" Look for the Flare" An El Capitan Story.

Usually when we plan to go to a National park or a park in general i usually set a goal to Hike a trail that is in high elevation, which are my favorite kind of hikes! Upon planning to go to Yosemite, El Capitan was in my sites. This trail was a 15.2 mile hike! It would start at the base of El Cap by Camp Four; the birthplace of American rock climbing. After discussing the hike amongst ourselves, the three out of five adults on the trip wanted to do it. That would be myself and my two brother in laws.

The Day of the hike we got up early and I am not usually a morning person, but I was up for the hike that lay ahead. My wife drove us to the trailhead and we said our goodbyes for the time being. Since it was early we had the trail to ourselves and the heat in the valley had not come to greet us yet, we trudge up the many stairs towards Columbia Rock, which is the first lookout you’ll encounter and the terrain there is a bit sandy. This is where we encounter our first fellow hiker, at this point it is surprising to see someone so early after hiking the trail for a miles or so. As we continued the trail leads you along the side of the mountain towards another viewpoint that being the First View of the upper falls. This is a really cool photo opportunity to take. Shortly after that you are greeted by switchbacks the rest of the way up. I think around 3,000 feet or so the elevation hit me for a second ,but then I adjusted and continued up. The views are spectacular on the way up the switchbacks, which is a little rewards you get for stopping for a breather.

Once we got the top of the switchbacks we still had a while to go for this point you could go straight (the way we went) , or you can go to the right which takes you to the top of Yosemite falls. As you get deeper into the forest you hear absolutely nothing, I haven’t experienced that since I was in the Grand Canyon, that one of my favorite things. We were eventually greeted with snow in some spots along the trail and fellow hikers that stayed the night to go to another trail called the Eagles Nest(I think?). They reported that they had to scare away a black bear snooping by their tent. The trail here can be swampy at times and flooded however like most trails there are timbers strewn all about to make dry passage over these areas. After a bunch of miles we reached a fork of the trail where straight led to Eagle Peak and right led to El Cap, we took a quick break used our cell service in the area to give updates to my wife and continued on. This part of the trail has you going downward and I’m sure it gets washed out in heavy rain, mainly because the trail looked as if it was a dried up stream. Eventually the trail picks up and you find yourself walking on top of large rocks. The view from here you can see Half-dome and the snow covered mountains beyond it. After several more miles we reached the top of El Cap and it was worth it, the view was spectacular and we reached a elevation of 7,573 feet! A great accomplishment! We Took a bunch of pictures and relaxed at the top of the mountain. A running joke to my wife when I called was that she had to “look for the flare!” ( there really wasn’t a flare, Smokey would have my ass.") We made our way down and had much to talk about after it was all done. Thinking about it now I would hike it again, it’s a very rewarding hike in my opinion and is definitely worth the view.

Mike

from left to right. Half dome, John, Mike, Pat