We had been planning the trip of backpacking the Hoh River Trail in Olympic NP for a while. It would be a long weekend. And I don’t have classes on Friday. So for me it’s a four-day break. Since it’s gonna be a tough trip, I wish to have some rest before the classes on Tuesday. So we took off on Thursday in the afternoon after our group meeting, heading Forks. The traffic was heavy in Portland although it was not a weekend. We stopped at REI in Tualitin for last minute shopping. We got a pair of straps for fastening pads on the backpack. We spent more than an hour to get through Portland on I-5. I guess I-205 would be very much the same case.

Anyway, we finally arrived Forks at around 11:30pm and stayed in a very lovely small motel with a garden.

I did a little fiddling and applied the patch to 2.6.12. Click here for the patch.

This is a patch for Linux kernel 2.6.12. The patch adds support for 1024×480 mode to the neomagic framebuffer driver. This is the resolution on the SONY VAIO PCG-C1X sub notebook. I didn’t write the patch myself and I have no idea how it works. I just got a 2.6.9 patch and adapted it for 2.6.12. I can’t remember where I got it. Apologies to the original author.

It’d be nice to be able to do some things without having to input passwords since I am pretty much the only user on my own machine. I know it’s not the securest approach. But I don’t really care that much since my machine is behind a robust firewall anyway :P. In the sudoers file:

system_username ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

We came back from a 6-day trip to Yosemite last night. We survived Half Dome!! Will process the pictures a bit later. Tired now.

We took off from Redding in the morning and paid a visit to the Winston Wildlife Safari on our way home. The animals are not as wild as they are in the nature, but probably this is the cloest we can get. It was a pity that the lions were sleeping. We saw several young cheetahs though. I got some shots of some animals. You can find them in the gallery.

We got up and made coffee then left the lovely motel. I made a wrong turn on highway 108 and headed back to James Town. Since we had to turn around anyway, we decided to pay a visit to James Town, a historical town famous for trains. A lot of Hollywood films with train scenes were shot here. The old town is very characteristic. We spent one hour enjoying the old trains and the train station.

We then took off and headed Sonora Pass. As we approach the pass, the scene becomes beautiful. There was thick snow on the roadside. The last section before the pass is a 26% steep upgrade. Our rental car (a Focus ZX4) can hardly keep at 30MPH. Finally when we reached the pass, the snow on the roadside was higher than I am. But the road was throughly ploughed. We met a club of motorcycle riders there. One of them was so kind to offer to take a picture for us. The pass is around 9600 feet in elevation.

We got down from the pass and took highway 89 connecting highway 50 to Sacramento. There was a hell of traffic on highway 50. It was a little after 4pm when we arrived Sacramento. We decided to do some shopping and have dinner. Then the most miracular thing happened.

We originally planned to camp at Camp 4 on day 3. But the morning rain kinda discouraged us. And we are almost done so we decided to leave the park in the afternoon. I was a little tired after the Half Dome so I decided to skip Panorama Trail and leave it for the next time :P. We got up late (around 8am) and had breakfast. We took off and headed Glacier Point. On the way to GP, we stopped at a place on the North Shore Rd where one can view El Capitan and Bridal Veil Fall. El Capitan is famous for its being a monolithic rock, without a crack! Really hard to imagine such a big rock. It’s also a very popular place for rock climbing. It was a little foggy after the rain. I had to wait for the cloud to clear to take pictures. The Bridal Veil Fall is very beautiful and really deserves the name. The fall wasn’t there before the last glacical age. The glacier eroded the valley and shaped the cliffs.

We also stopped at the Bridal Veil Fall view point. I was able to get several nice pictures of the creek flowing on the rocks, with long exposure. I am addicted to long exposures on rivers and creeks :P. But it was too wet under the fall. The camera and us all got very wet. After getting back to the car, we had to turn the heater on and dry ourselves and the lens.

We arrived Glacier Point around noon. It was a zoo of people, very crowded! The view is fantastic. Both Upper & Lower Yosemite Falls, Vernal Fall, Nevada Fall, North Dome, Basket Dome and Half Dome are all in the view. Snow capped mountains like Mt Whitney are also visible. We waited about one hour for the cloud to clear so that I can take a picture of Half Dome but it never did :(. Just before we took off we learned from a post that the place where the cloud resists to go away is called “Clouds Rest”! I got a good shot at the Nevada and Vernal Falls though. 

On our way out of the park, we saw a bunch of cars parked on the roadside near Crane Flat. We knew they must be looking something so we parked and joined them. It was a bear! We were talking about the pity that we didn’t see a bear in Yosemite one minute before! It was a cub and the ranger told us it’s a one year old black bear although the fur is brown. Some people thought it was a grizzly but actually there is no grizzly in the park. The baby bear was having his dinner on the meadow. He moved a little closer but never close enough so that I can take a good shot. The pictures are unsatisfiable even with 300mm zoom and a tripod. A guy was shooting with a 20D and a 300mm with IS. I so envied him. 

On our way out, we stopped at another creek called Cascade Creek. It is actually quite a big creek. There was a big concrete bridge over it. 

We stayed the night at Sonora at a very lovely motel. It was a Country Inn I believe, on the side of highway 108.

Alright, finally, this is what we have been looking forward to and it’s time. There was too much snow this year so the cables were set up a lot later than usual. We were lucky that they were finally up.

We took off at around 6am, parked at the Curry Village and walked to the trailhead at the Happy Isles. The openning part was flat and pleasant until the Mist Trail. The Mist Trail was really misty, cold, slippery, and steep. We put on the rain gear and raincover for the backpack. The Mountain Hardwear water proof jacket worked but I still got a little wet, not sure if it’s water or sweat. It was also a very strenuous climb. Fortunately not very longg. The Mist Trail ends at the Vernal Fall. There is a big rock platform at the top of the Vernal Fall. People usually take a break there taking off the rain gears. The trail became much better after the Vernal Fall. We arrived the Nevada Fall and had a long break there. This is the last place for a pit break, so there was a long line.

Then we marched into the little Yosemite valley. The following several miles are a little boring. There was a base camp in the valley. If you want to do this trail in two days, this is where you can camp.

The trail then begins to climb again. We have heard people saying that the half mile before the cables is the most difficult part. It proved so! It was rocky and steep. And there was no shade. We spent almost half an hour and I guess it was at most 0.5 miles. After the strenuous part, we were under the cables. The cables do look scary, as I had expected. I guess the steepest part is at least 60 degrees. I took a long break, put down the backpack and then began climbing the cables. As soon as I was on the cables, I found that they are not difficult at all. I was able to ascend very fast without too much effort. You are pretty much pulling yourself up by your arms. I guess my arms are not that weak :). I now think I am able to do it even with the cables down. A good pair of gloves is a big help.

Anyway, we were at the top of the half dome 10 minutes later! And I was still feeling so fresh. The view from the top of the Half Dome was very nice. We lingered around for a while and climbed down the cables. Going down is a little harder, since I have to hold my weight with arms not to go down too fast. Soon after we got down, it began to rain a little bit. I guess if we had arrived half an hour later, we probably wouldn’t be able to get up the cables because of the thunderstorm.

We began descending around 2 or 2:30. I was very energetic until we got to the Nevada Fall, when my legs began feeling sore. We took the John Muir trail instead of the Mist Trail to keep dry. It’s not really a whole lot better than the Mist Trail. It’s still wet and muddy in many spots. There were several spots on the trail where you can have a very good overlook of the Nevada Fall. I was a little exhausted before the last 3 or 4 miles. The descending is actually much harder than the ascending! My left ankel was hurting so much. That’s where I have an old injury. I guess it would bever fully recover :(. For the last 2 miles, the only motivation keeping my legs moving was to make to the village for the buffet before it closes at 8pm :P. Finally, we were able to get down to the trailhead at around 7pm. But I was so tired that I didn’t have a very good appetite. The only thing I remember now is I had lots of milk.

13 hours, 17 miles and 4800 feet of elevation gain. We finally made it. That was strenuous, although I wouldn’t agree so before we descended to the Nevada fall.

I didn’t bring my Digital Rebel with me to save some weight. The pictures were taken by the old Nikon Coolpix 950. We actually also overestimated the amount of water we would need. We brought 10 liters and in fact we only drank 4 liters. Well, it was not a very hot day though, otherwise things might be different.

We had a good sleep and woke up early in the morning. I opened up the food locker and got the foods out for breakfast. The squirrels quickly found where our nuts were and tore open our sack and plastic bags! I had to eat what was left by the naughty squirrels. First lesson learned: never ever turn your back to the squirrels with the food locker open, even for one minute!

We went to the visitor center by shuttle and learned that the cables on the Half Dome were up! They were able to put them up the afternoon before. That was the exciting news we had been waiting for. From outside the visitor center, there was a great view of both the Upper & Lower Yosemite Falls.

We took a casual hike to the Mirror Lake, not very impressive, but still OK.

After lunch, we decided to take the upper Yosemete Fall trail in the afternoon. It was a moderate trail, 7 miles round trip and around 2700 feet elevation gain. I guess we didn’t warm up good enough, or maybe it was from the driving, the hike felt more strenuous than it should.

There was a spot in the trail where one can have a good front close look of the fall. That’s where some people stop. We went all the way up to the top of the upper fall, looking down the falls rushing into the canyon. The canyon is narrow and steep, carved by the river. “Water is so powerful”, said Yinan. “No, time is so powerful”, I replied.

Biggest mistake: we thought it’d be too cold for the mosquitos to survive. Wrong! The mosquitos in Yosemete are ridiculous. I had about 15 bites on the left forearm in one afternoon. Mosquito repellent is a must in the park. I got one after getting back to Curry Village.

We came down the trail and waited for the shuttle at the Yosemite Lodge. There were a couple of guys waiting there too. Everyone was moving and waving in a strange way trying to drive away the mosquitoes. I had to take out my jacket and put up the hood, with only my eyes exposed. It was very effective and the other guy was inspired by my good idea. Finally when the bus came, the driver smiled and said “you are glad I came, ain’t ya? Don’t bring the mosquitoes with you.”

We took off at around 8AM. Had lunch at In & Out in Redding (yeah! In & Out finally). We arrived Sacramento at around 5 and had dinner there. The Chinese restaurant at Broadyway and 19th is not too bad. I really enjoyed their fish. We then did some shopping at a Safeway (at R street and 13th, for future reference) and took off. It was another 3-4 hours of driving before we arrived the park. Highway 120 was a little curvy, but not as bad as people have told me. We arrived Housekeeping Camp at around 11:30pm. The camp was actually very nice. The small cabin has two bunk beds and a queen bed, as well as a small patio where we can cook and have meals. This is where we would stay for three nights. There is a big food locker and we put all the foods in it. When we checked in, I chatted with the ranger a little bit about the bear activities. It seems that the bears in Yosemite are really crazy. They would come out very frequently at nights.