January 25, 2004
Yosemite Day 4
(10:00am) Got up at a bit before 7 again and for the second time was the first person to show up for breakfast. I don't know if nobody is eating it or what. The parking lot had just as many cars as when I got back last night from dinner (8:30pm), so I'm guessing the crowd is just late to rise. Surprising, I would have figured they'd all be up at first light to charge into the park. Shortly after I sat down another guy wandered in and started making chit-chat about Carey Stayner, the multiple murderer/handyman from the Cedar Lodge. I waited to see what would come of it, and sure enough, the guy working the kitchen not only new Stayner, but when he was a little kid Stayner had watched him!
After breakfast I drove into the park and stopped at Bridalveil Falls, which proved to be worth the short hike over ice and snow to get to a good viewing point. From there I continued up 41S towards Badger Pass. At the turnoff for Badger I saw a sign for "Yosemite West -- Private Development" in the usual national park white lettering on brown background. I took the turnoff to see what it was about. I'm not really sure what to make of it -- it is a collection of private vacation homes and condominiums. Since it is ostensibly part of the park, what is up with that? How could the park value selling off part of itself? Maybe they are only leased and the park service is the landlord?
I doubled back and headed up to Badger Pass, where I'm writing this. Badger Pass looks to be a nice ski area. Hardly any massive operation, but then again the crowd is very small as well. There aren't queues of people at the chairlifts, etc. On the drive up a ranger was stopping all traffic to advise people there was an accident a half mile up the road. I was told to proceed at 15mph and not slow down when I passed the accident unless necessary. So I was dreading a horrific "Blood on the Highway" type affair with severed torsoes lying pell mell in the road. When I finally got to the accident it was a white SUV turned 90 degrees to the road and perched on its undercarriage on top of the 3 foot high snow berm created by plowing! I didn't slow down and gawk, but I can't imagine how it got in that position. It looks likie it would require a "Dukes of Hazzard" jump ramp to launch itself up there, which case Rosco and Enos should be sitting there looking flummoxed. There was somebody sitting in the car and a ranger parked there talking to somebody outside of the car. I assume everything was okay, but then again I probably wouldn't have stayed in that car unless I was injured and was told it would be better not to move.
So now I'm up at Badger Pass, typing this, and trying to decide what to do next. I'm not feeling that enthused for stomping around in the snow and ice. I fired up MapSource and examined the waypoints and so forth I had put down yesterday afternoon when I was photographing the river traverses. The bridge was at the "town" (1 house makes a town?) of Briceburg, and it turns out those two places I photographed have names as well! The first is "Ned Gulch" and the second is "Miller Gulch". MapSource doesn't make them look any more accessible, although it does think the unmaintained (and unpassable) road/cut along the river is a proper road, not even just a trail.
Looks like it's about 6 miles from the bridge at Briceburg back to Miller Gulch along the river road, so that could be a fun thing to explore.
I went back to Hotel Hate, grabbed a quick bite for lunch, and headed off to Briceburg to explore the trail back to Miller Gulch. I examined a park map posted at Briceburg and it claimed that the path along the river back to Millers Gulch was in fact a public trail, and the distance would in fact be 6 miles one way. I gathered my GPS and camera and headed off.
Almost immediately I passed the remains of a bridge. The concrete footings had dates impressed in them, so apparently the bridge was built back around 1940. I can't imagine what happened between then and now. I would think that a bridge would last 60 or so years, at least in some kind of shape. As I went further down the trail I passed more bridges which had been constructed at about the same time, and also dismantled and removed at some point in time.
Initially I was speculating that there had been a road on that side of the river at some point, and eventually it got taken out. However, there was no evidence of a road at all, save the bridge. There was evidence of very old tire tracks, but they were completely overgrown at this point, and the trail was almost never wide enough for one car to pass another. Nothing like asphalt or concrete was to be found anywhere except in the remains of the bridges. I considered that maybe it was a ripped out rail line (there used to be a railway to take people into Yosemite), but the construction date was way too late for the bridges, and there was no evidence of railroad ties, railroad stakes, etc.
As I got further down the trail towards Millers Gulch the trail got significantly worse. The hillside above the trail had washed out at many different times and covered the trail, huge rocks had fallen, trees of various ages and sizes were down, etc. Further along I encountered the remains of another bridge, and this one included a USGS Survey Marker from 1943. Of course that doesn't say the bridge isn't much older than that, but these footers were marked as November 1940, about the same time as the previous bridges.
Perhaps all this was the tail end of the New Deal? Lots of otherwise unemployed men building massive bridges down a park trail, only so that they can be removed a few decades later? That's my best guess anyway.
Unfortunately I pooped out before I could reach the end of the trail. The further I progressed the rougher the trail got, and I was making much slower progress than I had estimated. I was expecting to average over 2 miles an hour, including stopping for pictures and stuff, and seemed to be doing more like 1.5mph at best. Looking at the GPS track later it looks like I made it about 4 miles in (and 4 miles back out), so the marginal 2 miles to make it all the way to Miller Gulch would have added 50% to my trip time, which would have been painful.
Posted by Matthew Eldridge at January 25, 2004 08:16 PM | TrackBack