Yosemite: Snow Creek, Dewey Point, and more -- February 2020
Monday, February 3. The park was doing managed burns, including some right along the walk from the Bridleveil Falls parking lot to the viewpoint. I didn't expect this! Later, I saw a cluster of people here, warming up. Temperatures were in the 30's with a moderate wind.
Bridalveil Creek below the falls. Some of that's ice.
Bridalveil Falls. Lots of ice at the margins.
Bridalveil Falls. Lots of ice at the base too.
Bridalveil Falls, top to bottom. (29 second video -- click to play -- alternate/better version at the end of the gallery.
Tuesday, February 4. Time for the trip's long day hike ... and another icy waterfall. Yosemite Falls had just a little water but a nice coating of white along side.
Close up of the top. It's not that clear, but there appears to be lots of ice right at the brink. (More on the middle and nower falls tomorrow.)
Ice on Yosemite Creek down here too. The temperature is around 30F.
Cook Meadow.
I followed the bike path past Ahwahnee Meadow toward Mirror Lake. Nice open pine and fir forest. None of the deciduous tree color I saw last November. *Very* different from the snowscape of January 2017.
Lower Mirror Lake ... with just a bit of ice. On this midwinter morning it's a chilly, dim place, being in the shadow of Half Dome and sitting in the cold air pool at the bottom of the valley.
Upper Mirror Lake, also with a bit of ice. Mt. Watkins above.
Mirror Lake has been a destination for well over a century and there's some impressive old rock work to show for it.
Now it gets a little wilder. Lack of paint notwithstanding, the base of the Snow Creek Trail is 1.6 miles ahead on the Valley Loop Trail. Doubly dim now with a solid tree cover overhead.
On the Snow Creek Trail, with its impressive trail construction. The trail hits the valley's granite walls rock a few hundred feet up from the junction with the Valley Loop Trail. Brighter and warmer up here: out of the cold air pool, out of the solid tree cover, and soon out of the shade of Half Dome.
The two Quarter Domes are nicely in view. The reason behind their name in clear from this angle. Cloud's Rest at the left.
North Dome and Basket Dome above.
Below, the Tenaya Creek arm of the the valley. Opposite, the Glacier Point area. It's hazy. The managed burns are continuing today.
After a long stretch of mostly open, rocky trail, the tree/shrub cover increases a bit. Oaks, some Ponderosa pines, manzanitas. There's sometimes even a trail bed of duff rather than rock.
For a while, the trail follows a tiny creek (not Snow Creek), crossing several times. Here the creek is sliding down a granite wall ... and producing icicles at the drops. Two hours later on my return, most had melted or fallen.
Just a little to right of the previous picture, water was running under a sheet of ice and making interesting tadpole-like bubbles. And then some of the ice above broke off above, interrupting my reverie. Perhaps I should have calmly swung the camera up to capture the little ice pieces coming down ... but not yet knowing all of what was coming at me, I didn't. (19 second video -- click to play -- alternate/better version at the end of the gallery.)
At around 6700' (so 2600' up from the Valley Loop Trail), I moved onto a more level pine and fir forest floor. At first there were on-and-off patches of snow, but beyond that dip ahead the snow cover was more-or-less continuous.
It was only about 1500' from the dip to the footbridge. Even with Yaktrax, walking on this compacted, slippery snow required care. The last significant snow was about 3 weeks ago. Cycles of melting and refreezing have turned some into ice.
Just past a trail junction -- left to North Dome, right to the footbridge and eventually to May and Tenaya Lakes -- my route caches up with Snow Creek.