Theodore Solomons Trail day 14, Illilouette Creek to Glacier Point

Left camp shortly after dawn and began striding down the good trail along the creek. It bubbled merrily along under Sierra blue skies, making its way toward the rim of Yosemite at exactly the right pace, neither hurrying nor hanging back.

Stopped for a break at a pool that gathered several more branches to make their final run together. I contemplated a swim but it was a bit too early and cool. I also gave a thought to catching some of the fish finning about, but it didn’t feel right to be molesting the fish and disrupting their flow. I settled for a snack and a final bit of Sierra serenity.

The trail begins its ascent to Glacier Point at this pool. I soaked my hat, shirt and bandanna for what promised to be a final hot sunny climb.

The back side of Half Dome soon appeared, rising like a giant smooth inscrutable spacecraft over the forested ridge.

Half Dome appears

The trail orbited around the axis of the dome, bringing its narrow side profile into view. Vernal Falls and then Nevada Falls appeared along with the Little Yosemite corridor up to Tuolumne Meadows.

The full Ansel Adams portrait of Yosemite slowly swung into place with a nearly haptic snap as I reached the classic view point at the end of the trail. I navigated through the crowds, the odd fish among schools of motorized tourists, found the prime selfie point and considered my hike at an end. Woof.

I marched back to the little store, grabbed a cold soda, got in the long line to pay and heard the call “Hey hiker trash!” from a grinning youngster passing by, one who had not seen the inside of a barber shop for some time. Busted.

My exit plan was to spend the night in the backpackers camp in Yosemite and take the YARTS shuttle to Fresno and its airport the next morning. This would give me some time to enjoy the Valley, a place I hadn’t been since the early 1980s.

Getting there was the problem. I was hoping to hitch and thus avoid hiking the 4-mile, 3000-foot descent. There is no shuttle to Glacier Point. So many cars were piling in that they were backed up a good half-mile from the gigantic parking lots. I figured with so many cars, I was bound to get a ride quickly.

Not so. I bet 500 cars passed me at the parking lot exit. All of them were families in minivans or couples in crossover SUVs. Not a single dude in a pickup truck. After an hour of futile hitching I accepted my fate and began walking down the trail. Much to my relief, I discovered that it is a smooth incline, not steep knee-killing steps like the JMT.

Arriving at the bottom I headed toward the parking lot only to realize that it was no parking lot but a road full of cars not going anywhere. The shuttle bus had its own lane, but was no faster than walking, spending 10 minutes at each stop to unload passengers and pack more in, leaving a long line of hot sweaty people to wait for the next bus. It took an hour to make it the 2 miles to the stop for the backpacker camp. I’ve been to Times Square in New York, and in Tokyo at rush hour but I’ve never been in a place as crowded as Yosemite Valley was that weekend.

But the backpacker camp was an oasis of relative calm, a few dozen groups gearing up for the JMT and other adventures. After getting beered and burgered I returned to enjoy a fine evening of talk with fellow hikers and watching the sun’s rays slide off the canyon walls. For all we’ve abused it, Yosemite has not lost its magic.

And my final thoughts on the TST? In terms of reward for effort, the JMT is a much better bargain: nearly constant mind-blowing spectacular beauty on a trail, that while challenging, is at least always a trail.

The TSTs rewards are substantial, but they are much more dispersed and require much more effort to obtain. That’s OK. Not every hike has to be entry-level.

And now that I am done hiking it, maybe I like the idea of the TST being inaccessible due to bad trail conditions. It creates a de facto deeper category of wilderness, one that few humans enter. There’s some merit to the idea that not every place needs to be accessible to hikers. Maybe some places should be left to the plants and animals that call them home. And to the hikers that are willing to leave a little blood and skin behind. It’s not the worst idea.