I forgot to mention that in all my rock-scrambling yesterday, MY BEAR CANISTER FELL OUT OF MY BACKPACK and wound up about 30 feet down a rockslide!! I was too exhausted, so I left it overnight. When the morning came, I struck camp, walked 3/4 mile west, scrambled and found it, and had an apple for early breakfast - nice view from my breakfast rock:
I hiked back down to the car:
and had some more breakfast:
Because I had lost the tops of two-of-my-three water bottles (now we know why there are Nalgene bottles, with their connected ring tops), I had to go to the Village Store to get 2 bottles of water plus some bug spray (the bugs are still around in mid-July). Some more sightseeing on my way there:
There were no parking spaces available at the main lot, but I was able to get a spot at the Village Store (Thank You God!). After the store I walked to the Wilderness Center to find out about camping. The ONLY camping in the Valley is at Camp 4, on a first-come-first-served basis (almost certainly sold out for tonight). Yes other camping is available up on the way to Hetch Hetchy. I can still leave my car at Rockslides trailhead, so I'll probably just do some day-hiking and then spend the night up the Rockslides trail (with the Hetch Hetchy camping Tuesday night). Since I was not yet in the mood to go back onto the mountains, I went next door to the Yosemite Museum and had a spur-of-the-moment meeting with their Curator of Collections - Greg Cox! We had a nice chat about art, Yosemite's collections, and I showed him my app (they did not have any paintings available for viewing). Then back to the car, and I found a nice place for a swim in the Merced River (yes, Camp 4 was sold out):
I read my book and rested on my beach towel.
After a while, I headed out of the Valley, got some gas at the Crane Flat Gas Station and continued up Tioga Road. An idea had percolated into my brain that if I couldn't do "The Old Road" from one direction, let's see how far we can go on it from the other direction - maybe I will get to the same rockslide and see where I made my mistake. Off of Tioga Road is the single-lane road down to Tamarack Flat Campground, where there are "tents of all shapes and sizes":
My afternoon hike was great - 8.87 miles without a backpack!:
3 miles down the trail is gorgeous Cascade Creek - looking upstream:
and looking downstream:
0.6 miles further down, you get to the left-turn for the official trail to El Capitan and Eagle Peak:
The "unofficial trail" continues straight ahead - it is not maintained:
But there are some beautiful views:
(I stopped when the trail-blockage became severe, which was also far enough for a hike this afternoon).
On Google Earth - how far I got today versus yesterday:
I guess I didn't get as close as I had hoped.
Drove back into the Valley just after 7:
THANK YOU GOD for this beautiful day! Parked and hiked back up Rockslides as the sun went down, and camped off-trail in the woods.
Music for driving around today was albums from my iPod:
Counting Crows - August and Everything After, 1993 first album
Dave Matthews Band - Before These Crowded Streets, 1998
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