But I get ahead of myself. We started the day, leaving the house around 8:30, full packed, or so I thought, and headed for Mimi's for a two for one breakfast. Always good thing to eat there. But we realized we needed something else so after breakfast, went back home and hit the road a little after 10am. Got to Yosemite entrance at 11 and Badger Pass before noon. Nobody felt like eating lunch at that point—Mimi's was still satisfying. So we got our stuff together and headed out.
Well at least Steven and I headed out with our ski's. Sherri was doing her snowshoeing. She would spend the afternoon around Summit Meadow. That is her story and you will need to ask her about it.
Steven and I headed off down the road, leaving just a few minutes after noon. We had the intention of skiing a couple miles on the road and coming back on the Old Glacier Point Road. But we were making pretty good time, about an hour at the Bridalveil campgrounds road, we decided to continue on the Glacier Point Road. We made the Ostrander trail head around 1:30.
We did need to take off our ski's because the snow was not covering a large section of road in one place. There were other places where the road was bare, but we could navigate around it. Even at its best, there was about a foot of snow on the road. The sides of the road looked even worse in places where the trees provided shelter from the snow.
We decided to go up the Ostrander Lake trail for 10-15 minutes just to see what we could see. That area is pretty level. But we quickly ran into bare spots. One of the areas looked like ice, but when I went across it, there was a wake following me—does that count as water skiing? We stop about 300 yards down the trail. Steven spotted a nice downed tree and we had twose's. Basic fare-Cliff bar and peanut butter pretzels. We decide to turn back as the snow did not look better.
We went back up the road a ways, climbing Horizon Ridge. Not a bad climb, just a long one. Around 2:15, we decided to head back, even though we did not reach the top. I think we were about a three-quarters of a mile from some good views. But we will need to save that for another day. We had told Sherri we would be back by 4:00. At this point we had done about 5.1 miles and would need to come back another 4.7 miles. Steven was still going strong, but I started to lag behind. He would get several hundred yards ahead and look back and wait for me. But I was getting slower and slower, feeling the miles. The lungs were doing ok, just the legs were not swift. I want to blame it on the snow, but I think it was mostly me.
I got back to the car at 4:15. Sherri and met a new friend who talked about volunteer opportunities in Yosemite and the Park Service. We will see how that one goes. We get packed up and its off to Todd's. What a way to have bookend meals! Got back home, weary, but safe around 7:00.
A couple of things from Garmin's Base Camp after the tracks were loaded in:
Duration: 4 hr, 10 min
Moving Time: 3 hr, 40 min
Stopped Time: 30 min
Length: 10.1 Miles
Average Moving: 2.75 mph
Max Speed: 11 mph (Steven was faster)
Elevation Gain: 980'
