Yosemite Valley has great scenery. It also has great crowds. In an effort to avoid them I took a mid-week trip to the north rim of the valley in late season. Corby, a fellow quitter from my last place of employment, joined me.

We planned to hike about 6 miles from Yosemite Creek campground to a spot near the north rim, make camp and then take day-hikes from there. However, Ranger Marge informed us that the campground was closed and that we would have to start 2+ miles farther out at the Luken's Lake trailhead. The terrain looked easy on the map so that didn't bother me much. I don't think Corby would have been bothered by much of anything that blue-eyed Marge said. He was happy to rent a bear canister from her.

The hike in was easy--a little over 8 miles of gradually descending trail. Along the way we saw a bear crossing the creek in front of us. He took a look in our direction, but didn't find us too interesting and kept on his way. I later paced out the distance. He had been 30 yards away.

We arrived at the Yosemite Falls overlook and experienced the dramatic change of going from the mild terrain along the creek to the edge of a 3,000' cliff. There was barely a trickle in the creek so the falls weren't really falling, but we expected that considering the time of year. You're not supposed to camp within a quarter-mile of the rim (although we saw one guy doing it on the second night) so we backtracked along the creek to a spacious spot with a fire ring.

We didn't make it out to see the sunset that night and turned in early after dousing our campfire. I was woken by some branches breaking near Corby's tent after midnight.

I sat up. "Corby?"

"That wasn't me," he answered.

We took a walk toward the bear canister and flushed a deer out of some bushes who then bounded along one side of our camp. I didn't hear anything more that night, but Corby said he heard it later browsing around near my tent.

The next day we took a day-hike to Eagle Peak where we got great views of the valley, the south rim and all of the high country beyond and around. After lunch in the shade of a rock we continued to the top of El Capitan where the views got even better. The slope at the top of this famous formation grows steeper as you edge closer to the rim. There was plenty of loose rock up there so I kept my distance. We spent a lot of time wandering around, sitting around, taking pictures and soaking up the scenery.

We returned to camp in late afternoon gathering some of the abundant deadwood along the way for a fire and sniffing Jeffrey Pines in search of the one with the strongest butterscotch smell. Before we lost the sun I jumped into a pool in the creek both to rinse off and nearly to freeze to death. We had dinner while it was still light and then were late to the overlook to catch the sunset. We just saw the last few moments of it on the Clark Range to the east.

That night was less adventurous. We didn't have any visits from noisy critters and we slept in. In the morning I took a walk up to Yosemite Point while Corby stayed in camp to nurse some minor injuries. Yosemite Point is a scary spot. The Park Service has installed a railing so that you can stand right at the edge and look down 3,500' onto the valley. I suppose there are worse spots to fall to your death.

I took another freezing dip in the creek on my way back. Corby and I then sat around for a good long time appreciating the quiet and the beauty of the place. We finally headed back to the car at noon. The gradually descending trail seemed a little less gradual going back up. I took a closer look at the map before we started and was surprised to find that we had a 1,200' climb ahead of us. Not so much, but at altitude it's a little tiring, particularly since I had an unusually heavy pack. I'd brought some luxuries since I knew we would be hanging out in camp a lot. I also discovered that we could have saved about half of that elevation if we'd been able to start at Yosemite Creek campground as we'd planned. Oh well. We reached the car about 4 and headed home.