Summer wanes. Days are short and still getting shorter and weather is less stable. The fall colors are all but gone, but on the plus side the summer crowds are all but gone as well. I came to Yosemite for the rock climbing, but lately, it’s the hiking and especially trail running that appeals to me.
During the week, I get in what I can. Lately that has meant running the Mirror Lake Loop by headlamp in the pre-dawn gloom. I’ve been hiking and climbing in the mountains by night since I was a teenager and I love how peaceful it is and I feel alive to the smells and sounds when not confused by the sights. A friend’s recent mountain lion sighting on one of my favorite trails has made me less easy about running in the dawn and dusk hours though. And running in the dark has other drawbacks. So on my days off, I usually try to get in one “long” run in 12-15 mile range. I put long in quotes because that’s a short run for some and a very long run for others. Up until recently, daytime running has usually involved jostling with crowds on the always crowded Mist Trail and even, lately, on the surprisingly crowded Panorama Trail. This weekend, with rain forecast on Sunday, I knew it would be wonderfully quiet and I strategically chose one of my favorite quiet trails just to be sure.
The Deer Camp trailhead parking is about a quarter mile south from the Glacier Point turnoff (that is the Chinquapin intersection). I have probably run part of this trail 30 times or so and have never seen anyone out there except my wife. It is one of the few places in Yosemite where you can run for miles and miles on the flats. Usually I go there when I don’t have the time to go somewhere else, so I’ve never gotten that far on it. This time, I’m planning to do the loop around the back of Tempo Dome and then down to Bridalveil campground, up to Badger and finally back to Chinquapin.
My wife is planning a short run, so we start together, but I soon leave her behind. The trail is not one of Yosemite’s more scenic ones, but it has its pleasures. For one, it’s basically the remains of an old logging railroad, so the grade is very gentle. We forget that 80 years ago these forests on both sides of the Wawona Road were valued not for their natural beauty, but for their green gold, their sugar pines, that most wonderful lumber species, which John Muir called the monarch of pines (or something like that). If you take forays off into the forest around here you see remains of the logging operations and occasionally railroad beds, the rails long since pulled up and sold for scrap, the ties left to rot in the ground and the bed being reclaimed by manzanita and fir trees. Shortly I come to a meadow where I saw a mother and two cubs feasting on berries or something a couple of years ago, and now it’s all dry and leaveless bushes and bracken.
After a couple of miles, I cross Rail Creek, named not for the railroad that ran here, but before that for the trees that once provided particularly good fence rails. Just beyond the trickling creek is the Rail Creek ski run, another historic spot, cut back in the late 1920s in preparation for hosting the Olympics. You’ve never heard of the Yosemite Olympics because the games went to Lake Placid, but to be viable, the Tresidders (who ran the Curry Company at the time) were busy holding figure skating competitions, building a giant 60,000 square-foot rink and cutting a trail that would be adequate for running alpine ski races. It’s hard to imagine that the Rail Creek trail, which has very little steep terrain, could ever have been considered a competition run, but the Tresidders had their hopes. As I run by, it’s also hard to imagine that it’s even skiable — the brush grows high above me — but having skied it several times, I just have to shake my head and think of how much snow it takes and how much more it will take in ten years when the brush is even taller. Like the railroad tracks, it’s a piece of Yosemite history that’s fading back to nature, and like the railroad tracks, a wide ski trail through prime forest is perhaps something that never really deserved a place in Yosemite to start with. If only the dam at Hetch Hetchy would fade so gracefully from the landscape in the space of eighty unattended years in the loving care of tree and cloud.
I plod on past Rail on my way almost to Deer Camp. I say plod because, though I love to run, I am by no means fast. After about 6.3 or 7.5 miles, depending on whether you believe the trail signs or the map or, for that matter, which map or none at all, I leave the old road shortly before Deer Camp and take the trail that heads up and around the back side of Tempo Dome. It’s a fun place to ski too, but I’ve only explored this area once when snow didn’t cover the ground. It’s a great place for Leichtlin’s Mariposa Lillies and other flowers, but they’re long gone now. Still, it’s the one really nice view on the run, out over the valley toward Wawona. The trail here gains about a thousand feet in elevation over the next few of miles, which is gentle by Yosemite standards, but since I still have about seven miles to go, I take it easy and walk short bits so I can have a quick snack and a drink. I hear, but don’t really see something in the brush. It sounds like a deer rather than a bear and sure enough, I catch a glimpse of an enormous rack as he fades into the brush, my only companion larger than a squirrel that I see all day.
I wander through the forest is a purposeful, directed manner, following the trail and moving toward my destination. My mind, however, wanders its own course as it bounces from railroads and logging camps to John Muir and the Olympics and ski season and Leichtlin’s Mariposa Lillies and friends and family and on and on. Unlike hiking, where my mind can get stuck on a thought for long periods, for some reason the effort of running seems to preclude sustained thought. First it goes off on long discursions, then short thoughts that flit through my mind, and then as I round the back of Tempo Dome and approach Westfall Meadow, my mind becomes quieter and more meditative, which is the main attraction of running longer distance for me. I don’t feel a strong need to be alone on the trails in general, but I’m enjoying the quiet of mid-autumn.
I’m on familiar ground again as I drop down into Westfall Meadow. Not so long ago the trail here was lined with Violets, Bistort, Pussypaws and Shooting stars. Westfall itself can be teeming with flowers in the right season, but now it’s golden grass turned more yellow by the sun, already sinking low at three o’clock, lending an autumn beauty that is spectacular in its own right. The ground is mushy, but for the first time I recall, I cross Westfall Meadow on foot (that is, no skis) and do not get my feet soaked. After another bit, I come to Bridalveil Campground. The campground gate has been closed for some weeks and the bustle that would normally characterize the area is no more. I continue to enjoy the perfect solitude of an autumn day in Yosemite.
From here it’s 2.5 miles up the old road (and modern ski trail) to Badger Pass. I start to see some flowers still in bloom but don’t take time to stop and look. Finally I realize that they are (what else?), Pearly Everlasting. Everlasting indeed! This is the last bit of uphill I have to do. It’s a gentle slope, but not as gentle as it is when you’re skiing down it. Not as short either. I finally see the aspen grove, denuded of leaves but, as aspens do, still growing and photosynthesizing with its green bark (or so I assume; we don’t actually exchange any words). By the time I get to Badger, I’ve run a half marathon with my food, water, rain coat, hat, gloves, and headlamp in my pack. That’s already pretty long for me and I’m getting tired and when I run the only piece f this route that is on pavement, I feel how unpleasant it is to run on hard surfaces. Ouch.
Once at Badger, I cross over behind the maintenance shed and see my beloved ski school bell. I give it three harsh rings to appease the snow gods in hopes that they will bring us more snow than they did last year. I do not criticize. As the child of a ski instructor and a ski coach, I do not take the snow gods’ names in vain — the unforgiveable sin (actually, historically and theologically speaking, the unforgiveable sin is despair, so noting that, I do not despair of a snowy winter either). After this foray through the parking and maintenance areas, I’m once again on the Old Road, a final last 2.6 miles down to Chinquapin. This is another trail I run all the time and my mind really shuts off as well-known landmarks slip by until I hear the sound of the small cascade on Indian Creek and know I’m almost done. By the time I get back to the car, it’s been over two and half hours since I left my wife and I see my first flesh and blood person. The park is never truly empty, but there’s a great pleasure to a 15-mile ramble in solitude. John Muir would have enjoyed it, but no doubt I couldn’t have kept up with him.
Oh, and who’s Nemo? Not a fish. Not a submarine captain either. My favorite running partner is Nemo. Still don’t know? Brush up on your Latin!
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Congratulations! You made it to the end, either by reading all that or by skipping to the thrilling conclusion. I realize that it’s quite a bit longer and rather atypical of what Loyd usually writes. I hope you enjoyed it, but if not console yourself by knowing that no Yosemite sugar pines were cut down to produce paper to print this on. I live in the park and like to run, hike, ski and take pictures of wildflowers. I suppose someday I’ll return to rock climbing too. I also have a website but, lacking the diligence of Loyd, my site often goes unattended and unmaintained despite the best of plans, and new articles get added at the rate of more like one per month, rather than one per day. The navigation is a bit of a mess, so with those apologies and warnings, I invite you to check out what are currently the most developed sections, namely collections of photos of Yosemite trails (coupled with detailed descriptions) and photos of Yosemite wildflowers. I also have some stuff on ski tours and climbing and random assorted news, but those sections are really in need of being dusted off. Oh, one last warning. These are not meant to be “art” pictures, but more “documentary”. That is, they are to give a sense of the sights and to help ID flowers, not to be awesome photos. I’m just a snapshot hack. If you want really nice images, you’re much better off sticking to Loyd’s photo of the day contributors. Thanks for making it this far and thanks Loyd for inviting me to contribute! Happy Trails. Tom Lambert, YosemiteExplorer.com