Everyone Else is Here So it's Time to Leave (May 21)

What a difference a day/week makes. We have noticed a steady increase in the number of vehicles parked along the roadsides as the week progressed, but not until today did we feel overwhelmed with people.

The day started with some down time...laundry! I took advantage of the time it took to wash and dry to write some postcards and the blog entries for the two previous days. Sensing that another long hike as our morning activity would probably not be Jerry's first choice, I suggested a drive on Incline Road. It follows the Merced River from El Portal, the town where our hotel is. Do a gas station with $5/gallon gas and a market (didn't dare check the prices) qualify as a town? The sign says the population is just over 600, but I am skeptical.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, spring is very late here due to the heavy snowpack that is just now melting. Over the past three days, more and more flowers are visible as the sun and warmth encourage them to bloom. I had read that Incline Road was a good spot for wildflowers, so we took a leisurely drive for a few miles until we reached a locked gate and turned around.

Some groups of rafts negotiated the rapids right in front of us. We thought of Susan and Alan and our raft trip in Denali. Not sure I want to do that again.


We headed to Foresta Falls, an out of the way hike that seemed suited to our current energy level. It turned out to be all downhill on the way there, and, consequently, all uphill on the way back. A bridge crosses the falls and the heavy spray was quite refreshing. We chatted with the few people we met along the way. There were more wildflowers, and I think we saw at least 4 different types of butterflies, including one with delicate light blue wings.

After passing the falls, we continued briefly, but decided not to go down to see the lower cascades. On one of our brief rest stops on the way back up the trail, a deer came down the hill and trotted off right behind us. The upper cascades are visible on the way up (hard to believe you can miss them on the way down, but you do).


We stopped at the Cathedral picnic area where we had been in the snow on Wednesday and almost had the place to ourselves. Today, it was hard to find a place to park or an empty picnic table. We could see kids playing in the water as



After lunch our destination was the hike to Vernal Falls, but we got discouraged by the lack of parking anywhere. Maybe we were just looking for an excuse. By this time, we were both feeling very tired. By 4:00 on the first nice Saturday in May, the park was mobbed, and the thought of hiking with a cast of thousands was far from appealing. We liked it better when we had the place almost to ourselves. We found a parking space and used the shuttle bus to get to a spot where all three levels of Yosemite Falls are visible.the Merced is quite shallow and calm in this location.


We walked back to the Visitor Center to buy a book, but we missed the 5:00 closing by a minute. We stopped at the grocery store, but walked in, saw the huge lineup for the single cashier, and walked right back out again. Obviously, it was time to head for the hotel. Everyone else had the same idea. It was like an announcement had been made that once the Visitor Center closed, the park was closed. Maybe everyone wanted to be somewhere else for the end of the world an hour later. It took over 30 minutes just to exit the parking lot. I reminded Jerry that it could have been worse: we could have had tired, hungry kids in the back seat whining, “But you promised that we could go swimming.” We managed to maintain our sense of humor, but would never, ever want to be here in the summer.

Back at the hotel, we were walking to the lobby when we spied a coyote on the side of the road. We watched him until he spied us and sort of casually turned around to cross the highway. He didn't seem too concerned about the traffic; obviously he is more used to it than we are.

We have had a wonderful week here. Some of the people we talked to at Foresta Falls are locals. They said, “Come sometime in late September. The crowds are gone by then.” Sounds like a great idea!