|
|
(1-22-12)
dg Home Page changed each Sunday!
June 13,1959
My Fourth Visit to Yosemite National Park
A very long day of hiking.
Part A: The Hike to Sierra Point
Topographical map of Happy Isles and the route to Sierra Point
June 13,1959:
This day started out with a casual walk over to the start of the Sierra Point Trail. The trail was steep and narrow and one was forced to stop to let hikers coming down from the Point to pass by. When you reached Sierra Point, you were confined to a small area. I had forgotten about this part of that day's hike until I found notes about today's current status of the trail.
Sierra Point, Yosemite April 4, 2004, STATUS:
"The trail to this point was abandoned about 40 years ago and in places has been obliterated by rock fall but is easily found with some careful route finding. Leave the Vernal Falls Trail about 800 feet above the gauging station and about 15 feet before an interpretive sign that says "Rock Piles". Trend slightly left up into large talus for several hundred feet until the trail can be picked up. The faint trail switchbacks up steeply for about 800 feet of elevation gain and over some loose, steep sections until traversing right for several hundred feet to the point. This is a great place to view the blast zone from the Glacier Point rock fall of 1996 that generated winds over 120 mph and flattened trees for several hundred yards. It is also where Ansel Adams took his first pictures of Yosemite Valley in 1916 at age 14. Early Spring finds cascades, both large and small, in full flood, the canyons reverberating with the sound of falling water."
|
Looking towards the designation of Hike Part B: Yosemite Point
Upper Yosemite Falls and Yosemite Point
|
|
|
Mt. Broderick
EL. 6706
|
"At the end of the Sierra Point Trail lies Sierra Point, with its original railing intact and a view which few people in the world have ever seen."
Sierra Point
EL. 4910
|
"SIERRA POINT was named in honor of the Sierra Club by Charles A. Bailey in 1897. He had searched for a point from which the five waterfalls (Upper and Lower Yosemite, Illilouette, Vernal and Nevada) could be seen."
Half Dome from Sierra Point
|
Heading back down to the valley floor.
Half Dome
EL. 8836
|
|
|
