Well, it didn't quite turn out that way, but it was a great excuse to drive through beautiful Yosemite, and to enjoy the flooding waterfalls and late snow.
We woke up at 2:30 in the morning to get a good early start. Our goal was to be at McGurk Meadow, a grassy patch off of the Glacier Point road, well before sunrise. We parked the car around 4:30, and hiked in the gloom of the early morning down the short trail to the meadow. We got there in the first light of morning, hiking through the forested meadow edges and intently watching for any large nocturnal predators. Nothing hooted, nothing flew by, and so we admitted defeat around 7:00 in the morning and headed back to the car. On the way we flushed a Junco from the ground and wondered at its tiny little nest in a scrape in the duff.
Then it was off to Glacier Point, where we enjoyed the spectacular waterfalls in the light of the early morning and from a thousand or so feet above.
Unfortunately, no Sooty Grouse. We did enjoy a Pileated Woodpecker, some Nuthatches, and I got to see a deer bed down for the day in a thicket just off the beaten track. That was a treat.
Then it was off for Tioga Pass. We didn't want to brave the crowds in the Valley, but we did stop briefly at Bridalveil Falls because it was on the way.
Quite a soaking standing at the base of this sometimes ribbony falls this Independence Day weekend!
Our next stop was the Crane Flat Chevron Station. The meadow there sometimes hosts Great Gray Owls. We decided to take a late morning stab at them, without much hope, and wandered off through the bordering woods in vain. The meadows themselves were all well inundated with the recent melt, so we decided not to brave their miry depths.
Unsuccessful, we headed for a short hike to the Tuolomne Grove of Giant Sequoias. This is a cool 3 mile round trip hike, and we had a great time admiring the enormous trees.
Lots of cool birds on this hike, too. Down in the grove, there were a couple of feisty Pacific Wrens singing their heads off. Their incredibly long and fast tinkling songs are always a pleasure to hear, and this was our first time encountering them in the Sierra. Along the trail up there were a couple of singing male Hermit Warblers, too, and I always love to encounter my favorite little hooded parulid.
On our way out, we were hoping to hike out to May Lake, but the trailhead road was still snowed in. Not relishing doubling our hike at the latish hour, we passed along and did a little touristing at Olmsted Point and Tuolomne Meadows. We still had enough time for another hike, though, so we took off for Dog Lake from the trailhead below Lembert Dome.
On the way up we ran into a couple of Japanese girls who were in distress. One of the girls had fallen down on Lembert Dome, and had suffered a concussion. Some other hikers on the way down said they would help them on their way, so we shared our water with them and headed on. We ran into them again on our way out, and a member of their party had come up to help. It was a short hike, but it's a good reminder that bringing your "essentials" can help someone beside yourself. It made me wish we'd had our daypack so we could have been of more assistance, but we thought such a short hike could be done lightly.
Then it was off over the pass, where there was still a lot of snow on the ground. On the far side of the pass, we had a Mono Cone, and then made for the cabin. Lots of snow meant another hike in, but we were just happy to be there regardless!
While the trip to Yosemite was a real highlight, it wasn't the sum of our experience. We still had Sunday and Monday to spend around the cabin. On Sunday, we hiked to Barney Lake. From a little way above Emerald and on, we were always walking on snow.
Skelton still had a bit of lake ice, but not too much. The trail was under the snow, of course, but we're familiar enough with the way that we didn't need it. We saw a back-country skiier come out from the pass at Skelton. We didn't talk to him, but I guess he'd been at Purple. Sort of an unusual activity for the fourth of July!
Barney was pretty much ice free, too, though the pass wasn't.
The next morning we were off for Hammil Lake in the morning. I had only been there once before, so I had only a vague notion of how to get there. Nevertheless, we made it, and found the lake hard to recognize under its thick covering of snow and ice. In fact, I have to admit I didn't recognize it.
All in all, it was another highly enjoyable trip to the Sierra Nevada. It's such a remarkably late year in regard to snow that I was always trying to drink it in and make the most of it. More pictures of snow at Flickr, of course.
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