Erynn and I flew out to San Francisco to visit our friends Angelo and Neel & Pami. I used to row with Angelo back in the day, and I just graduated with Neel in June from the Chicago GSB. The first part of the trip consisted of a weekend trip to Yosemite National Park with Neel and his wife, Pami. After returning to SF, we just hung out, saw some more sights and had some great food. I ended up taking about 300 photos on this trip. I obviously didn't post them all on this site, but if you're interested I can send a CD with them on it.
On our first day we picked up Pami from Santa Clara University's Law School after she was done with class and headed to Yosemite. On the way, we stopped for some grub at Armadillo Willy's BBQ, which was pretty good. However, I really got a kick out of the sign on the right. The first person that "gets it" will receive an autographed copy of the picture.
We stayed at Curry Village on the floor of Yosemite Valley. We arrived in the middle of the night so we didn't appreciate the location. When we woke up in the morning though, the scale of the surroundings impressed us. You can get a sense of the granite cliffs from the above photos. The one on the left is the camp entrance, and the photo on the right is of the four of us in the parking lot with Half Dome in the background.
Here's our cabin. The inside had power and two double beds. Showers and bathrooms were communal and located in other buildings. Since most people leave for their adventures in the morning and come back in the evenings, lines became a bit of an issue though.
The main purpose of the trip to Yosemite was to hike the 18 miles from our camp to the top of Half Dome, which is a beautiful mountain in the middle of the park. The trip ended up taking 13 hours, which ended up being a bit excessive for a group of city slickers that hadn't hiked much in the past. In fact, this was Erynn's first-ever hiking excursion. Needless to say, we were all a bit sore the next day. The pictures above show Erynn & Pami and Neel as we set off from camp, and were blissfully unaware of what lay ahead.
There are many trail options for getting to Half Dome. The mountain is, I think, about 6 miles from the nearest vehicle access so you're only chance of getting close is to hike. I still think the Park Service has an easier "secret" back way to mountain that they're not telling us about. We chose to bypass an extra mile of switchbacks and chose to hike the Mist Trail. As you can guess from the name, we got wet. The Mist Trail is more strenuous, but much more scenic bringing hikers right under Vernal Falls. The photo on the left shows us hiking up the wet trail, and the right photo shows a good shot of the falls.
Here are Pami, Neel and Erynn on the Mist Trail below Vernal Falls.
I included these photos so you could get a sense of how steep the climb was on the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Falls. I think the falls are about 600 feet tall, which meant countless steps carved into the granite face. The temperature was in the high 80's and sunny. The mist kept us cool for a while, but this was only the first hour of our 13 hour hike.
Here's the group overlooking Vernal Falls at the very top. We could walk right up to the corner where the water cascaded over the edge. The little black specks in the right-hand picture just to the right of the falls are people and was where we were standing in the left-hand picture. This waterfall and the next were infinitely cooler than Niagara Falls because you could get so close.
I thought these pics were some of the best of the trip. There was a U.S. Geological Survey Datum at this site, which told us we were at an elevation of 5249 feet. The Valley floor is roughly 4000 feet above sea level and Half Dome rises to about 8000 feet. Quite a long way to go when I took these pictures.
Next stop on the hike was Nevada Falls. Along the way, we walked along a path cut into the side of the granite cliff. The cool thing about this section of the John Muir Trail was that it afforded tremendous views of the many granite domes located in Yosemite. The picture on the left shows (from right to left) Liberty Cap (7076 ft), Mt Broderick (6706 ft), and Half Dome (8836 ft). The right-hand picture shows Erynn and Neel on the granite ledge in front of Nevada Falls.
Neel and I were fascinated by this big tree that was missing a significant portion of its trunk, but it was still thriving. However, I posted the photo because you can just make out Erynn being cheeky and peering through the hole.
While Vernal Falls had a railing keeping would be barrel riders away, Nevada Falls had no such protection. The picture on the left shows the bridge that crosses the falls about 40 feet from the edge. The edge of the falls is just off to the left of the photo. I took the right-hand photo right at the cliff looking back at the bridge.
It's a long way down. Erynn, and I suspect my mom, didn't approve.
Here's the group sitting having lunch next to the falls, and our view. It really was quite amazing.
Here's the four of us with Half Dome in the background. Yes, people can walk right out onto the tip. The left picture shows a bit of the valley. Two dimensional pictures never do a good job showing mile long valleys that are 100 thousand feet deep. I guess you'll just have to go and see for yourself.
After the previous pictures, we made our final push for the top. All the trees disappeared and very steep granite slopes remained. With these two pictures I'm trying to give you a sense of how steep it actually was. I started to get freaked out a bit at this point.
The left-hand picture shows people climbing the face of Half Dome. It gets nearly vertical at some points and you have to use a couple parallel cables to help haul yourself up. The picture of Pami on the shoulder right below the summit gives you a sense of how steep it was. Just to her right is the cliff edge.
This is as far as I got. I didn't summit. I took one look at the cable climb and couldn't bring myself to do it. I turned around and took the picture of the shoulder where Erynn and I hung out for a bit while Pami and Neel made the summit.
To their credit, Pami and Neel were up to the challenge even though they were quite fatigued from the six hours of hiking to this point. While they climbed the cables, I took this photo of Erynn. We were still pretty far up. Going back down the steep slope ended up being even more nerve racking than the climb up.
Neel took this cool panoramic photo at the very top of Half Dome.
On the way back down, I took this photo of a cool tree clinging to the side of the cliff. The sign shows all of the trails and distances involved. Exhausting, but fun.
The day after our hike, we drove around the Yosemite Valley to see some of the more visited sites. The left photo shows the lower Yosemite Falls. It's hard to see, but there are people on the rocks right where the water hits. The right-hand photo shows both the upper and lower falls.
After visiting Yosemite Falls, we decided to have a picnic near the Housekeeping Campsite. This was the view that we had while we ate. We couldn't tell whether there were any actual rapids that the rafters were allowed to traverse, but we were jealous anyway since it was such a beautiful day.
El Capitan (7569 ft) is the other famous rock formation in the park. We didn't do any hiking around it, but I took this picture anyway as we were leaving the park.
Even the drive out of Yosemite is amazing. Like I said before, it was dark when we drove in so we didn't see anything. On the road to the valley there are a few car pull-offs so people can check out the cliff ledge the road follows. The left photo shows Cascade Creek falls and the right shows the Valley Portal. The road in daylight was spectacular to see, but made for some "white knuckle" moments in the dark because it was so curvy and steep. We're comin' in hot!
After we got back from Yosemite, we just hung out in San Francisco. We had been to SF to visit our friend Angelo in 2003. He was such a great host on that occasion there wasn't much else to see. On one of the days together, we went to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The photo above was taken on Crissy Field, which was an old airfield that has been reclaimed as a wetlands and recreation area.
Neel's Park (a.k.a. Buena Vista Park) was just up the hill from his house. We took a stroll up the hill one evening before dinner and snapped a few neat shots of the city. Neel helped me figure out the photo stitching function on my digital camera, and I was able to get this cool shot of the city. There will be more panoramas later...
Much of our time in SF revolved around food. Angelo likes to find small places with good service that are off the beaten path. Our last night in town we went to this incredible Vietnamese place in the Tenderloin, and for breakfast every morning we generally frequented one of the Bay Bread establishments.
The French and Vietnamese restaurants pictured above wouldn't be that hard to find since they have big signs and are on main thoroughfares. However, the best taco truck and sushi place in San Francisco are a little harder to find. But to keep it to ourselves, I won't tell you where they are either. However, if you do find the taco truck, get the carnitas con carnitas burrito. It was heavenly.
If you can't find the taco truck, then I recommend going to Casa Mexicana near the Castro. They have like ten flavors of meat and the portions are huge for what we thought was very little money.
Another highlight of the trip was our decision (thanks to Q) to rent bikes and ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Tiburon and then take the ferry back to SF. The ride was only 18 miles, but the weather and views were pretty great. We got our rental bikes from Blazing Saddles. They had good service but a little pricey, and stay away from the 13 inch Marin hybrid bike. When we got underway to the bridge, I just had to take a picture of the Deere mower with the bridge tower in the background.
Here are just some pictures I took of the bridge.
We made a short stop at the Army Corps of Engineers Bay Model. Over time human development has altered the landscape of San Francisco Bay, and the Bay Model was created to study how different factors could alter the ecosystem. Basically, it's a huge working model of the bay that engineers and scientists get to play with. "Larry, you feel like having a typhoon today?" How cool is that? Above you can see Erynn standing next to a two foot version of the Golden Gate Bridge. You can actually stand there and watch the water swoosh back and forth under the bridge. The model simulates a day every 14 minutes or so, which makes the tide change every 3-4 minutes.
What better way to end a long day in the sun than to sit by the water in Tiburon at Sam's Cafe and wait for the ferry to take you back home.
On the ferry ride back, I took a few more photos of the city. Above is another photo of Alcatraz. You can look at the 2003 photos to see the other side. I also put a humiliating photo of myself up there because Angelo and Erynn really liked my crazy hair.
Here's a panoramic view of San Francisco from the ferry.
© 2005 Doug Rathburn