Glacier Point and Panoramic Trail

Wednesday 30th October

We survived the night unscathed, no hypothermia and no bear attacks. We were awake early but it was too cold to get up. Luckily for me Martin's bladder is weaker than mine so he caved in first and whilst he was gone I had the luxury of his share of the blanket! I thought he was taking a long time and soon found out why when he delivered a steaming hot cup of coffee to me "in tent". I think that's the best thing he's ever done for me and definitely the best ever cup of coffee.

The coffee ensured that I got up, what goes in must come out........and by the time I got back Martin had made toast using the stove and frying pan. The sky was a beautiful clear blue and the sun was shining brightly but it was still really cold. We had cereal and more coffee and then headed over to Curry village to thaw out for a while in the lounge (got the sofa directly in front of the fire, took my shoes off and dried my socks off, bliss....although not for anyone else) and look up trail maps on the Internet.

Once our route was planned we ventured out into the cold, sorted out the appropriate number of layers and large quantities of food and set off. The first couple of miles were fairly mundane along the valley floor road to the trail head for Four Mile Trail. We could have taken the shuttle bus but that would have turned us into fat, lazy tourists.......  The trail climbed about 3000 feet from the valley floor through a series of switchbacks (Martin was supposed to be counting them but forgot after the first ten or so). Unfortunately we were climbing up the south side of the valley so we were mostly in shade but the climbing itself warmed us up and eventually we were able to start shedding layers. I have decided the only way to deal with camp site hair is to keep my hat on 24/7 but eventually I overheated and had to take it off. There was no one but Martin to see it and all photographic evidence can later be deleted.

The views both up and down the valley were fabulous and the constant photo opportunities gave us a good excuse to keep stopping for a breather. As we climbed higher and wound around the mountain the view of Half Dome on the other side of the valley got better and better. Higher up the amount of snow and ice underfoot increased but it was still much warmer than yesterday. We had only passed 3 people and met half a dozen or so coming the other way and when we reached our destination, Glacier Point at 7214 feet, it was completely deserted. The last stretch had taken us away from the cliff edge and stunning views but the path up through the snow and giant fir trees had its own appeal, the silence was overwhelming, it felt as though we were on top of the world and were the only people left in existence.

We were more than ready for lunch and this was the perfect place to stop, sitting on a slab of rock looking across the valley with Half Dome dominating the view, both Nevada and Vernal Falls visible way below and the Sierra range stretching in all directions as far as the eye could see. The sun felt really hot now and our cold night was completely forgotten. I could have sat there forever but we still had a long hike ahead of us.

After a couple of false starts we picked up the Panoramic Trail which led us down to Illilouette falls. This was fairly easy going, gentle downward zigzags and quite good tracks although it was more difficult in places due to ankle deep snow. In a couple of places we clearly saw bear paw prints in the snow and that lent speed to my legs even though I was flagging a bit.  We reached the falls without having met anybody else and the suspicion I had long been harbouring (that we were going to have to climb a lot further up before we came back down) proved to be true. We toiled back up through the woods with more amazing views until over 6000 feet and then we again began to descend, eventually reaching the point where we had turned back the previous day. On reaching the Nevada Falls split we turned left and found a treacherous path covered in ice which had not thawed at all during the course of the day. It was after 4pm and the temperature already felt as though it was dropping, I was becoming slightly concerned about getting down off the mountain before it got dark.

At the next split we took the left hand trail which clearly said stock only, no pedestrians (we didn't see the sign) as Martin assured me it was a short cut. It did seem to descend more steeply than I remembered climbing up the previous day and it took us down on the right side of the river.  The last mile stretch along a service road was not exactly scenic although the autumn coloured trees were very pretty. I was extremely pleased to see the camp site - my GPS was showing that we had covered 18 miles with a total climb of 2318m.

I'm slightly ashamed that we got in the car to drive the 0.6 miles to Curry Village for showers, hot coffee and thawing in the lounge. The shower was fantastic, it was the first time I had taken my clothes off for 36 hours and words could not possibly describe the state of my socks!

After a period of defrosting in the lounge we headed back to the campsite and our big treat of the evening. Our neighbours had left this morning, leaving behind a supply of firewood which we had commandeered. So to accompany our cold beer and tepid boil in the bag Indian food we had a roaring fire. It took a while to get going and it was a bit smoky but the warmth was wonderful and we were well toasted when we reluctantly left it and climbed into our sleeping bags.