more difficult.
THE ADVENTURE STORY OF OUR BACKPACK FROM TENAYA LAKE TO CLOUDS REST, HALF DOME, AND YOSEMITE VALLEY.
This looked on the map and from the guidbooks like a spectacular and relatively easy backpack. While it was very spectacular, the snow left from El-Ninio made it anything but easy.
When we picked up our wilderness permit, the ranger mentioned that the stream crossing at Tenaya Lake was deep and perhaps treacherous. However, "once one was across the stream, the trail was fine."
From the trailhead, we scouted out the stream crossing -- The water was smooth with no current, about chest deep, and very cold (melted snow). The day was sunny and warm without a cloud in the sky -- in fact, everyday during the whole trip was sunny and warm without a cloud in the sky. With the sunny warm day and our abilities, the crossing wasn't treacherous.
I took off my boots, put on my hiker sandals, stripped down to my shorts, held my pack up over my head and walked across. I then came back and in chivalrous fashion, held my wife's pack over my head and carried it across. My wife then daintily crossed the stream, though she only had to cross once.
After drying off in the glorious sunshine, we put on our boots and packs. At first the trail was in fine condition as we walked through the beautiful forest crossing an occasional small snow
bank.
After stopping for lunch, the trail began a steep ascent. As the trail went more towards the north facing slope, we began to cross larger and larger snow patches -- up a 12 ft deep snow bank, look for the trail, down the other side -- over and over again.
After a very difficult climb, we reached a point with a beautiful view looking up to clouds rest and down to the valley across half dome. We gathered some water, set up camp, ate dinner, and then watched the sun go down from our wonderful vista point.
This seemed like the perfect spot as we lay our heads down in peaceful sleep -- until about 1:30 in the morning when we awoke to hear a shaking sound -- what's that?? It was a bear shaking the tree branch from which half of our food was hanging. I ran out of the tent yelling and he shook the branch harder -- bang -- down came our bag of food and he ran aways off carrying it.
As the bear stood by our food bag he looked back at me non-chalantly as I missed him with some small rocks. Then I picked up a very large rock, hurled it at him, and hit him. When the
rock hit him, he jumped and ran off.
We went and retrieved the bag of food and he had eaten our entire salome but not much else. I hung the food back up in the tree further from the end of the branch, hoping he couldn't shake it off.
The bear continued to walk back by our camp repeatedly, looking for something to eat. We kept chasing him off. He was very hungry as much of his normal food supply was still under the snow. Finally he went off in the woods somewhere and started to shake logs and make a very unusual high pitched sound. I emulated his call and we proceeded to continue calling back and forth to each other for about 15 minutes. Finally, he seemed to tire of me and there was no sign of him. After about fifteen more minutes, we were getting a bit cold and decided to go back to bed. I fell asleep very soon. 30 minutes later -- Crack, wham down came our food again. This time the bear broke the entire branch. He must have fallen down with it -- I guess he didn't mind the 30ft fall. We let him have the food bag this time.
Fortunately, half of our food was still safe in the bear-resistant container I had constructed. We would excellerate our trip plan and not eat that much.
The climb up to Clouds Rest was very difficult because of all the snow. When we reached the top, though, we were well rewarded with a fantastic view -- the best view in Yosemite.
Back to the north, we could see down to the point where we spent last night and all the way back to Tenaya Lake where we began our trip. To the east stood the snow covered crest of the Sierras only a few thousand feet higher than our current elevation of 10,000ft. To the southwest, we observed the Yosemite Valley 6,000ft below us and our destination for tomorrow -- Half Dome.
From Clouds Rest, we made a steep 3,000ft decent to the spot where we spent the night -- we slept like babies.
We left our heavy backpacks at our camp and spent the next day climbing Half Dome. The last 1,000ft up Half Dome is quite a
climb. If it wasn't for the fact that the NPS has installed cables to hold on to for the climb, this would be a technical climb which would require rock climbing gear. Even with the
cables, it's steep and difficult.
It's quite thrilling at the top of Half Dome as you look straight down 3,000ft. We could see back up to Clouds Rest to the northeast, Inspiration point and Illoet Falls to the west, and
down to the valley past the overhanging ledges.
The next day, we hiked down past Nevada Falls then through the cool spray on the mist trail by Vernal Falls and down to the Yosemite Valley. That night we ate copious quantities at the all
you can eat buffet in the valley and certainly got our moneys worth.
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