|--------------|
home
|--------------|
brain
|--------------|
blog
|--------------|
books
|--------------|
links
|--------------|
contact
|--------------|

[ My Blogger ]

blog... chronicles of the predator of the north... Esox lucius my flickr

Sunday, August 31, 2008 [ posted 10:35 AM ] \>   Adios to Yosemite This is the final part in a 7 part series detailing my trip to California and Yosemite National Park in August 2008.  You can find the previous posts here: Californication San Francisco 2008, Part I Berkeley/San Francisco 2008, Part II Yosemite National Park 2008, Part I Yosemite National Park 2008, Part II Half Dome! Adios to Yosemite You can view my entire collection of pictures in this set on flickr: Yosemite National Park. All the pictures on this day were taking by JS, as I didn't even bring my camera out the whole day.  (I think this turned out to be a good idea, as it gave it time to dry off.)   Tuesday, August 19, 2008 Today was our final day in Yosemite.  Both of us had flights out of San Jose International at 7:45 PM.   The plan for the day was to make our ways down to the Valley floor, exploring the waterfalls along the way, head towards SJC, and not miss our flights. We got up at around 6 AM, since we had gone to bed super early the night before.  Wow, it felt good to get a full night's rest.  Given our history with eating lunch (or not eating it), I had suggested that we eat the final pack of freeze-dried food for breakfast.  This would turn out to be a good idea.  We packed up everything relatively quickly.  I say relatively quickly because it turns out I'm pretty slow at packing stuff up.  By the time we left the Little Yosemite Valley campground, it was ten minutes to 8 AM! JS kept coughing while hiking.  I remarked about how if there was anytime to get sick, it was *now*, at the *end* of a vacation. It was a pretty flat, slight downthill, to Nevada Fall.  There was one guy we passed sitting on the side, huffing and puffing.  "How much farther!?" Soon we reached Nevada Fall, where there was another (though half the size) two-storey toilet.  JS got a picture of it, as we had forgotten to take pictures of the one at Little Yosemite Valley.  Oh I forgot to mention yesterday that while using these high-tech facilities (and reading about how they work on a sheet of paper on the wall in front of you-like how they circulate warm air), you could feel a very slight warm breeze coming up against your bare skin.  :|  Or maybe it was just in my head.  No, actually I distinctly felt it. We started to head down Mist Trail.  It immediately became apparent that going down would be much easier than coming up.  The Trail up from the base to the top of Nevada Fall was composed of granite steps.  Those dreaded 1 ft tall steps!!  I enjoyed making my way down slowly, which watching others huff and puff their way up the steps.  A lot of people we passed asked us how far we went.  "Top of Half Dome!" we would say.  The follow up question would be when we started, since it was still pretty early and we were going down.  People seemed slightly less impressed when they found out we had camped at Little Yosemite Valley. Near the base of Nevada Fall we veered off the trail so that JS could take pictures.  Normally I get all excited at the prospect of taking waterfall pictures, but with a broken camera...  I wanted to take my camera out to give it a shot, but the prospect of only getting in a handful of pictures before it died (having to unpack everything and set up the tripod) wasn't very bright.  So instead I stood and watched JS in action.  He got an amazing shot of Nevada Fall: We kept heading along Nevada Fall, and at the base, we veered off the Trail again for another angle at the Fall.  I saw that there was water running over stones-my favourite!  It was kind of like the picture I got in Olympic National Park, except without the moss.  Sigh.  If only I had a functional camera.  I didn't realize it at the time, but apparently I was looking pretty depressed.  JS got this snapshot of me sitting there waiting for him. I was feeling pretty friendly today, so I tried to greet every single group of people we passed, from the Little Yosemite Valley to the Valley floor.  I have never in my life said so many "Morning!"s, "Hello", "Hi", "Howdy", "How are you?", "How y'all doin'?" greetings.  It got kind of repetitive but seeing the people huff and puff up the trail, I felt that they would appreciate it--especially the ones looking down on the trek up, but would instantly look up and smile when you greeted them.  What I absolutely hated, though, was people that would ignore you.  Wtf.  With those people I always had to fight the urge to should, "I said 'Hello', dammit!" Down, down the Trail, and we reached the top of Vernal Fall.  We managed to "grab" our first virtual geocache of the day there by finding out which bodies of water feed into the Fall: the Emerald Pool and Silver Apron.  Normally (during the spring) it is quite dangerous to swim in these bodies of water, since the current is quite strong and it empties over Vernal Fall.  In August, however, the volume of water going over the falls is dramatically reduced to 80-90% of its spring volume.  It would be pretty cool to come back in the spring to see the Fall. The climb from the base of Vernal Fall to the top (or vise versa, the way we were going) was once again composed of stone steps.  I did not envy the people climbing those steps.  We passed two squirrels coming down the steps, and one of them starting a high-pitched "chirping," and the little guy just would *not* stop.  I suspect he was trying to mate when he was interrupted.  Anyway, the guy kept chirping for ever, which allowed JS to get up close and take a pretty cool picture or two.  Envious! Then there was an outlook to take pictures of Vernal Fall.  I was impressed that 18 mm could cover the Fall from top to bottom.  JS took much less time that I would have guessed, and snapped this great picture: From there it was pretty much down, down, down, following a paved path.  You could see a big difference in the people hiking/walking the trail now.  They were people without backpacks on, not even day hikers. JS pointed out the trail up to Sierra Point, where there was another virtual geocache.  From this vantage point, it's the only place in the valley from which four waterfalls can be seen in a single point (Vernal, Nevada, Yosemite, and Illilouette).  The trail up to Sierra Point is now closed from rock slides but a lot of people still scramble over to rocks to reach it.  I was pretty sure I was too tired to scale another cliff, but I encouraged JS to do so.  He declined.  We would have to do that another day. At the end of the trail was another virtual geocache that taught us a little about the geology of the area.  It's funny, we would never have noticed these large boulders sitting beside the trail if it were not for the cache.  (I know because we were 30 ft off to begin with, and we couldn't 'see' the boulders even with the hint!) We made our way along the road back to the trailhead parking.  While walking, a shuttle passed us, driven by the same bus driver that had taken us several days ago (wow, had it been just 3 days?)  I'm pretty sure the bus driver didn't see us along the sidewalk.  The bus was also completely full of tourists now.  What a difference. We found our way to the car, at 11 AM, and I pretty much just threw my stuff into the backseat.  We could unpack (and repack) later, I said.  I had a drink of several-day-old, lukewarm Coke.  Mmm. I was about to get moving when I noticed a sheet of yellow paper under the windshield wiper.  Wtf.. did we get a ticket?  JS pulled it off.  It turns out that we had gotten a citation for leaving a coke bottle in the car.  Fortunately, this first offense was only a warning.  Phew!  We had had too many run-ins with the law on this trip. It was a little too early for lunch (and we didn't really want to eat in the Valley anyway--we wanted some "real" food).  We headed off to Yosemite Village.  I was unable to find any parking at the Village Store so first we headed off to visit the Ahwahnee Hotel.  The first thing we did when we got in there was to use the rather upscale restrooms.  I washed my face and arms.  I would have probably done more, if it were not for the business of the restroom, and if there weren't some guy that worked there using the facilities when I was in there as well. We explored a little bit, and JS got some nice shots.  The Great Lounge: The Dining Room (which has a hella-expensive menu): We toured the gift shop, where I found a 1.5 ft high Ahwahnee statue I really liked.  JS asked why I did not buy it.  It cost $1500.  :| We headed off to the Village Store to find some more reasonably priced souvenirs.  My parents (especially Mom, I think) have always been into souvenirs.  I've got a ton of shirts with the city names of places I've been (and places I *haven't* been), as well as trinkets from such places.  As I've begun to have my own collection of stuff at home, I no longer buy souvenirs because they tend to just sit on a shelf collecting dust.  I much prefer pictures.  This felt different though.  After summitting Half Dome the previous day, I told JS that I had to get a souvenir to commemorate the trip.  He agreed.  At the Village Store, we found t-shirts (as suspected) that said "I made it to the top of Half Dome" or something.  Those shirts were expensive.  Funny, but I still cannot get myself to buy cotton t-shirts after college. We spent a bunch of time scouring the (pretty large) store looking for souvenirs.  JS came up to me and saw that I hadn't picked out anything.  I told him that I was looking for the Half Dome benchmark I had seen up at Glacier Point--*that* would be appropriate, but I couldn't find it.  I headed towards the clearance section of the store to maybe find a deal.  Not five minutes later JS comes up to me with a big grin on his face, "I have a present for you!"  He had found the benchmark magnet!  Awesome!!  I wonder if that benchmark actually exists--we didn't see it? As we were leaving my eye caught a glimpse of a golden sticker the stop uses to tape things closed.  It was round and gold and had the Half Dome emblem on it.  It was out the door before I realized that it would make an awesome addition to my NPS passport (although unconventional); and I could (triple) stamp it too!  So I went back in to get one. JS saw it after, and had to go back in to get one too.  :P We headed off to the Yosemite Post Office to mail off a couple postcards.  And then to the Ranger station so that we could stamp our passports.  (Which I messed up.  :|  JS did the smart thing and stamped the golden sticker before putting it in his book.  Argh.  I guess this is what makes it authentic?) I suggested that we get a sandwich to go at the deli next door (somehow it was now 1:30 PM).  We went inside and there was a massive line!  OK, never mind.  It was time to go.  We didn't even have time to make a detour to Tunnel View as we had planned.  Yet another thing to do next time we come back. On the way out of the Park there were some cars slowing down and park rangers directing traffic.  Cars were pulled over on the side of the road, so I rolled down the window and asked a couple of rangers: Me: What are we looking at? Ranger: *We* are looking at you. Me: ... Me: What am I supposed to be looking at? Ranger: *You* are supposed to be watching the road. Me: OK, I knew that was coming.  What are other people looking at? Ranger: A bear. We had seen a bear in the wild and weren't too interested in one along the side of the road (and we couldn't see it from the car) so we kept right along.  As we neared the entrance to the Park, it seems that we would have to stop and show them either your National Park card, or the receipt you used to enter the park.  Wtf.  That's the first time I've ever seen any National Park check you on the way out.  So we didn't get a free pass, and instead I paid $80 for a year long NPS pass.  (This would later turn out to be a bad idea.) On the way out of the Sierra Nevada mountain range I drove a little aggressively, as I wanted to see how the Sonata would perform.  It's pretty crappy.  Gunning it takes a while before the car actually moves.  I don't know if I freaked JS out; he didn't say anything about it. JS was our navigator, and we stopped at an In-N-Out in Merced to grab a late lunch.  I've never eaten at an In-N-Out before (I'd only heard of it); I didn't realize they only served burgers.  They do serve pretty good burgers though.  I ate while driving, which turned into a pretty messy ordeal.  They wrap their burgers in some kind of wax paper, and trying to unwrap it with one hand, and not looking at it, is a pretty big challenge in of itself. We kept heading west along highway 152.  As we passed by the San Luis Reservoir, I was completely awestruck by how beautiful the scenery was.  The water was turquoise blue.  The hills were bright yellow with dried grass.  There was a smattering of large dark trees every now and then.  I so wished that we could pull over to take pictures, but we were really running short on time now.  (Not to mention my camera issue.)  It was beautiful.  And then we came across some wind turbines!!  Man, oh man!  I will have to come back here some time! At some point, the low fuel light came on.  I asked JS when the nearest gas station was and it seemed there wasn't one for miles and miles.  The road was climbing up and down hills so I was using a bunch of gas.  I suggested that I could try drafting off of trucks, but it turns out that I was too impatient for that and overtook them anyway.  We managed to find a Chevron in short order and I joked about seeing if we could reach the next gas station instead (like Kramer in The Dealership). We made it into San Jose without any traffic issues.  So *this* is where the Silicon Valley is!  Interesting!  It's actually pretty nice, to see dry yellow rolling hills.  Scenic. We drove around the airport a couple times looking for a place I could fill up on gas.  I hadn't filled up at the Chevron because I thought it'd be cheaper in the city.  It was not.  After filling up we went next door to the Denny's, parked the car, and proceeded to pack our suitcases in what is perhaps the fastest packing job I've ever done (and that means a lot)!  We had less than 2h before our flights departed. I thought I'd checked the car to make sure we weren't forgetting anything, but I think we may have.  (I would later find out that I couldn't find the $80 annual Park Pass I had *just* paid for.  Wtf.) JS seemed to have trouble with too many carry-on items to juggle, especially with the Gitzo. Checked-in.  I crossed the metal detector easily (even with the Half Dome souvenir in my back pocket I had completely forgotten about!), whereas JS got stopped and his stuff rummaged through. Sat there waiting for a bit.  Decided I needed to use the restrooms.  Went in, and blew my nose several times, pretty forcefully.  And suddenly my nose was bleeding.  Wtf.  My nose hasn't bled in a long time (I used to have quite a problem with nosebleeds when I was a kid.)  I hoped they'd let me on the plane with a nosebleed!  I come back out to JS, who was guarding our stuff.  Lol. It was soon time for our respective flights.  We bid each other adieu, and headed off.  It turns out my flight had already boarded, so I hurried on.  Luckily there was a spot for my carry-on suitcase (full of photography equipment).  My primary fear for this plane ride was that I would smell and affect my neighbour(s).  I hadn't showered in days.  I blasted the vent, and the guy did not complain through the entire trip (actually, he was sleeping). Was back in Seattle in short order.  Took the bus back to work, where I had parked my car, and in the process, typed out the first post in this series.  Drove back home, and pretty much collapsed with exhaustion.   Conclusion And that was it.  An amazingly successful trip to California and Yosemite National Park.  The "only" mishaps were a waterlogged camera (which now works!  Woot!), a "lost" D80 LCD cover (actually, "misplaced", since I know exactly where I left it), a lost $80 NPS pass, and JS's lost camera battery.  At least no one got hurt or anything (I was half expecting to twist my ankle on the trip, with all that hiking), or ripped apart by a bear! Five days and four nights. We hiked almost a marathon worth of mileage, saw a ton of deer, a bear, a snake, a bunch of lizards, a ton of squirrels and birds.  We saw some of the most breathtaking scenery in our lives.  We lost a lot of sleep.  And we climbed to the top of Half Dome.  Wow.  The pictures, the memories!  What a trip.  What a trip!   I spent time camping with a great friend and fellow Nikon enthusiast.  You have no idea how nice it is to travel with a fellow photographer/kindred spirit that takes as long as you do, shooting everything and anything.  We've come a long ways since CS 412: Introduction to Compilers.  I enjoyed JS's company and his knack for impromptu pictures.   We did some pretty crazy stuff this trip.  Farewell, Yosemite!  Until next time! :D   [ You can read JS's recap of this day here: GCYoMoDo - Part V: Journey Home. ] I certainly hope you all enjoyed reading this series of posts as much as I did writing it.  It took on average of 5-6 hours to write up each post and pick all the pictures.  In reality, not many people read it, but I see it as a future investment for myself.  I really enjoyed writing this, and I think I'll enjoy reading it in the future, when my memories of the trip fade. 0 comments </ Comments: Post a Comment [ posted 12:17 AM ] \>   Half Dome! Table of Contents: Californication San Francisco 2008, Part I Berkeley/San Francisco 2008, Part II Yosemite National Park 2008, Part I Yosemite National Park 2008, Part II Half Dome!  [ this post ]   From Half Dome: Everything you need to know about Yosemite's most demanding day hike: Why climb the trail to Half Dome?  Half Dome is the ultimate Yosemite day hike - the one you can't die without doing, and the one you're most likely to die [from] while doing. Difficulty:  Extreme. It's long, steep at the beginning and end, and more dangerous than most Yosemite hikes. It's probably the most difficult of all Yosemite day hikes. On the traditional 1 to 10 scale, this one rates an 11. Insanity Factor: 9 out of 10.  Wait 'til you get to the cables, and you'll see what we mean.   Monday, August 18, 2008 At 3 AM, JS's cell phone went off.  Man.  I was pretty tired.  JS got up pretty quickly.  I dawdled a bit.  I was annoyed that my camera was broken.  Why did we have to go up for sunrise if my camera was broken?  Oh that's right; the world doesn't revolve around me.  Summitting Half Dome was the whole purpose of this trip.  We hadn't summitted McGregor Mountain last year in the North Cascades National Park, and I know JS was still a little bitter about that, as it was kind of my fault.  Ok then. I got up and packed my backpack for the trek up.  I pulled out my camera, shoved the battery into it, and held my breath.  *FLASH*!  YES!!  The camera still worked!  Sweetness.  I was energized again! It was 2.5 miles to Half Dome.  How hard could it be?  We planned to be at the top of Half Dome for sunrise, at about 6:30 AM.  Plenty of time!  By the time we left camp, it was 3:45 AM.  We fumbled around a lot in the dark, trying to figure out where the heck the trail was that led to Half Dome.  Eventually I pulled out my GPSr and had to trust it to take us on the right path.  It did.  :) Once we left the campground a farther on, I decided it was probably a good idea to pull out the bear bell.  I don't know if it works, but it couldn't hurt to use it.  So in the darkness, with very dim headlamps, and an annoying bear bell, we hiked along the trail.  I tried to keep a fast pace, but I must have been tired; I wasn't moving very fast, and the darkness didn't help at all.  I realized about 10 minutes in that we hadn't brought any food with us.  I wasn't too hungry at the time, so I figured we'd be ok-we'd be back for lunch anyhow (this would turn out to be a not-so-great decision). Most of the trip up was a blur.  We weren't moving as fast as I wanted to.  It was hard to see what you were stepping on until you nearly stepped on it.  JS and I didn't talk at all.  Just the incessant ringing of the bear bell with every step. Eventually we hit the mile or so mark, where the trail split off into the John Muir trail to Clouds Rest, and the trail up to Half Dome.  We had been told by our friendly neighbours the previous evening (six hours before) that there was only a single place to get water on the way up to Half Dome, and most people walk right by it without noticing it.  It was a spring where water bubbled up from the ground and it was easy to miss because it was slightly off the trail.  I tried to get as detailed as possible directions so that we didn't miss it.  They told us it was soon after the trail split, after a fallen tree and a tree with no bark on it. I was probably down to half my bottle of water, so I was quite anxious to fill up on water.  I couldn't afford to miss the spring.  So after the trail split, I started looking behind every single fallen tree on the trail.  In the dark.  Do you have any idea how many fallen trees there are in a forest?  And how many trees with no bark? By some stroke of luck, I managed to find it!  Seriously, that was some good luck.  I was ecstatic!  Filled up on water in the dark.  It was actually pretty cool to see water bubble up from the ground.  You probably didn't need to filter this water, but I don't like to take such chances. The next mile was kind of like the first.  Every so often you could get glimpses of the moon.  It was a full moon two nights prior, so it was still pretty bright when you left the tree cover. At one point, I walked up onto a deer by the side of the trail.  Whoa!  Apparently deer are not afraid of bear bells.  Do they not sleep?  We stood there and stared at each other for a while before it bounded into the night.  At least it was not a bear! *Finally* we started to break through the tree line.  We were suddenly bathed in the glow of moonlight.  You could see the sky was starting to get a little brighter.  You could also see Half Dome!  It looked a little far away though.  Nevertheless I was again energized, and, in a race against time, moved faster along the trail towards it.  The trail also became pretty flat, which would account for how I was able to move faster too. As we neared, I suddenly saw a flash of light at the bottom of Half Dome.  Whoa!  We weren't going to be the first ones up Half Dome this morning-there was already a group in front of us!  I sped up a bit. At several points, the full moon was directly over Half Dome.  Man, what I would have given for a fully working camera.  JS obviously stopped to take pictures, but I was quite impatient.  Must make it to the top in a race against time!  The sky was getting brighter by the minute.  It was about 5:45 AM.  "Hurry up!" I said.  "Let's go!"  JS got a single photo that isn't bad at all: All of a sudden, the path gave way to stone steps.  Each step was essentially a block of granite, on average one foot high.  We started moving a lot slower.  Holy cow.  Every ten steps and I had to take a small breather.  It was killer.  It became clear that there was no way we would be able to summit Half Dome before sunrise.  I revised the goal-make it to the bottom of the cables before sunrise!  The steps just kept going.  How tall is this stupid staircase of rock?!  I was tired.  But the adrenaline was kicking it into high gear-the sun was starting to rise!! I finally got to the top of the hill before the cables, and there was this group of what I can only describe as hippies.  They were the group in front of us.  They had brought along a bunch of things-sleeping bags, bongos, ...  Yeah, that's right.  Bongos!!  The ladies from yesterday had said that there were people playing bongos at the base of Half Dome.  I wondered if these were the same people.  These guys told me it was their first time up there that weekend, so I guess not.  They had started hiking around midnight, so we had definitely kept a faster pace than them.  I was pretty tired and exhausted, but quickly started to set up my tripod.  One of the hippies with dreads came over to give me a swig of his beer to congratulate each other on getting this far!  Beer at the base of Half Dome!  Nice!  I had a big swig. JS eventually arrived (he had slowed down on the steps) and we were soon shooting pictures left and right.  The pictures didn't come out that well though. Hippies, Half Dome, and cables: One of the hippies started swinging fire swing torches.  Cool!  I had only seen this once before, at Olympic National Park on the coastal beach.  Awesome.  The guy didn't do it for too long though, and my picture didn't turn out too well. The sun started to peek over the horizon:    And eventually it bathed everything in a warm yellow glow: Twenty minutes later, the sun had risen, my camera horked on me and I was done.  I wasn't ready to try to summit Half Dome yet-I was still super exhausted.  And cold.  I also felt like crap.  I think it was because I had that swig of beer on a completely empty stomach.  I tried to take a quick nap but that didn't work either.  I was quite cold, and the sun wasn't strong enough to warm me up at all.  The hippies started playing on their bongos.  I kind of wanted to go over there to play too..  hahaha! We had seen a couple go up and scale Half Dome and come down.  I still didn't feel great, but it really was now or never.  We wanted to do it before it got busy.  I was more than a little nervous.  Looking at the cables, it literally looked like a vertical incline up the face of Half Dome.  Were we crazy?  I joked to JS that I didn't know if I really wanted to do this.  I know in reality JS would have killed me if I didn't go through with it. We approached the base of the cables, where there was a large pile of gloves to choose to help you scale the cables.  I chose a relatively new pair of leather suede-like garden gloves and wore them over the hiking gloves I was wearing.  It turns out that the leather probably wasn't the greatest choice as it didn't have much grip.  I should have chosen the ones with rubber grips. That sign talks about how you're not supposed to climb the cables if there's a thunderstorm.  Fortunately for us, the skies were all clear.  We were told by others that we should probably leave our backpacks down here, as it was unnecessary weight, but we both had our Gitzos and other equipment, so up we went with it.  We were probably the only people to take big backpacks up there that day.  At this point, there was not a single person atop of Half Dome or heading up, so we had the full cable ladder all to ourselves.  I started to head up. Holy crap.  As JS will tell you, pictures do *not* do it justice.  Pictures do *not* tell you just how steep the incline was (~70?).  The cables moved a lot.  The poles holding the cables moved a lot.  They weren't cemented or bolted into the granite rock; they were just placed into drill holes!!!  The wooden planks were every two poles or so (~20 ft)-why the heck didn't they put planks every pole??  The wooden planks also were "held" in place by these loose (flimsy) braces, and the planks moved a lot too!  The whole thing moved like heck.  I was more than a little freaked out.  Really. It got steeper and harder the further up we went.  We were probably a third of the way up when I turned around and told JS that this was quite possibly the craziest thing I've ever done.  Even thinking about it now gives me the chills.  Perhaps it was the realization that it was quite easy to slip on the smooth granite rock, and if I did, it wasn't hard at all to slip under the cables, and that would be THE END.  There would be no safety, no saving grace.  It was hard.  God, it was hard. Two-thirds of the way up I realized that I was probably using too much of my non-existent upper body strength, and instead I should use more of my legs.  That worked quite well. We eventually made it up to the top.  It took us 40 minutes.  The couple that scaled before us had said it would take, maybe, 10 minutes.  Wtf.  Yes, we took our time, but still!  It had been a never-ending climb.  I was absolutely frickin' exhausted.  There was not a single ounce of energy left in me.  I made my way over to one of the higher points of Half Dome and sat down near a ledge.  I was tired.  I had made it.  I felt like crap.  But I had made it. I felt like crap.  So I lay down for a bit.  The sun was shining now and it was kind of nice.  I don't even remember this.. I got up after a bit, and there was another couple that had scaled the cables after us that came up.  JS took some pictures for them and they took a couple for us. Before the couple left they said they had some excess water and asked if we needed any.  Hell yeah!  I was extremely thirsty.  But I was also completely fatigued.  JS handled the water exchange while I just sat out on the ledge we had just taken a picture on. It was unarguable.  The vistas were absolutely darn-tootin' amazing!!  We took pictures and more pictures with JS's camera, and then I lay down again.  I think this is where I passed out for 15 minutes while JS took panorama shots.  I dunno.  I got up after a bit, feeling a little better.  I was still burping from that swig of beer.  I shouldn't have had it. JS had also gotten an official mascot, Syncsort, for GCYoMoDo from his conference, just as Signal was the mascot/prize for McGregor last year.  There was also another picture we took to commemorate this first anniversary of the McGregor expedition, codenamed "GCYoMoDo: Full Moons at Half Dome!"    Eventually I felt that I had enough energy to go back to my backpack and get a drink of water.  Then we decided to find that virtual cache that is on top of Half Dome.  You have to realize, the top of Half Dome is actually quite huge.  It's a massive area you can explore.  JS and I went to the other end, and I talked about how cool it would be to take a picture of an inukshuk up here.  So I started building a crude one while JS went off a little further to take pictures.  JS later took pictures of it while I had gone back to get a drink of water. So for an hour or so, we had been the *only* ones on top of Half Dome.  We had had it all to ourselves.  How amazing is that!?! Some other people had started coming up, and I helped take pictures of some of them.  I decided to check my camera to see if it was operational again, and indeed it was.  You could see some condensation on some of the displays so I guess it wasn't fully dry yet.  I couldn't pass the opportunity up though (it's not every.. *decade* that you're on top of Half Dome!), so I started taking pictures. There were a bunch of extremely inquisitive squirrels on the top of Half Dome (as JS would later point out, how the heck did they get up there?!). The squirrels were extremely interested in our backpacks.  As we didn't have *any* food in them though (which I was now really beginning to regret, especially as other groups started pulling out sandwiches), I wasn't too worried.  One squirrel even toppled over JS's pack.  I would later find a bunch of teeth marks all over my tube of sunscreen.  Really?  Sunscreen?! A guy meditating on the ledge where I had fallen asleep: It's not hard to see how one could meditate there though, the views were amazing.  You could see Glacier Point in the distance, as well as other points of interest.  Amazing. It was absolute bliss. A little after 10 AM we decided that it was probably time to head back down.  We had spent hours on the top of Half Dome and were quite lucky to have had it all to ourselves for an hour.  We should make our way down before that ladder got too crowded.  I couldn't imagine having to pass someone going up every couple of posts.  So we made our way down.  I only had to pass by several people.  I passed by a *kid* that didn't even have gloves on.  Wtf?!  It's too bad JS stowed away his camera-the views were once again amazing. I found that going down was much, much easier than going up.  It shouldn't have been a surprise to me, as that's always been my experience with hiking and with climbing rocks and the like.  To come down really quickly, all I did was grab the two cables and essentially run down to the next wooden plank.  I literally rocketed my way down Half Dome, because I wanted to get off quickly so that I could try to get a handful of pictures of JS coming down (I felt guilty of not getting any shots of him on account of my camera being busted-he had taken a ton of pictures of me on the way up).  I only got 3 or 4 in before my camera died again.  Yes, it is this steep. JS made it down, spent some time taking pictures at the base, before we started heading back down the steps.  Man, were there a lot of steps!  There were also a lot of people making their way up at this point.  We took our sweet time going down, and I chuckled each time I passed someone huffing and puffing on their way up.  JS took several pictures of the steps for prosperity: At some point it hit us; we had made it up Half Dome and come down safely.  Amazing!  Crazy!  Wow!! I led the way to the other virtual geocache in the area and that's where we sat down in the shade to rest a bit.  The sun was *really* strong and it was starting to get pretty hot.  I was quite hungry and wanted to get a move on it, but JS seemed depleted of energy.  I obliged and we stayed for a bit.   Finally we managed to get going again.  We had over a couple miles to go.  It was hot, we were tired, hungry, and exhausted.  I wasn't moving too fast, and neither was JS.  We passed by a ton of people on their way up the trail.  Halfway down I noticed that JS was out of water, so I gave him some of mine.  We soon reached the spring though and filled up on water. I decided that I should pick up the pace a bit, but JS apparently had hit "the wall" and just couldn't will himself to go any faster.   I told him that I would go on ahead so that I could prepare lunch so it was ready by the time JS reached campground.  It turns out that even going as fast as I could go, I wasn't really going that fast.  I reached the campground (I think it was well past 2 PM).  Our friendly neighbours had packed up and left.  Since I was unsure as to how far back JS really was, I decided to go get water first.  I filled up a pot with our last reserves of water, knowing that JS would start the stove when he got there, and headed off to get water from the stream.  By the time I got back, JS had arrived at the campground and had started boiling the water. While rummaging through the bear box, I noticed that our friendly neighbours had left us two cans of tuna.  They must have really liked tuna, because, the previous night, while looking for empty bear boxes, I had opened one of theirs and the father said to me, "You looking for tuna?"  :|  Anyway JS and I were so hungry waiting for the water to boil and then the freeze-dried food to absorb the water that we decided to eat the cans of tuna.  I managed to open it with my heavy-duty swiss army knife.  I've never ever eaten tuna out of a can like that (it's really oily), but wow.  I have never had such good tasting tuna in my life.  It was smack-dab delicious!  Thank heavens for our friendly neighbours!!  Eventually our freeze-dried lunch was ready and we devoured that as well. We headed off to the stream to rinse everything off.  After sitting there for a bit, JS retreated to a shady spot to take a nap.  I kind of wanted to go for a swim to wash off the grit and grime, but couldn't fully make myself do it.  Eventually some boy scouts jumped in the water and I just sat by the side of the stream with my shoes off and toes in the sand chatting to one of the fathers of one of the scouts. One of the kids found and caught a snake.  They think it was a moccasin of some sort, but we weren't sure whether it was venomous.  It occurred to me then, that our friendly neighbours had told us about a couple of rattlesnakes along the steps up the Half Dome (they weren't rattling to passer-bys), and we hadn't seen them at all.  Too bad.  The scouts did though. Eventually I waded into the water (up to my thighs) but I just couldn't get myself to jump in.  The sun had started to disappear and the water was *really* cold.  Ah well. We made our way back to camp with nothing to do.  Not that there was much we had the energy to do.  Thank god we had a permit to stay another night at this campground and didn't have to head back to the Valley floor.  I'm certain I didn't have the energy for that.  We decided to eat an early dinner and go to bed. Before dinner I had the urge to use the facilities that the Little Yosemite Valley campground had.  Wowzers!  Those are some sleek facilities deep in the woods.  There were four toilets on the second story of this log house (yes, you had to take the stairs to get up there).  And the toilets didn't smell at all, unlike all those porta-potties you see at events and stuff.  Why?  Apparently there are solar panels on the top of the building that power fans that flow warm air through the waste to promote faster decomposition and vent the gases.  Wow!  Talk about a high-tech 21st century outhouse! Yeah so we made dinner and went to bed by 9 PM or so.  Out like a light again.   Summary We made it to the top of Half Dome today, at 8,836 ft, and made it down without any mishaps.  We saw the sun rise, and we had Half Dome all to ourselves for over an hour up there.  It was an amazing, zen-like experience.  Summitting Half Dome wasn't on my "List of Things To Do Before I Die," but now that I've done it, I can't imagine how it wasn't on that (mythical) list.  It should be on *everyone*'s list!  It's absolutely a once-in-a-lifetime achievement!   Did I mention that we made it to the top of Half Dome today?  :D   [ Aside: Half the pictures for this post were taken by Joran, as my camera was busted.  You can read JS's recap of the day here: GCYoMoDo - Part IV: Half Dome. ] 1 comments </ Comments: A fun read. Good job! :) # posted by  Tochi : 3:24 AM   Post a Comment Saturday, August 30, 2008 [ posted 4:17 PM ] \>   Yosemite National Park 2008, Part II Table of Contents: Californication San Francisco 2008, Part I Berkeley/San Francisco 2008, Part II Yosemite National Park 2008, Part I  Yosemite National Park 2008, Part II  [ this post ]   Apologies for the really long post.  I've tried to intersperse with many pictures, so hopefully that will make it easier to read.  Enjoy!   Sunday, August 17, 2008 JS had set his alarm for 6 AM.  We had gone to bed around 11 PM so that gave us 7 much needed hours of sleep after 40 hours of staying awake.  The first thing I did when I got up was to check that the car hadn't been ticketed.  It hadn't.  Phew!  It took a while to get everything packed up and into my backpack.  When we were just about ready, I decided I should use the nice camping facilities (ie. running water and flushing toilets) as there was no guarantee of such facilities for the next several days.  Unfortunately my large intestine wasn't really co-operating.  Hahahah.  So we left a little later than planned.   The Plan We managed to find the trailhead parking for the backcountry hikers/campers pretty easily.  Did a final check, and we were off!  The plan for the day was to reach the Little Yosemite Valley campground to spend the night.  From the parking area, there is a trail that goes straight up to it, for a hiking distance of ~4.5 miles.  But since we had time, JS had decided that we should visit Glacier Point for some views.  And then we would hike the Panorama Trail from Glacier Point to Nevada Falls to Little Yosemite Valley, which would add over ~8.5 miles to hike for that first portion alone.  I had read that the Panorama Trail had awe-inspiring views, and going in the direction we wanted to was all downhill anyway, so how hard could it be? The only thing left to decide was how to get to Glacier Point.  There were two options: (1) Take a bus to the top; or (2) hike the Four Mile Trail from the Valley floor (which actually is 4.8 miles long over a gain of 3200 ft).  JS & I had done a little research in the month leading up to this, and we had seen some trail descriptions on websites like this: Kick-Ass Alternate Route: If you're in excellent shape and don't want to be bothered with catching buses, try hiking the 4-Mile Trail up from the valley to Glacier Point and then the Panorama Trail back down again. It's about 14 miles (22 km) total, plus probably another mile or so to reach your car once you're back to the valley. It combines two 5-star hikes (three if you venture the extra quarter mile to cover the Glacier Point trail) into a single day. Half Dome gets the publicity, but this is probably the ultimate Yosemite day hike. You'll see an unmatched range of scenery, including everything that Yosemite Valley is famous for (except Bridalveil Fall, which is hidden by Cathedral Rocks), plus Glacier Point and Illilouette Falls. It's efficient, too; you'd have to drive more than 50 miles (80 km) to go from Yosemite Village to Glacier Point and back again by car. Wow!  Sounded like the ultimate hike!  It sounded really long though (14 miles), though JS reminded me that I could run 13.1 miles in a little over 2 hours.  Right.  Oh, and did I mention that a trip on the bus, one-way, cost $25?!  This pretty much sealed our plans.  The only thing was, given our lackluster hiking performance yesterday, we were debating whether we were up to hiking the Four Mile Trail, or we should just wimp out and take the bus.  The truth is that, the night before, a part of me really wanted to wimp out.  I was tired, and knew we had a lot of hiking in front of us.  Shaving 4.8 miles off the day would be nice.  But there was another part of me that was thinking, "you don't come here very often-tough it out and hike and enjoy all you can!"  Oh, and the bus ride would cost $25-did I mention that yet?  Actually, JS and I didn't know where the bus departed and how to buy tickets for it anyhow, so we finally settled on the Four Mile Trail.   Yosemite Shuttle So we walked along the road for a very short while before coming to a bus stop (#15).  There's a free shuttle (with AC!) in Yosemite Valley that will take you around the Valley floor (I guess they want people to park farther away) that's quite convenient, and this is what we would use to get from the parking area to the Four Mile Trail trailhead.  As we passed the bus stop we debated whether we should keep walking (my backpack was actually feeling quite comfortable) to find the next stop, when a bus pulled up.  Nice!  The bus was pretty empty, and it pretty much *completely* emptied out at the next stop (#16), which was the trailhead for Vernal Falls/Nevada Falls/Half Dome (the 'shortcut' I mentioned earlier).  We would actually take this trail down from Half Dome and Little Yosemite Valley.  You could see that everyone that got out was dressed for a little stroll in the park, not even day hiking gear.  It was pretty funny to contrast those people with the full on hiking backpacks that JS and I had on. The lady driving the bus was quite friendly and at each stop would explain a little about what there was to do at that stop and the history behind it (I'm sure it's practically second nature, given the number of times she does it during the day).  We even saw a fawn right beside the road as we neared the stop for the Ahwahnee Hotel.  My camera was packed in my backpack, but JS had his out so he snapped away.  I mentioned how the hotel looked nice in pictures online, and we decided that we would have to stop by on our way leaving Yosemite in several days.  We would get off the bus at the opposite end of it's route (Camp 4, stop # 7) so we enjoyed the ride.  I had opened a can of smoked almonds for breakfast.  (Man, those are good.)   Bobcat! As we reached our stop, and the bus was coming to a stop, the driver pointed outside and said, "Look!  A bobcat!!"  I rushed to the front door and said, "Where?? Where??"  I was a little puzzled, because I didn't think bobcats could be found in the area (though it turns out I am wrong), and I had never seen one up close in the wild.  It took me a moment before I saw the Bobcat(r).  "Gotcha!"  I think my eyes rolled.   Hang Gliders We bid the bus driver adieu and headed down the path to the Swinging Bridge.  I had seen this while driving by the previous day and it looked nice.  No, the bridge does not swing.  As we neared the bridge we saw a hang glider that had landed and was packing up his gear.  He told us that there were several others coming down and would use this meadow to land, so JS and I were all excited about taking photos of hang gliders!  They didn't come out that well though.  We saw one guy take a nosedive while landing, which was pretty funny (because he was pretty smooth at first, until his feet touched the ground, and then BAM!).    We took the opportunity to fill up our water bottles under the Swinging Bridge, as JS didn't think there'd be any chance to do so on the hike up Four Mile Trail to Glacier Point.  He was pretty much right.  We finished up, crossed the Bridge, the road, and we were *finally* at the trailhead.  It was almost half past 9 AM by then.   Four Mile Trail Given my hiking performance the previous day, I was a little pretentious in approaching this "very difficult" hike.  I asked JS to guess how many people we would encounter going up vs. heading down, and he guessed 0:6.  (It would actually turn out to be 20+:10 or so)  To my surprise, the hike wasn't hard at all!  JS says it may have had to do with us actually getting some sleep.  Probably.  Also, the trail was pseudo-paved, which made it easier than the mostly sandy trail from yesterday.  I think we were making pretty good time.  I also mentioned how that it was good we were doing this hike in the morning, when this side of the cliff face was in the shade. It wasn't long before we were high enough to see views of the western end of Yosemite Valley.  The hike was a HUGE improvement over the previous day's boring Cathedral Lakes hike.  We started at the bottom right corner of this photo:    At several points along the trail, we even saw some fresh bear crap.  I took a picture of one such specimen so that all my readers could enjoy it. Also along the trail were these little lizards all over the place suntanning.  I took a bunch of pictures of these little guys, but they were quite crafty and wouldn't let you get really close.  It reminded me of the baby frogs we saw at McGregor last year. Looking at these pictures now, it amazes me how well camouflaged these guys were against the granite rocks. Eventually the switchbacks gave way to a straight portion and we were treated to views of Half Dome.    Here we passed by the gate that normally closes the trail during winter. Apparently this trail can be dangerous. And even more spectacular views. Half Dome started showing up more frequently now. It was great.  Except, it was a little long.  "Are we there yet?!" kept resounding in my head.  For some reason I felt quite physically tired.  I had to take a break and eat breakfast (a powerbar), which I decided to do when I filled up my SD card.  I had thought the end of the switchbacks would mark the end but there were a ton more ahead of us.  A good number of people passed up (going up!) but none of them had full camping gear on. You can see Glacier Point in this photo, on the right.  It's that ledge right there. We entered a more green section of the trail, and there we saw a couple of deer.  I attempted to redeem my deer shots from yesterday but these shots would turn out to be worse! I was getting worried about running out of water-I only had one 1L water bottle with me and was running out.  Did they have water at Glacier Point?  I was physically tired too.  Why was I so tired?  The trail wasn't that tough.  Soon after the deer we started to see people coming down the trail.  Mostly families with kids.  Great!  That meant we were getting close.  Then we saw some kids with *popsicles* and *ice cream bars*.  OMG!!!  I turned to JS with a HUGE grin on my face!  We *totally* deserved it!!  The thought of being rewarded with an ice cream bar made me pick up my pace.   Glacier Point JS had his GPSr on for the entire hike and mapped the trail on Google Earth.  It's pretty cool: There were a lot of people at the top of Glacier Point.  We decided to take in the views and take pictures first before filling up on water and getting ice cream.  The views were absolutely stunning. We took some group shots:    This was kind of an out-of-bounds area, though there were people here before we moved in.  Behind us is a cliff. It was absolutely amazing. JS took this shot of me I like: As we were finally getting to leave, I folded up my tripod, and then I got an idea to take a picture with our Gitzos and cameras, so I got JS to pose. Then we swapped places.    As we were leaving, JS caught sight of Nevada Fall (though we thought it was Vernal Fall). By now it was 2:20 PM! We were kind of hungry and I was really thirsty. I wanted that ice cream! We headed into the lodge.  A lodge at the top of Glacier Point!  How commercialized is this place becoming?!  There was a gift shop to your right and a small sitting area for food to your left.  We headed to the right first to look at what souvenirs these guys had on sale.  I was kind of worried that my backpack would hit something, as the aisles were kind of narrow and there were a handful of people in there.  I found a Half Dome benchmark magnet for $8 and my first thought was, "Ha, that would be appropriate for this trip!  Too bad I don't really care for logging benchmarks!"  I showed JS and he laughed (but he would later tell me that he didn't know what it was..  lol!) We made our way to the left side of the lodge.  I went to grab a table to put my stuff down (it was heavy), and saw that JS was already standing in line.  I couldn't figure out why he didn't put his stuff down first; there was room and I thought it'd be a nice rest.  Suddenly I noticed a ton of people coming into the lodge and forming a huge line.  Good call!!  JS ordered two hot dogs (the last 2 of 3!) and drinks and we sat down to eat.  I didn't realize I was hungry, but that hot dog was pretty good.  Then we got ice cream bars. :)  I got my favourite waffle cone.  Mmm.  We headed outside to eat, but had to retreat to the shade of the lodge.  The sun was pretty strong. It took me a while to finish my cone (while watching tourists feed some massive squirrels), and then we refilled up on water from a tap at the front of the lodge.  We were finally ready to get going again. As we started to head down this path, this random guy came up to us and asked if we had hiked from the Valley floor.  It turns out that they guy lived in Toronto for a short period and now comes to Yosemite in the winter to cross-country ski.  He talked about being here in the winter and it sounded absolutely amazing.  I want to do that some day.  Anyway, we talked to him for 5-10 minutes.  Random.   Panorama Trail We started to head towards the Panorama Trail and bumped into a young Ranger lady heading in the opposite direction.  We asked how far it was to Little Yosemite Valley and she had no idea.  "3.8 to Nevada Fall though," she said.  She must have been new. By now it was 3:25 PM in the afternoon.  We started to go uphill and I started complaining.  JS kept re-assuring me that the entire trail was downhill.  The trail started off with amazing views and did not disappoint.  I managed to see a troll watching over Half Dome. You might think that at this point we'd be tired of seeing Half Dome over and over again, but I really just couldn't get enough of it.  It was just so spectacular.  And as we progressed along the trail (all the way from the Valley floor), our perspective of Half Dome was changing, as we moved around it. Lots of small wild birds along the trail. In less than half an hour, you could see both Nevada Fall and Vernal Fall together.  Spectacular! We had passed by a handful of hikers along the trail-some day hikers, some backpackers.  We weren't moving too fast because we were taking pictures left and right.  But none were as unforgettable as this group of three older/middle-aged ladies that was heading up in the opposite direction.  They had summitted Half Dome and told us how amazing it was (they got up at 3 AM and could only make it to the cables by sunrise).  They were so nice I suggested we take their picture for them.  JS did the honors because I was standing on a boulder the whole time.    Then they took our picture.  This lady's son was a photographer.  She placed us so perfectly center I can't even crop this picture properly.  Hahaha.  But why were these ladies memorable?  They suggested that when we pass by Illilouette Fall we go sliding down the river.  wtf.  I made a look and said, "Uhh I didn't bring my bathing suit."  Apparently the ladies had done it earlier in the day, and they pointed out that they were all dry from hiking afterwards.  They pressed that we really should do it.  So we put it under consideration. Soon after along the trail, a deer jumped onto the trail!  Wow!  There are so many deer in Yosemite.  It's great!  This one must have been female, as it didn't have any antlers.  One thing I noticed about the deer in Yosemite, and I'm not sure if it's the same with all deer, is that I found their head to be much smaller in proportion to their body.  It just looks strange.  The side profile looks more natural than the head-on view.  This one had large ears too.  Lots of old trees, some dead from a fire that must have torn through the area.    An hour had passed, and we had essentially wrapped around the backside of Half Dome.  JS had taken pictures of almost every single trail sign we came across, and I figured it was about time I did too.  These signs were all rusty, but it actually made a cool effect.  As JS pointed out in his blog, these things are built to last! As I turned a corner into a switchback, I noticed the way a dead tree's limbs were stretching.  I immediately exclaimed, "I'm going to call this one, 'Tickling Half Dome'!" even before I took the picture.  Hahah.   Illilouette Fall Finally, we could see Illilouette Fall.  It was hard to take a picture of it, with the harsh contrast with the shadow and the sunlight so I didn't really bother trying. And then we finally made it to the stream section preceding the Fall the ladies had told us about.  JS and I were pretty psyched.  It was hot, we were dirty and sweaty.  A dip in the water sounded like an awesome idea.  We were trying to scope out the location when we noticed a guy (who had overtaken us earlier) skinny-dipping.  Except he was standing up in the pool with his junk in the air.  Wtf.  Fortunately he was far enough away that we could not see the details. I was all excited.  I had told JS about an e-mail thread at work on one of the photography e-mail distribution lists I'm on, titled "Photographing the Photographer" where there was a picture of some guy standing in the middle of a knee-high river with his camera on a Gitzo 1-series, and he said that it was as solid as a rock.  I couldn't wait to try it!  In retrospect, that was probably a pretty bad idea.  Electronics and water don't really mix.  The thought had crossed my mind, but I figured I'd be "careful".  I did see algae in the water so I knew that some of the rocks would be slippery. This was the second-last shot I got of the river before I slipped and my camera fell into the water.  I don't care to write about the details all over again, so you can read all about it in an e-mail I typed up after I got back to Seattle: What to do when your DSLR goes 'ker-plunk'?  (Aside: My D80 is now much better, thank you very much.  These Nikons are quite rugged.) Anyway, after the mishap, I was kind of pissed.  How could I be so stupid?  How would I get my dream shots atop of Half Dome?  But it's no use crying over spilt milk, and I was determined not to allow the accident spoil the fun we had been having at Yosemite.  I shrugged it off and told JS that we should go ahead with the sliding down the river.  JS had set up his tripod down the river and it was up to me to take the first plunge.  I was nervous.  Never in my life had I ever done anything of the sort before. I had a little trouble getting started.  But eventually slid right into the pool (where the nude guy had left; thankfully!).       Wow!! That was *really* fun!  I told JS to try it, and he did.    Then I did it again!  And then I decided to go all the way and *swim*.  Wow, that water was cold.  But it certainly felt good.    Then we decided to jump off the platform into the pool, even though the pool wasn't very deep (ie. don't go headfirst!).  I was nervous, but what-the-hell.  I don't get to go to Yosemite every day.  Live a little, right?  So I did it.     And then JS followed my lead. A group of asian teens/young adults came by and saw us.  JS had gone to get his towel and told them it was so much fun but was unsuccessful at convincing them to try it.  They must have thought we were crazy.  Hell, I would.  We *were* crazy! Finally we decided it was about time we left, at almost 6 PM.  The sun was getting low and we still had a couple miles to travel to camp.  We packed up all our gear (my waterlogged camera got stowed away) and we left.  We saw the sign that warned against swimming in the water, since you might go over the Fall (and die), and we had to take a picture.  Note that this being late summer, there wasn't much water coming down the river and down the Fall.  I wouldn't dare try doing this in the spring. We quickly made our way along the trail.  JS was taking pictures, and I felt bad about standing around.   Nevada Fall We reached Nevada Fall as the sun was setting.  We had just bumped into a large group of hikers.  They were trying to head back to the Valley floor.  We told them they were going the wrong way (why would anyone want to head 4 miles back to Glacier Point at this hour?!), and to head back to Nevada Fall.  They graciously thanked us. Of course, we reached Nevada Fall and pulled out the map, and then saw that indeed, there was a trail not far along the way we had come that led to the Valley floor.  Oops!!  I saw that the group had realized we didn't know what we were talking about and were about to head up the trail again.  I had to clear my conscious so I ran up to them to apologize.  They were quite nice about it. At Nevada Fall we quickly did a multi-cache.  By the time we left Nevada Fall, we were pretty much enveloped in darkness.  The headlamps had come out, as well as the hiking poles.  I also decided to bring out the bear bell that I had just bought at REI too, just in case.  That thing makes a good amount of noise (and is actually quite annoying).  I had also brought out my handheld GPSr to make sure we were headed in the right direction (I had the trail map on my GPSr).   Little Yosemite Valley Campground After half an hour of hiking in the dark, we arrived at (what we thought was) the Little Yosemite Valley campground.  Except we couldn't find any camps, nor bear boxes, nor people.  It turns out that we had misinterpreted the maps and it was a little farther along.  Soon enough, though, we saw campfires and approached.  It was well after 9 PM by then.  Some of the campers told us there were plenty of spots "back there", and warned us that we probably shouldn't cook anything now, as the bears would be on you in an instant.  Wtf.  We were extremely hungry. We finally found a campground with extremely friendly neighbours (a guy, his father, and son).  They told us all about what to do with the bear boxes, and where to find the path to Half Dome, etc. etc.  I set up the tent in the dark.  It was probably the best I've ever set up the tent (all strings were tied down), as I knew we'd be there for two nights. When I was done, our friendly neighbours told us that they were heading over to the stream to get water and that we were welcome to tag along, since it was hard to find.  What generosity!  So we followed along.  The stream was pretty hard to find in the dark.  Both JS and I brought our GPSrs and marked the campsite with a waypoint as well as the stream.  Lol.   Splash! As we were there sitting on the rocks pumping water through the filters and chatting, suddenly we heard a splash.  What the hell?  Five headlamps and flashlights looked up in the direction of the splash.  Right there was a young fawn, not 20 feet away from us.  Wow, this place really is full of deer.  No worries. Suddenly the deer bolted *towards* us.  In fact, it passed within 10 feet of me.  What the heck!?  Why would it come towards us?!  Then we heard some rustling where the fawn had come from.  Once again, five headlamps lit up that area.  And right there were two glowing red eyes.  You could barely make it out, but right there, right *there* was a rather large bear.   Bear! Wow.  A bear.  Out in the wild, not 20 feet away from me.  That's never happened to me.  I mean, I've seen bears in zoos, and I've seen them on the side of a road while driving by in other national parks, but never out in the wild while camping.  Holy cow.  My dad always warns me not to camp because of bears and cougars.  And here was this bear, 20 feet away!  Wow! After I got back into Seattle I told the story to a co-worker and he asked me why we weren't scared.  I don't know.  I asked JS and he didn't know either.  It never occurred to us to be scared.  We were more in awe than anything else.  It was so cool.  Anyway, the bear didn't bother crossing the stream (thank god), and instead turned and headed back into the night.  I wish we had our cameras then, though I don't know how the bear would react to a flash.  Someone remarked that this was a good spot, as if the bear came back at us, we would hear splashes from it crossing the stream.  Wow. We got back to the tent and quickly boiled some water for a pack of freeze-dried camping food.  We were completely bushed.  We had hiked some 12 miles today.  The moment I lay down I was out like a light. It had been a long, fun day.  It is not a day I will ever forget-it had had the most fun I've had in a very long while. JS set his cell alarm to wake us up at 3 AM, for the trek up to Half Dome-the whole purpose of this entire trip. [ You can read JS's recap of this day here: GCYoMoDo - Part III: Yosemite Valley. ] 0 comments </ Comments: Post a Comment Thursday, August 28, 2008 [ posted 11:53 PM ] \>   Yosemite National Park 2008, Part I Again, if you missed it, this is a multi-part series from my trip to California last week: Californication San Francisco 2008, Part I Berkeley/San Francisco 2008, Part II  Yosemite National Park 2008, Part I  [this post]   Saturday, August 16, 2008 So we left off last post heading east towards Yosemite at the wee hours of the morning.  Somehow (and I have no idea how), JS managed to stay awake.  I think if I had driven, I would have dozed off many times. At some point after 3 AM, we were driving along when out of nowhere a car showed up behind us.  I thought that was strange.  After a couple minutes of following, the flashing lights came on.  It was a cop car!  What were the chances that we'd be pulled over twice in one night?!  The cop had seen JS cross the center yellow line a couple of times (who doesn't, when driving along these one lane twisty highways?!), and I guess wanted to see if we were drunk.  We chatted him up a bit and asked if we would have a tough time getting permits if we got to Yosemite really early  (he said we'd probably be ok).  He told us to be careful, as the road was about to follow the river, and if we fell over, we'd be.. well, screwed.  Anyway, he let us go without any issues.  Phew! It wasn't long before we were coming up on a geocache and we decided to get out and stretch a bit.  I managed to find it in quick order, but it took a little longer to find a tool to get the cache out of its hidey hole.  Twenty minutes later there was another one, and JS found it very quickly.  As we started to get on the road again, JS suddenly suggested that we pull over for some long exposure pictures.  The sky was really clear and we were right in front of the "Yosemite National Park" sign.  Since we were no longer rushed for time, it sounded like a great idea. It didn't take long before we pulled out our flashes and tried to take strobist-style pictures.  We spent almost an hour by the side of the road taking pictures.  Two D80s on two Gitzos with two remote shutter cords and two SB-600s.  And two crazy photographers taking pictures at 4 AM in the morning.  :)  It was so worth it though. JS thinks that the above shot was too embarrassing to post.  A more composed picture is here. At 5 AM we were back on the road, and refreshed.  It didn't take long before we made it into Yosemite.  The roads in Yosemite are quite confusing, especially at 5:30 AM in the morning (there are no lights/lampposts in Yosemite).  Eventually we made parked and made our way to the Visitor Center.  Luckily we passed by the Wilderness Center first, and we saw four people camped out in front of it!  We weren't the only ones to get there early!  I asked and they told us to park at the 5 min parking behind the building, and JS moved the car.  First in line was two Canadian guys that had bussed here the previous day and were unable to get permits at 11 AM in the morning.  They had started camping out in front of the Center at 8 PM, after dinner.  The second couple in line were also looking for the same permit we were, and they had arrived at 2 AM.  We were third in line, at 5:30 AM, two hours before the Center was to open. The next two hours were kind of painful.  We were sitting on some rocks.  I couldn't sleep like that.  JS looked at some of the maps and decided which trails we were going to take.  At some point JS managed to fall asleep with his head between his knees.  I couldn't sleep, and I didn't seem to have data access on my phone, so I was kind of bored.  I called home and talked to Dad.  Then I called JMQ and apparently woke her up.  Hahaha.  Passed the phone to JS and woke him up too.  Hahaha. Next door to the Wilderness Center was the Ansel Adams Gallery. 7:30 AM finally came and we all filtered into the Wilderness Center (more people had come after us).  We managed to quickly get the permit we wanted (it's free!), as they save 40% of permits for day-of walk-ins.  JS and I decided to head next door to the Visitor Center to get our NPS passport stamp.  The Visitor Center didn't open until 9 AM so we went to the Indian Village behind the Center.  It was kind of disappointing; just some shabby teepees.  We were done by 8:15 and didn't really want to wait another 45 minutes.  Passing by the Visitor Center, there was a lady cleaning or something in front with the door open.  We immediately went up to her and asked if we could just get the stamp, because we didn't want to wait.  She reluctantly went inside to retrieve the stamp.  I suddenly realized I didn't have my NPS Passport on me (I had left it in the car) so I ran to get it.  When I got back JS had stamped his passport and the lady was going back inside to place the stamp back!  I apologetically asked for it, and got my stamp.  Close call!  (It was the wrong colour though.) At this point we were *really* hungry.  While waiting in line, I had overheard that Curry Village had a buffet breakfast.  Being famished, it sounded like a great idea.  We decided to head over to fill up on food.  We found the Curry Village no problem as it turns out that it's composed of a bunch of canvas tent cabins with screen doors, cots, electricity, and ... linen service!  Wow!  You call that camping!?  There were a ton of families, and we saw people leaving, with roller suitcases.  :| We found the Curry Village Pavilion and went inside for food.  It was pretty dang expensive, but we were hungry.  Eggs, pancakes, make-your-own fajitas, bacon, hash browns, yogurt, fruit, cereal, oatmeal, muffins, milk, etc etc.  Good stuff.  The only problem was that after one plate, I suddenly felt very full.  Damn.  And *very* tired.  I went back though to stuff myself more.  :) After food we were trying to decide whether we should catch a nap first, or head directly to the other end of Yosemite, to see Cathedral Lake.  We decided that heading there first would probably be a better idea, since it was still relatively early in the morning, and we didn't want to sit in traffic. JS asked if I wanted to drive.  He had driven all night and was pretty tired.  I didn't know how he had pulled it off.  I was pretty tired too, but felt better now after the sun had risen and we had eaten some food.  So off we went.  It was around 10 AM. It wasn't long before we had left Highway 140 onto Big Oak Flat Road, and we came across a stunning vista (or as JS says it, "vee-sta").  I pulled over (along with a ton of other cars) to take pictures. You could see the entire Yosemite Valley stretch out beneath you.  Spectacular. I think we had a quarter tank of gas left, and we came upon a gas station in the middle of the Park, between Big Oak Flat Rd and Tioga Pass Rd.  There were a bunch of campers and RVs there, and it took forever before I could get a spot.  I only filled up a quarter tank, and it already cost $23.  (That Hyundai Sonata has a pretty big tank!) We were soon on our way again on Tioga Pass Road.  And we were stuck behind a RV.  Doh!  We pulled over a bunch of times.    A little past noon, we reached Olmsted Point where there was a large viewing area and we naturally parked and got out.  There were a good number of people and families there, but I think we were the only ones with large tripods.  :)  As soon as I got out I couldn't help but notice people scaling the small rock hill behind me. This was Tioga Pass Road, where we would soon continue along our way. I was in absolute awe of the blue skies and white clouds.  It's so rare to see these kinds of skies in Seattle, I just could not get enough of it.  I was giddy just taking it all in.  Looking back south, you could see the backside of Half Dome and Clouds Rest.  It was just an amazing view.  I crossed the street to climb some of the rock hill to get a better vantage point. Sudden JS comes up and joins me and excitedly exclaimed, "You can see people climbing the cables up Half Dome if you zoom in!"  Thank god for the 18-200mm.  I zoomed in, and indeed, there was a long line of people climbing Half Dome.  You'll have to view the below picture in large size though.  (Side note: isn't it just awesome how this lens can go from as wide as the above picture, and zoom all the way into the picture below?) We spent almost half an hour at Olmsted.  Ten minutes later we were at the trailhead for Cathedral Lakes, though we decided to first visit the Tuolumne Meadows Visitor Center so that I could double stamp my NPS passport.  Yes, I do that. We were really in a time crunch as I really wanted to get back into Yosemite Valley for sunset (~7:45 PM).  We had ~3 hours for this hike, and then we had to drive back to the Valley.  So much for having time to nap here.  I knew nothing about the Cathedral Lake hike, but JS assured me that it would be a simple, easy, 3.4 miler.  No problem. Except it wasn't easy at all.  Actually it was quite tiring.  I don't know why (maybe lack of sleep), but I was really wiped out by the hike.  The hike circled Cathedral Peak, but there weren't really any good views of that.  In fact, there were pretty much *no* views on the way to the Lake. We *finally* got to Lower Cathedral Lake at 3:15 PM-ish, and the views were, well, quite plain.  In fact, I didn't even take a single picture of the Lake.  I was pretty much exhausted and out of energy.  I didn't know how we would hike tomorrow.    I found a little shade (from the above tree) and thought I'd lie down for a quick nap while JS was taking a bunch of panorama shots.  My idea didn't work.  It was uncomfortable (on a flat rock), and I think ants started climbing into my shorts.  :| We were short on time, and in the distance, we started hearing thunder.  :|  Time to jet.  The hike back was a blur.  I was physically tired, and *extremely* mentally tired.  I think I was essentially sleepwalking down the trail.  JS led for most of the way, and I thought he was a machine, moving quite fast.  At some point we switched places, and not wanting to slow the pace down, I trekked on down, and even sped up a bit (some group of people were behind us).  Like a drone.  We made really good time back down.  We made it back to the car with minutes to 5 PM.  I was absolutely exhausted. We drove back to Yosemite Valley, and the drive back wasn't as tiring as the drive here.  Perhaps it was still the adrenaline running through my body. As we made our way into the bowels of the Valley, I noticed that there was a faint rainbow by Half Dome.  What luck!! It took 5 minutes before I realized I should try using my graduated ND filters.  By the time I pulled everything out and set it up, the rainbow had disappeared!  Oh well. I took pictures of Half Dome for about half an hour before closing up shop.  The clouds had moved in and the colours weren't all that great.  Suddenly JS walks by and says, "deer!"  Apparently there were a small herd of deer further in the meadow.  We rushed over there to take pictures of deer.  I set up my tripod on this plank boardwalk.  It was *extremely* hard to take pictures of the deer because deer actually move and twitch a *lot*-in low light conditions, it's hard to get a sharp shot.  I kept having to bump up the ISO.  Also, people were walking on the boardwalk and each step would shake my entire tripod.  Very annoying.  This was the best shot I could muster.  (The deer were actually pretty close to us.)  I thought it was pretty funny that JS and I were the only two people on the walk with tripods.  I could hear the both of us clicking at 3 fps quite loudly.  :) We finally headed to Curry Village for the buffet dinner (we hadn't eating since breakfast!), but it turns out that they "close" at 8 PM.  Right as we got there, there was a guy at the end of the line holding a sign, "LINE CLOSED" or something.  The line wasn't empty yet, and he wouldn't let us get in front of him.  WTF.  That pissed me off.  We looked for other restaurants in the Village but there was only a very crowded pizza place, and a bar.  JS thought that there would be a restaurant of some sort back at Yosemite Village so we hopped in the car to head over there.  Apparently the deli there had closed and they had pizza only.  Damn.  So... we headed back to Curry Village.  Hahaha.  At the bar they had a small menu of pub food.  We ordered and waited. And waited.  And waited.  Apparently they had messed up a bunch of orders and had to take our orders again.  And we waited and waited.  Hunger came and went.  WTF.  It took over an hour before we got our food.  I was pissed off, but was kind of too tired to care.  It was over 36 hours with sleep now.  The women's marathon was on TV.  A bunch of Jamaican girls cheered loudly every time Usain Bolt came on TV too. We finally finished dinner and headed to find the backpackers' campground.  We found it in short order, even though there are *no lights* anywhere at Yosemite at night.  We set up camp and everything.  You're not supposed to park at the backpackers' campground; you're supposed to park pretty far away and walk back.  Wtf.  I managed to find an empty camp spot pretty much next door and nervously parked here.  A part of me was really too tired to care.  And then we crashed for the night.  Out like a light. [ Note: You can read JS's detailed recap of this same day here: GCYoMoDo - Part II: Yosemite High Country. ] 2 comments </ Comments: Wow that sounded like an extremely long day. And sorry! I didn't know that JS was sleeping, otherwise I wouldn't have asked to pass the phone to him. XD # posted by  blueorca : 7:57 AM   lol, great post. That cop had said he was following me for a while. When only pulled me over when I crossed the yellow line once! I almost blurted out, "Give me a break!", but bit my tongue in time. lol. I love that deer shot. Great capture. Your patience paid off. :D # posted by  Tochi : 8:35 PM   Post a Comment Sunday, August 24, 2008 [ posted 4:03 PM ] \>   Berkeley/San Francisco 2008, Part II In case you've missed it, this is a trip report from my trip to California last week: Californication San Francisco 2008, Part I Berkeley/San Francisco 2008, Part II  [this post]   Friday, August 15, 2008 JS wasn't going to be able to leave San Jose until noon, and it would take another couple hours to drive up to Berkeley/Albany, so I had the morning with KE.  It turns out KE had a small presentation to give on campus in the morning, so after an oatmeal breakfast, we drove up to UC Berkeley.  There, I was dispatched to explore the campus for an hour and a half.  The first thing I did was walk up the to clock tower (The "Campanile").  They didn't open for another 15 minutes, so with nothing to do, I went looking for a geocache (my first in California). Headed back to the Campanile, went inside, and was greeted by a lady that told me it was $2 to go up the tower.  $2?!  Cornell's clock tower didn't charge a fee to go up.  Wtf.  I asked when the best times were for clear views and she suggested the afternoon.  I only had an hour or so, so I begrudgingly paid the fee and got into the elevator, where a rather hefty lady was sitting on a stool operating the controls.  Ah, so that's what the $2 was for.    I spent a good 20 minutes at the top taking pictures.  It was sunny, but the bay was foggy.  You could barely make out the Bay Bridge, but you couldn't see the Golden Gate Bridge.    Eavesdropping on some other people, I heard that the zoology building had a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Awesome!!  I would make that a stop. After coming back down, I saw a bunch of really large tour groups of young, energetic, naive high school kids and their parents.  It occurred to me that that would have been a good way to see the campus and get some of it's history, but I was on a limited schedule and I just wanted to take pictures.  As the groups stopped by the main library, I overheard one of the blonde tour guides: Guide: ... At the basement of the library, there are the stacks with lots and lots of books.  People go there to study.  There are lots and lots of desks and chairs as well. Me: . . . Here I saw a reflecting pool and finally tried using my new polarizer.   Wandered over to the Engineering building.  Berkeley has a big Bent there.    Headed off to the Life Sciences building, which is quite impressive, to see this T. Rex.  It was in front of the University of California Museum of Paleontology.  Overhearing this reminded me of the Wilder Brain Collection at Cornell, which I never got to see.  We have other collections as well.  (I only went to the Johnson Museum of Art once senior year; I wish I had gone more often.)  Anyway, the T. Rex at Berkeley was only a cast, but it was pretty cool, along with a pterodactyl and a triceratops skull (the later's has always been my favourite dinosaur since I was a kid).       Got out of there and my time was pretty much up.  KE had called me several times but I had muted the ringer the previous night so I missed a bunch of calls.  We headed off to a local pizza place for lunch. We had passed by this restaurant the previous evening, and there had been a LONG line out the door.  For pizza?  How good could it be?  (I've been lukewarm to pizza ever since Jansen's.)  The place was called Cheese Board Pizza, and was actually two enterprises in one: a bakery that sold cheese and bread, and a pizza place next door.  The pizza place only makes *one* type of pizza each day (always vegetarian), so the line moves pretty fast: how many pieces/pies?  We sat down the street (there's not much seating) to enjoy our spoils.  It was really good pizza.  They also give you an extra half slice when you order by the slice.  Good stuff. Swung by KE's old apartment to pick up snail mail before heading back to the new apartment to lounge around, while I waited for JS.  Watched Monk on USA. An hour or so later, I managed to catch, out of the corner of my eye, a (what I thought was a) beige Chevy drive by with JS at the wheel.  That's pretty remarkable since I was sitting on the third floor (you can see the vantage point here).  There was a bit of yelling out the window and texting ("I see you!") before I got all my stuff down and outside. I said my good-byes to KE, and we were off! Except I turned on my GPSr and it turns out there was a letterbox several blocks down Solano.  So of course we headed there first.  It turns out the box was in this kinda freaky shop known as the Bone Room.  I had to ask the man behind the counter where the box was.  He was confused at first as to what we wanted, until another lady helped him/us out.  There were some human bones on sale in the shop.  I didn't ask.  Freaky. Then we headed off to REI to pick up some camping fuel, and then stopped by Chipotle so JS could grab some lunch.  It looked good, but I had already eaten.  Next to Hertz to add me to the rental car's drivers list. Then what?  We still had no plan.  In fact, we didn't even have a place to stay for the night.  All we knew was that we needed to get to the Yosemite Ranger station well before 7:30 AM so that we could get camping permits.  So we had "plenty" of time. Since I had yet to get any National Park Service passport stamps from San Francisco, JS obliged me and we decided to head into San Francisco.  We made our way across the Bay Bridge, through downtown, and towards Fisherman''s Wharf.  I got my stamp at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.  We started taking pictures when I realized that there could possibly be another passport stamp not too far away, on the top of a bluff.  It was 5-10 minutes to 5 PM so I thought we could make it.  We ran over there to discover that NPS staff were leaving the building.  It turns out that they closed at 4 PM, and no one leaving would let us into the building to get a stamp.  I don't understand why they don't put these stamps outdoors so that it's easily accessible. [Temporarily switching to present tense.]  All that running for nothing.  Oh wait, there's a cache nearby.  We might be able to grab it.  Oh crap!  The parking meter's going to run out!!  Run back down the hill!!  Ooo nice view!  Run, run! We got back to the meter before we got a ticket, but I could only get four quarters in change from one shop owner, and another was unwilling to give JS any change unless he bought something.  $1 gets you 24 minutes, if I recall correctly.  Damn expensive.  We got a dollar or so more from some vendors across the street, and proceeded to head down Fisherman's Wharf to take pictures.  Picked up a virtual cache too.              Parking time was up again, and we headed off to Chinatown to look for some food.  I was starting to get a little hungry.  After going around in circles we finally found a parking garage at $2/half hour.  They directed us to park near the entrance and leave our keys.  Gulp.  There was $1700 worth of tripods and ballheads in the trunk.  JS took his work laptop out of the trunk and we walked off with our cameras. It turns out that the circling wasn't all done in the car, for we circled Chinatown on foot for a while looking for a restaurant.  JS had said that there are a ton of restaurants in Chinatown, but either I'm really picky, or we were just blind.  All the restaurants we came across were full of gwei lo or had pushy greeters outside beckoning you to go in ("You hungry??  Come eat!!!") like some kind of food brothel.  I absolutely despise that.    We finally settled in on a restaurant at 7:30 PM and stuffed ourselves silly.  At 8:45 PM we were ready to leave.  Or were we?  While climbing a hill in Chinatown I looked out the rear window and saw the Bay Bridge lit up at night.  I had to get some bridge pictures in.  JS again obliged and we headed towards to Golden Gate to get some bridge pictures. We managed to find our way through a windy road that should have led to a viewpoint for the Golden Gate bridge.  It passed by some sketchy group of people standing in the dark, and then there was a dead end.  I decided to hop out of the car to go take a look.  The bay was there alright, but it was so incredibly foggy you couldn't see a single thing.  In the darkness I managed to make out some guy with a tripod and a camera.  After making sure he didn't have a chainsaw or something either, I approached (remember, this is in the dark), and asked him where the GG bridge was.  "It's right there."  Wtf.  Apparently normally you can see it quite well from that vantage point.  I talked to him a little further, and mentioned that I would probably go to the Bay Bridge then, and he even told me where to go for a unique perspective on Treasure Island.  I was absolutely grateful.  Nice Indian guy.  So JS and I headed off towards Treasure Island. On the windy road out (it was all dark), we turned a corner and suddenly out-of-nowhere a car with headlights was heading *straight for us*.  JS swerved before I realized what was happening and we avoided a head on collision.  Damn.  Apparently we were on the wrong side of the road! Of course, it turns out that the car that we narrowly missed was a cop car.  He made a U-turn and pulled us over.  He was kind of pissed.  JS was quite apologetic.  He had mistaken the bicycle line as the center line.  "What side of the road do you drive on Canada?"  I tried to chat up the officer: hey we we're just here for the night, looking for places to take bridge pictures, heading to Yosemite, etc. etc.  After nearly getting side-swiped by a passing car, and coming over to the passenger side, the cop seemed to get a little more relaxed and nicer.  And he let us go!  :)  Phew! We got off the Bay Bridge at Treasure Island (man, that's a dangerous exit.. you have to go from 60 mph to 20 mph in a very short distance).  We drove around a bit before we found a viewpoint where there were a lot of people stopping to take pictures.  The fog was rolling in; not great. Then we started looking for another vantage point-specifically, the one the other photographer had recommended.  I thought we wouldn't find it, and were getting back on the highway, when we passed right by it!  JS stopped the car in an area that I think might have been a driveway to private property, and we headed out to take pictures.  It was a little bit treacherous, standing by the side of the road. At 11:40 PM we were done.  Now for a 4 hour drive to Yosemite.  I was pretty tired, and JS was at the helm of the car.  We only went on the wrong route once, when we took 99 North instead of 99 South, but I caught that fairly quickly with a glance to my GPSr.  At this point we decided to go grab some Coke from a gas station to keep us awake.  It would be a *long* night. 2 comments </ Comments: Cool dinosaur bones, but the bone shop sounds........... :x # posted by  blueorca : 12:41 PM   Parking in toronto is $4/half hour. # posted by  Anonymous : 5:56 PM   Post a Comment [ posted 1:42 AM ] \>   San Francisco 2008, Part I As I mentioned in my quick recap on Tuesday, I was down in California last week for 6 days, 6 nights.  The idea was planted by JS (aka Tochi) back in April when he mentioned that he was heading down to San Jose for a conference and would probably head to Yosemite National Park afterwards.  How could I possibly pass up an opportunity to get a new National Parks passport stamp?  It turned out that this would be exactly the one year anniversary of our camping trip to Lake Chelan in the North Cascades National Park (which I still have to finish blogging about).  I was totally game. Over the years, I've known a handful of people living in San Francisco, and had always talked about visiting, but never did so.  Over the years, several people have left and are no longer there.  Haha.  Anyway, I thought I would take this opportunity to visit KE at Berkeley, before he graduates next spring.   Wednesday, August 13, 2008 I had an impromptu dinner with SC and CW the night before at Bluefin Sushi (which was apparently a celebration, but they didn't tell me until I got there-but that's another post).  I got back pretty late and went to bed.  The next morning, I rushed to get everything thrown into two suitcases.  The large one had my camping gear and would total 50 lbs (as I later found out).  The small one was just full of camera equipment.  That was pretty heavy too. My flight from SEA to OAK was to depart on Wednesday at 7:45 PM.  I was having a pretty busy day at work so I didn't get to get "mentally prepared" for leaving.  At 5:00 PM I was ready to leave.  I pulled out the two suitcases out of my car in preparation to rolling over to the bus stop (which was a ~10 min walk away).  But it was hot outside, and I had two heavy suitcases.  I debated in my head whether or not to take a taxi to the airport.  (I tried to get a ride from MA but apparently he had plans.)  The longer I debated, the later it was getting; I was going to miss the bus! So I called a taxi.  There went $45!  Wow.  I've never taken a taxi in Seattle that I had to pay for.  It was definitely less stressful though.  No changing buses.  No waiting in traffic (carpool!).  Still.. $45! I got to the SEA airport in half an hour and checked-in without any problems.  For dinner I had brought along a cup of yogurt.  The security lady suggested I eat it before going through the security check (I rolled my eyes), so I had to eat it with a stirring stick from the nearby Starbucks.  KE calls me then to confirm the time. Before the plane boarded, the lady at the counter mentioned there were some first class seats available, and you could upgrade for $50.  Out of *nowhere* this middle-aged lady rolling a carry-on suitcase comes whipping through the waiting area.  She trips over several pairs of legs and bumps into someone.  Ridiculous. The flight down to OAK (Alaska) was pretty painless; I had an entire three seats to myself.  Awesome!  I had been worried about getting space to stow my suitcase, so I tried to get on early (normally I wait until others have mostly boarded-what's the rush anyway?). OAK is a pretty crappy airport.  Like really.  It's almost as bad as JFK (yes, I haven't blogged about my February trip to NYC either).  I was relieving myself in the facilities when KE called and said he was heading over.  Outside the arrivals section smelled like urine. I called JS at his hotel room and confirmed plans for Friday (there really weren't any!). KE picked me up in his Jetta and we headed back to his apartment in Albany.  He had just moved into the place so there were boxes everywhere.  It's ok, my house is an absolute mess right now too. KE made me a sandwich out of hamburger buns and cheese and some kind of deli salami (wait.. KE doesn't eat meat.. how the heck!?).  I'm not sure if I was hungry or something, but it was actually really good.  We talked and caught up well into the night.  I think we went to bed at 2 AM.  KE even had a spare bed in his room for me.  Awesome!   Thursday, August 14, 2008 We got up in the morning and it was sunny outside.  Is California always like this?  We walked to brunch at the Sunny Side Cafe, where I had this breakfast burrito (remember Hughes?).  It was huge (and good).  I almost didn't finish it! I had mentioned that I was up for anything KE wanted to do.  It had been ~10 years since I was in San Francisco (since high school), so I don't remember much.  I mentioned something about even enjoying art galleries (in my old age), and KE suggested the Legion of Honor.  And so that's exactly where we headed off to. The Garmin nuvi totally took us to the wrong place.  Eventually I had to look up the address on my Palm before we found the actual location (several miles away). Before leaving, KE had asked me if I had brought a jacket.  A jacket?  This is California!.. I had read highs of 101F that day!  It turns out that San Francisco has a crazy micro climate.  When we got out at the Legion, I was totally glad that KE had loaned my his windbreaker.  Good call.  San Francisco's got whacked-up weather. At the Legion of Honor, it turns out that they were having an exhibition, "Women Impressionists".  We spent a good deal of time looking at this exhibition.  It's too bad photography was not allowed, there were some paintings that I really really liked (especially some by Berthe Morisot).  I would have bought a print but I they didn't have one for the one I really liked.  It was a really great gallery.  I'm glad I spent the time taking in these Impressionist paintings-definitely not something I usually set aside time for. Afterwards, we went through the rest of the collections.  The Legion has a bunch of really nice Rodin sculptures.       There was also an exhibition "Chihuly at the de Young" on, and to try to draw visitors to the de Young, there were three Chihuly works on display at the Legion: the Sea Blue and Green Tower, the Aquamarine Three-Tiered Chandelier, and the Sun.    I like the above picture a lot.  I love the juxtaposition of Rodin's Thinker against Chihuly's chaotic Sun.  Unfortunately, I can't take credit for it.  KE found a postcard in the gift shop with this angle and I totally copied it.       Next we headed over to the Golden Gate Bridge.  There really wasn't much to look at.  You could see the fog roll right over the adjacent mountain and then completely envelop you.       KE drove us back to Albany as I nodded on and off in the passenger seat. For dinner, we walked over to Cafe Tibet for some Tibetan food.  I've never had Tibetan food before.  KE aptly described it as halfway between Indian food and Chinese food.  We ordered an appetizer of fried tofu "chips", and two plates of momos, which essentially are like different tasting xiao long bao: 4.  Trama Chura  3.95 Tofu chips served with special house sauce. 18. Ngotsel Momo  8.95 Steamed dumplings with spinach, Feta, Mozzarella mixed with onion and ginger-served with mild mint sauce. 19. Kar-sha Momo  8.95 Steamed dumplings with mushrooms and Mascarpone cheese, mixed with scallion and garlic-served with special yogurt sauce. I love trying new things, and this was very good.  Very good.  For desert I had some a rice dessert (kind of like khir) and KE had some kind of pasta.  Also very good. Bhaktsa Marku (traditional Tibetan dessert)  3.50 Small pasta rolled in brown sugar and topped with mild cheese Dresy (traditional Tibetan dessert)  3.50 Sweet rice with nuts, raisins and cream Afterwards, I was pretty stuffed (a good kind; not heavy, since there was no meat eaten).  Speed-walked back to the apartment.  (KE and I used to walk really fast at Cornell; I prided myself on that fact.  I no longer walk fast any more; I think it's because I don't walk anywhere anymore.)  Watched a little bit of the Olympics on NBC but I think I fell asleep.  Off to bed. 0 comments </ Comments: Post a Comment Wednesday, August 20, 2008 [ posted 2:27 PM ] \>   What to do when your DSLR goes 'ker-plunk'? From: Richard Chung Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 12:53 PM To: Nikon Users Discussion Alias Subject: What to do when your DSLR goes 'ker-plunk'? Sigh.  Long story.  Feel free to skip to the last bit. Short version: 2x friends on camping trip.  Goal: summit Half Dome.  2x D80.  2x 18-200mm.  2x (brand new) Gitzo carbon fiber tripods.  1x river on a hot day.  1x slip. Long version: I just got back from a camping trip in Yosemite.  As we hiked along a trail, a group of middle-aged women enthusiastically encouraged us to slide down a river to cool off.  Normally I would not do such a thing (never have), but it was a hot day. Long exposure water shots are some of my favourite types of pictures.  Inspired by a thread from one of these photography aliases a week or two ago, I decided to try taking pictures with my brand spankin' new Gitzo tripod out in the middle of a river.  I guess it was a disaster waiting to happen.  Waded out there, and I got two (cruddy) shots in before I slipped on some algae (I was barefoot) and grabbed onto the tripod, which, in slow motion (at about 3 fps--as fast as my D80 can muster), knocked the D80 + 18-200mm off the ballhead right into the water.  Loud cracking sound of body against rock.  Talk about quick release!  I think I accidentally loosened the QR knob right before while blindly searching for the panning knob.  Noob. With a horrid look on my face, I fished the camera right away out of the water, but alas, the damage was done.  I don't remember if I shut it off immediately or tried to take some test shots with it (probably the latter).  I don't think it worked, and I saw a flashing 'CLOCK' sign so I pulled out the battery and wiped the whole thing down.  It didn't look like much water got into the battery (the contacts were dry) and the SD card seemed ok, as was the lens (though there is some water on the extending barrels when I zoom).  It wouldn't take any pics anymore (and it came on even if the on/off switch was OFF), so I pulled out the battery again to let it dry. Eight hours later (at 3AM) we were to trek up to Half Dome.  I pulled out the camera to see if I'd get lucky and to my surprise it worked!  I would later find out (near the top) that it (kind of) works for a series of shots before it stops taking pictures and I need to pull out the battery and wait a long while before trying again.  I probably shouldn't have turned it on right away, and dunked it in rice (I've heard that's how you save cell phones, but who has a pile of rice on a camping trip?).  You have no idea what it's like being at the top of Half Dome with no camera.  Absolutely ex.cru..tiating!  I think for a couple of the three dozen or so pictures I took up there, the on-board flash fired without it having been popped up and I'm pretty certain that's fried now too. What Now? Anyway, no use crying over spilt milk, but what should I do?  My D80 is two weeks over a year old.  Apparently the warranty on the body is only one year.  Should I send the body in to see what Nikon can do?  I was thinking of sending the 18-200mm in too, for a 'cleaning'.  What should my expectations be?  Don't tell me this is a perfect opportunity to upgrade to a D200/D300 (gosh, I can't believe I'm even contemplating that)--I just invested in a set of SD cards! I'm heading to Yellowstone/Teton and area in three weeks, so if anybody were kind enough to lend me a body for a week, I would be eternally grateful.  (I'd swear not to take it anywhere near any bodies of water--I've learnt my lesson.) Thanks in advance for any help (and condolences). Richard I called Nikon this afternoon and they said I'm screwed. There's not much they can do for water damage, and even if they did fix it, something else would break soon after, and so on and so forth. Electronics and water do not mix. :( 1 comments </ Comments: Ooo, maybe it's a good time to fix your original error and go Canon ;-) # posted by  Justin Morgan : 6:26 AM   Post a Comment Tuesday, August 19, 2008 [ posted 11:42 PM ] \>   Californication I just got back to Seattle from a six day excursion down in California. I smell like a hobo--like I haven't showered in days. In fact, it's been 4.5 days. I was going to do a couple blog posts before I left (I have a half-written post on the Olympics) but I was quite busy at work (and otherwise) right up until the moment I got on the plane. Quick recap as I peck this out on my Palm: Spent two nights and two days with KE, at Berkeley. It felt as if I hadn't seen him in ages, when in fact it's "only" been 2 years. Kudos to KE for being such a gracious host and taking time out of his schedule to take me around San Francisco. Then headed off to Yosemite National Park with JS (after a "minor" detour through San Francisco) to do some backcountry camping for four days and four nights. The trip was all JS's idea in the first place and he planned it remarkably well. It happened to be on the first anniversary of last year's camping trip to Chelan ("GCMcHARD: McGregor! How Badly do you Want It?"). This one was aptly named, "GCYoMoDo: Full Moons at the Half Dome" (there was a full moon Friday night). It was such an amazing trip. If it were not for one rather expensive mishap (for which I have no one to blame but myself), it would have been quite perfect. I have a ton of photos to go through and plenty to blog about. Stay tuned! 1 comments </ Comments: I can't wait to read more and see photos! :D # posted by  blueorca : 12:31 PM   Post a Comment Saturday, August 09, 2008 [ posted 9:07 AM ] \>   Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremony So the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympics was yesterday.  Stupid NBC has exclusive rights to the Olympic games in the USA and tape-delayed the broadcast of the opening ceremonies until the evening (that's 12+ hours).  Stupid.  Anyway, I had heard so much hype about how amazing the ceremonies were ("best ever" in the history of the games) so I was anxious to watch it.  Unfortunately I had a shift last night and wasn't able to watch until after the March of Nations started.  That went well into the night.  The only special effects I got to see was the final lighting of the torch, which was quite spectacular in of itself. NBC and MS have touted how online access to the Olympics via NBCOlympics.com was going to give you virtually unlimited access to content.  I have to say, it's virtually impossible to find the entry point into the video player (powered by Silverlight). Anyway, this morning I watched the Opening ceremony highlights, as well as a full 52 minute recap of the ceremony (without commercials).  Set aside an hour and watch the latter. Jesus.  Frickin' amazing. The moving printing press had me in awe. 15,000 performers.  Wow.  Jaw-dropping. The LCD screens and the lighting.  The pyrotechnics. The special effects with people.  Talk about pixels. The precision. The symbolism.  It's debatable how Chinese I really am, but it even invokes a sense of nationalistic pride in me.  Zhang Yi Mou is a genius. Wow. 0 comments </ Comments: Post a Comment Wednesday, August 06, 2008 [ posted 9:46 PM ] \>   Blue Angels I've been asked by several people why I haven't updated this blog of late.  I'm not sure why; it's probably a combination of laziness and being a little busy.  I've also found that it's easier to post pictures than to write blog posts, so if you're not watching my photostream on flickr, be sure to do that!  :) I've been hanging out with SC and CW a bunch lately.  One of SC's cousins is in town for the month for an ESL class and this past Saturday we headed to the west side of I-90 to watch the Blue Angels airshow as part of Seafair.  It's funny, I've been in Seattle for 5 summers and have never seen the Blue Angels.  (In '03 I had never heard of Seafair, in '04 I was in the UK, in '05 mom and sis were in town and we headed to Olympic National Park, in '06 I think dad/sis/grandma was in town, in '07 JS, JMQ, CK, and I headed to Chelan.)  Anyway, I was pretty excited at the opportunity to attempt to take pictures of high speed aircraft. I found that the 3 fps on my D80 is woefully inadequate.  So is 200mm.  I saw some photographers with *MASSIVE* 400mm and 800mm lenses.  Man, if only.  The 200mm on my 18-200mm also vignettes like crazy.  JS suggests I should have gone with a smaller aperture but that didn't really occur to me.  Ah well.    On a semi-unrelated note, a blue angel can also mean something else.  lol! 0 comments </ Comments: Post a Comment