Yosemite National Park Day 3 - Glacier Point

My elaborate campsite,
Crane Flat Campground #410

I woke up early again on Wednesday, September 7, 2016. I was beat and sore. I decided to relax a bit and went back to sleep. I didn't roll out of my sleeping bag until about 8:30 AM. I leisurely heated some water for my instant Starbucks coffee and instant oatmeal. Note that one of John Muir's staples was oatmeal. I was hoping that I'd channel some more Muir!

I also want to plug the Starbucks instant coffee. It's pretty good for instant and I don't have to have to take any tools to brew coffee. I had started looking for such a thing before leaving on the trip and ended up finding that Starbucks had instant coffee. I ordered some from Amazon at $11.65 for 8 packets. Afterwards, when I was at my local WalMart to get some other supplies, I saw they had the same thing for about $6. Someone made some bucks off of me! Regardless of the price, it was good and convenient.

My plan for the day, now that I wasted and lost the opportunity to shoot sunrise photographs, was to visit Glacier Point. That was the last remaining highlight I had on my list of things to be sure I saw during my way too short of a visit:

1. Tuolomne Meadows
2. Tenaya Lake
3. Hetch-Hetchy
4. The Valley and El Capitan, Half dome, Yosemite Falls, Ansel Adams Gallery
5. Tunnel View viewpoint
6. Glacier Point

Eventually I got myself on the road. Yes, I'd lost the sunrise but I was very relaxed and happy, even if I was sore. I must have moved around and exercised some muscles more than I realized up to this point! Good for me!

I headed on out of the campground and down towards the valley to get on Wawona Road. I drove past the Tunnel View viewpoint and headed through Wawona Tunnel for which it's named. It's a long tunnel at 4,233 feet - about 4/5 of a mile.

Sign for McGurk Meadows along Glacier Point Road

Continuing up the winding Wawona Road you come to the turn off for Glacier Point. It seemed like it was suddenly there without a lot of warning (signs). I took the turn and headed up Glacier Point Road. There's a Yosemite Ski and Snowboard Resort along the way as the road twists through some lovely pine and granite. I wanted to stop along the road often but kept going, hoping I'd have time at the end of the day to stop more. 

I just found the scenery and landscape along that whole road to be beautiful and wonderful. Again I was wishing I could live there. I imagine a lot of other people wish that too! I also wish I was a park ranger, working there.

I did see some similarities between the Glacier Point Road and some of the roads in the Grand Canyon National Park on the north rim side. But the meadows at Yosemite were prettier (from what I saw as I drove past them). I'll also admit that I drove slowly, generally in tourist mode and under the speed limit. There wasn't a lot of traffic and when anyone got behind me, rushing to get to the end of the road, I pulled over to let them pass. I wanted to enjoy the trip! 

Washburn Point Visitors

I am reading "Wild" right now and Cheyrl Strayed has a line I read last night that I liked - she was in a car while bypassing some snow bound parts of the Pacific Crest Trail, and, to paraphrase, said that as she watched the landscape go by from the car it became general instead of specific and that she was an observer instead of a participant. I was trying to stay as much of a participant as possible.

As you get closer to the Glacier Point area you first pass by the Washburn Point viewpoint. Yep, I did pull in there to check it out. I didn't spend much time there at the time, but did get a nice view of Half Dome before continuing on to Glacier Point.

Between Washburn Point and Glacier point, headed to Glacier Point, there's a right hand turn around a point that looks out at the valley just before you get to the Glacier Point parking lot. There's a parking area inside the turn, and there was only one car in there. I thought it would make a great place to take some photos from.

The parking lot at Glacier Point was full. I drove around 3 times before I found someone that was leaving. I waited for them to back out of their spot and I grabbed it. It was probably about 10:00 AM, which is after the tourists start getting out. 

The area at Glacier Point was also full of humans. I didn't even get my DSLR out of the car, and my iPhone battery was dead so I didn't even get any photos from there. I walked the paved trails around the point, ooohd and aaahd. Watched everyone else taking their selfies with their selfie sticks. I went through the little masonry "tower" on one of the trails. I went in to the Glacier Point "store" and got a hot dog and coffee. The bees really enjoyed it - I had to take bites from it in between the times when there were a few bees on it grabbing a bite.

Outcroppings near Glacier Point

I tried to enjoy the view but there were a lot of people there. If I'd had another day at the park I would have tried to get up there a lot earlier. The view of Half Dome is better here than at Washburn Point because you see more of the face from Glacier Point. At Washburn Point you're looking about straight across the face, just getting the profile of Half Dome. But, due to the number of people, I didn't end up going back with my DSLR. I'll do it next time.

I decided to instead drive back to that sharp turn in the road just outside of the Glacier Point parking lot. When I got there it was packed full of cars. Bummer. I went on a bit farther and pulled off the road near some granite. I parked and walked out on the granite and found some decent views of Half Dome there so I grabbed my DSLR and climbed out on those rocks.

Half Dome from the outcroppings near Glacier Point

I actually climbed out on the rocks to get some shots, trying not to look down. In fact, I crawled on part of my excursion. I really wanted some photographs from up here and the drop offs weren't quite bad enough to keep me away. I enjoyed finding a path through the bushes and over the boulders.

Half Dome was visible through some trees. I won't say that I got award winning shots but I like them and I really like the memories that they'll spark when I view them in the future. If I haven't mentioned it, I was really enjoying my visit at Yosemite!

I was even able to pose and grab my own selfies with Half Dome in the background! How cool is that?

Me with Half Dome in the background

Okay, nothing spectacular but I was still pinching myself - I was truly seeing John Muir country!

I continued on, stopping at Washburn Point again to take some more photographs from that location.

I haven't processed the shots yet but I was able to use my 200-500mm lens to get some shots of Vernal and Nevada falls which are visible from there. 

When I looked at the falls without the lens, they were okay. Not a lot of water but enough. But when I looked at them with the long lens I saw that there were a lot of people at the falls. That lens is cool. I wish I had a teleconverter too; it would have likely worked fine for those shots - using a tripod in bright mid-day light. I could have picked out the people a lot better (and it would have been useful for the climbers on El Capitan).

Somewhere along Wawona Road

There were a lot of folks at Washburn Point taking pictures, as you would imagine. Out of the many DSLR shooters, all of them were using Canon cameras except 2. I spoke to one guy who stood right in front of me (it was okay, I was just sitting on a railing enjoying the view) about that, He thought it was funny - he hated the Canon ergonomics. I can't say I hate Canon ergonomics because I've never shot one. What I can say is for what ever reason, significantly more people were carrying a Canon DSLR than Nikon. That's just an observation...

At some time about 4:15 PM I decided to start heading back to the valley. I thought I'd stop at Tunnel View viewpoint again and see what I could get for some sunset shots from there. Along the way I shot a video of going through Wawona Tunnel (click this link to view the video).

Some non-humans at Tunnel View

I stayed at Tunnel View until dark and shot a lot of captures of the shadow of El Capitan as it crept across the valley using the interval timer on my Nikon D610 (again, when I process these shots I'll post another blog). I got about 100 shots at 1 minute intervals.

While I was doing that I talked to a nice young couple from Rhode Island. They were just as excited as I was to be there watching the sunset on Yosemite Valley! They'd come up to me and the man said "I see everyone else is over there (pointing) and you're down here. We figured you must know what you're doing so we're coming here by you." His flattery got him a smile and a laugh in return! 

I left Tunnel View after dark, heading back to my campsite. I wasn't looking forward to trying to fix some ramen noodles in the dark but oh well.

As I got into the valley and made the turns on to El Capitan Drive and Northside Drive and was passing by El Capitan Meadow, the moon was visible between the Cathedral Rocks and looked wonderful. I made the quick decision to pull over and shoot some moon pictures from out in the meadow.

I grabbed my camera which had my 70-200mm zoom on it and walked out into the middle of the meadow where the deer and bears roam. It was so cool, being there like that at that time of day with no one else around and hardly any cars going by. I tried shooting a picture but instantly saw that I needed a wider lens so I walked back to the Explorer, swapped the lens for the 20mm, and then returned to the middle of the meadow. 

I got some shots (which I haven't processed yet, as you might have guessed). When I turned around to go back to the car I noticed lights on the face of El Capitan. The climbers were settling in for the night and you could see where they were. Again, this place is something else (in a good way)! I put the camera down and shot some photographs of that too. Like I said on my post about day 1, every time you turn your head here, or walk a few feet, there is something new to take a photograph of. You better bring lots of film if you come to Yosemite!

Eventually I made it back to my campsite. I barely got my ramen cooked and eaten and cleaned up before the 10:00 PM "quiet" time hit. My second full day in Yosemite was over, dammit!