Merced Lake in Yosemite Backpacking

I went backpacking to the Yosemite National Park one weekend in 2015. We left the Bay Area at 4:30 a.m. 4 of us planned to meet at Dublin/Pleasanton BART station at 5:20 a.m., but Mr.S and I went to Pleasanton station. Because we were not familiar with BART stations in the East Bay, there was a misunderstanding. 

*BART: Bay Area Rapid Transit

Train system in SF area, San Francisco Airport, East Bay (north to Richmond, south to Fremont). The name includes "rapid", but actually it is not rapid. It doesn't run in the South Bay and Peninsula.

 BART station in the early Saturday morning was interesting. Some people dropped people who obviously would go to the airport. Some weird people dropped garbage from their car at the parking lot. I thought, “Seriously?” Then we finally all met at 5:40 a.m. Apparently it was not efficient, but actually I like this kind of a little stupid things. On the way to Groveland, another caffeine addicted friend Mr.N needed to have a cup of coffee (of course), so we stopped by a cute cafe. I got coffee, too, it was good. Mr.R and Mr.S got “Yosemite lunch box”. I didn’t get why it was Yosemite. At the park entrance, usually we have to get wilderness permits from a park ranger, but we just self-registered by writing because it is off-season now. This was the best, because no need to wait for the pickup.  

 

We started hiking at the Happy Isles. The Happy Isles area always has tons of tourists, so I don’t think it is wilderness. The first mile is even paved. It was not very peaceful to hike in the crowd, but they only hike the first few miles, so it was okay. After we passed the crowded area, suddenly everything got very quiet. Especially after the backpacker's campsite (Little Yosemite Valley), we met only 1 person at the Merced Lake. The recent wildfire made the scenery look lonely and exotic. Fall color meadows and hundreds of trees with granite mountains in the background made me feel peaceful. I have again realized that I am a nature lover. After the meadow, the trail was along the Merced river. Even in the drought, it had plenty of water. It is always nice to see cascades in the mountains. The drainage makes the whole scenery. It was tremendous. After seeing the gorgeous view, we set up camp and had a great night around a campfire.

Yosemite is huge. The vast majority of people go to only Yosmite Valley and take pictures. It is may be 0.001% of the entire Yosemite. Some people do day hikes in the Yosemite Valley, such as Yosemite falls, 4-mile hike. These cover maybe 0.1% of the park. Some people do day hikes in Tuolumne meadow, Clouds Rest, Hetch hetchy, mono pass etc. These might cover 1%. In addition to these day hikes, I did a lot of backpackings in Yosemite, but I probably have been in only 5% of the entire Yosemite. It is so much to explore and everywhere is beautiful. It is a dream land.

The bonus was that we saw a bobcat (in the picture) and a bear. 

The bobcat was actually not far from the trailhead. I was surprised bobcat showed up in the area where relatively more people. Bobcats are not very big: Mr.R even thought the bobcat was a house cat. 

Mr.N said, "There is a bobcat."

Mr.R said, "Oh I thought it was a house cat. It's small"

Bobcat's face is like lynx. I am a cat person, meaning I love bobcat! So grateful I saw a bobcat in Yosemite. 

For bear: we didn't actually see bears, but we knew a bear was there. We camped near the bearboxes. During night, we heard sounds for bears to try to open bear canisters. It might be because they were hungry.