The Death March

This is the story of an epic hike that Uncle Rob and I did in Yosemite National Park on Thursday, July 25. We hiked from Tenaya Lake to Clouds Rest, and then all the way down to the Yosemite Valley floor where our campsite was. It was the challenge we had been looking forward to for months, and it has earned the title above: The Death March

Wednesday: Planning
After a busy travel day on Wednesday, we sat down at the picnic table to plan out our hike. Aunt Peggy would drive us up and out of the Yosemite Valley to Tenaya Lake, roughly an hour and twenty minutes from our campsite. She would then drive back to the campsite and hike up the Mist Trail to meet us later on the hike. At the trail head, Rob and I would hike 6.5 miles to Clouds Rest for views of Half Dome and the entire Yosemite Valley. After that we'd walk down toward the valley and connect with the Mist Trail, where we would meet up with Aunt Peggy and continue downward to our campsite in Upper Pines Campground.

Thursday: The Death March
We began at 5:30 AM. It was nice and calm in the morning, and the drive out of the valley toward Tenaya Lake was pretty. We parked near Tenaya lake and started to gear up. It was chilly up there, so we put on some warmer clothes. Uncle Rob surprised me with some trekking poles (thank you!!) as we were getting our backpacks ready, which turned out to be extremely helpful by the end of the day. Once Aunt Peggy took some “before” photos, she drove away and we started walking.

Unfortunately about 150 yards in we came to a little lake that we had to cross, so we had to switch to our water shoes. As we started changing shoes the mosquitoes began. They swarmed around us and landed all over us. We crossed the pool and luckily the water was not as cold as I expected it to be. On the other side we switched back to our boots, trying to move quickly to avoid mosquito bites. We thought that once we got away from Tenaya lake they would disappear. Boy was that wrong. We kept hiking and had a lot of elevation gain early on. Anytime we stopped for ten seconds we were swarmed by mosquitoes, and bug spray did nothing to help. Once we finally got the the top of the first long climb the mosquitoes seemed to be at their worst. Some backpackers told us they were cutting their trip short because of the bugs; it was the worst they had ever seen. We kept moving to avoid getting bitten and passed a picturesque lake. As we got higher we began to hike over snow, and I started getting a slight headache from the elevation around 9000 ft.

Soon we were within view of Clouds Rest, but we still had a long climb. As it got steeper we slowed down, stopping to catch our breath a few times. After a long trek, we were finally climbing up the narrow ridge (pictured above) to Clouds Rest, and the views were starting to get really good. We could see mountains all around and snow capped peaks in the distance. At Clouds Rest the view was PHENOMENAL. It also helped that the mosquitoes were finally gone at that point. At the top, we could look down onto Half Dome and even see people hiking it through binoculars. Aside from Half Dome, the entire Yosemite Valley was visible. After eating some food, taking lots of photos, and talking to people, we were reluctant to leave and start a long walk down to the valley. At the beginning of the descent, we came out onto this rock jetty and military jet came flying over us doing barrel rolls. It flew down into the valley and shot back out in front of us. We figured the pilot probably wasn't supposed to be doing that but it was pretty awesome to see.

We continued through many miles downhill with not too much to see. In reality, everything was still pretty beautiful, but we weren’t getting any insane views so it didn’t have the same effect as some other spots we stopped. It started getting really hot on the valley side of the mountain, so we had to  stop a view times to replenish our water supply at a stream. The miles to Nevada Falls seemed to take forever, Rob and I were both pretty fatigued at that point. Finally we made it to the top of the falls and saw Aunt Peggy waiting for us on a footbridge. She turned around and was excited to see us but we didn’t have much of a response for her in our tired state. Aunt Peggy warned us that the hike down the stone steps along the Mist Trail was treacherous, but it was the only we we could see the falls so Rob and I decided we had to stick to our original plan and walk the Mist Trail back to our campsite. Aunt Peggy decided to take the John Muir trail instead, which was less steep but a little longer. I had a pretty annoying headache so I got some Tylenol from Aunt Peggy, and after a snack we were on our way.

The trail down the falls was super steep and rocky, but the trekking poles really helped us save our knees and stay balanced. The Tylenol I got from Aunt Peggy saved me; I started to feel a bit more energetic and excited to see the falls. We finally got to the base of the Nevada falls and the view was pretty great, but we just snapped a few quick photos and kept moving. We were in grind mode. After we passed the top of the Vernal Falls, we came up to the really steep and narrow stone steps. After a bit we made it to the portion of the trail that we'd been waiting for, Mist Trail. Mist from the Vernal falls soaked the stone steps and cooled us off as we passed through. We had no trouble with the help of the trekking poles, and we were passing people on the way down. Views of the falls were amazing, and it was so cool to hike right next to them on stone steps. At the bottom of the steps Aunt Peggy happened to intersect back onto our trail at he exact moment we passed the John Muir trail, so the three of us continued together.

After that we had a long downhill paved section that seemed to last forever. This part really sucked because going downhill on the steep slant really tired out my ankles, and at that point we just has to keep walking to get back to camp. There was not really much else to see from there, so we basically just booked it down as fast as we could. Finally we made it to the valley floor and walked back to the campsite a few minutes after 6 PM. We were all exhausted and laughed a bit about how tired we were. It was deemed that the name The Death March was fitting enough for the blog post. Overall, it was the epic hike that we had been dreaming of, and I had an absolute blast. Special thanks to Uncle Rob for finding the hike and planning so much of it out. I don’t think we could’ve possibly done a better hike that day. Also props to Aunt Peggy for going up the falls to meet us, that was no easy hike!

Stats:
Distance: 17.3 mi                    Elevation Gain: 2,769 ft                    Moving Time: 8 hr 21 s
Average Pace: 27:35               Calories Burned: 4,166                      Total Time: 10 hr 59 min 58 s