One more step to death!

Travel has become convincingly interesting to life. Feb 17th and 18th were no different. This time the destinations were Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park. The plan was crafted neatly and perfectly time bound. Rent the car on Friday and all 6 of us synced up on Saturday early morning at 5:30am. Drove to Boreal mountain for skiing. Although it was second time that we ski, had a tough time practising the turns. End of day drove back to Sacramento through the Lake Tahoe route. The route is a beautiful and picture perfect one. Had a peaceful night at the Good nite Inn in Sacramento.

Lake Tahoe!

Sunday - to trek the whole day in Yosemite. It was about 2.8 miles of trek and about 5 hours round trip. There were two trails that we could take. Studying the maps and weather conditions, we planned to take the John Muir trail. But at the last moment, we chose to go via the Mist trail because my friend knew the trail already. Thus we reached the bottom of Vernal Falls. By this time one of the six decided to retreat. Here is where the Mist trail gets seperated from the John Muir trail. So we headed to the top of Vernal Falls via the Mist trail. Here we had our lunch and three of six decided to retreat. So we were left with only me and my roomie (who knew the trail before) to conquer the trek plan. Our plan is to get to the top of Nevada Falls because further trail to Half Dome requires more time and camping, also due to weather conditions Half Dome was closed.


Thus me and my roomie headed to conquer the Nevada Falls. Trail was quite clear initially until the top of Vernal Falls, but towards the Nevada Falls it becomes quite unclear and rocky. Although there were steps in the latter part of trail to Vernal Falls, they were steep and risky. Further more, I was only wearing leather shoes which were not even close to trek-shoes. The Mist trail although it becomes rockier from top of Vernal to Nevada Falls, the trail leads pretty close edged to a mountain, making it scarier (atleast my friend felt that way). Often I got lost in the trail because atleast in two places it was confusing and unclear. At one point we were retreating the trail to figure out the right way, as if we were attempting to solve the eight-queens problem using backtracking algorithm. The beauty of Mist trail is that it reveals the beauty of Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls through its way whereas the John Muir trail doesnt. Its such a beautiful sight to witness the valley down from the top of Vernal Falls. Both the trails reunite again about 0.2 miles from the top of Nevada Falls. To get to the top of Nevada Falls, we had to reach this unification point and then walk 0.2 miles in the John Muir trail. The top of Nevada Falls is a beautiful one. It should be around 7000 feet above sea-level.


After a photo session, we decided to take the John Muir trail to reach the Yosemite valley / car. Walking for almost half a mile we come across this snow covered path in John Muir trail. The barricade was only about a foot tall and about half-a-foot wide and a wrong step on that would definetely take you to hell. The path was completely in hard snow ice and it was drizzling at that time. Occasionally ice was falling from the top along the path. WorseWe came to a point where we couldnt use the path/trail anymore, instead we had to walk about 25 feet on the barricade. Initially I thought we could do that and my roomie listening to that did walk on that barricade for about 10 feet. After that he could find some low ice where he could stand in the trail. Now it was me to cross that yard, and I couldnt because my shoes became very slippery and I literally sat on that ice. Now we examined the trail more carefully and understood that we were risking a lot. So we decided to retreat via the Mist trail itself. This place was so dangerous that had either of us placed one step wrong, we would have reached the valley the fastest way but dead.

The ice-packed death bed!

The trauma of that incident is still there but my curiosity and adventurous attitude have increased further. After all, the death bed is yet another walk of life...