Pika whispering, Ranger Dave, the toad that got away, Thanksgiving in July, and other adventures at Vogelsang and the Cathedral Range in Yosemite

Despite my making it a priority to carve out some hiking time once a week, I had not really taken an actual multiday, totally unplugged vacation since about 2007. So when the great folks at the High Sierra Camp Reservations called to let me know they had a last minute cancellation for three nights at Vogelsang, I didn’t even hesitate.

For those unfamiliar with the rapturous, granite peak and alpine lake studded landscape that is Vogelsang, the Yosemite High Sierra Camp sits at 10,130 feet surrounded by the mountains of the Cathedral Range. Access is by hiking or horseback riding only, but the quaint camp provides tent cabins and meals, thus eliminating much weight from your pack. The seven-mile hike from Tuolumne Meadows saunters through lupine filled meadows and affords splendid views of Mt Conness, North Peak, Fletcher Peak, and Rafferty Peak. Once you arrive at camp, Fletcher Peak lords over the alpine meadow and in the evenings the sunset and alpen glow paints Fletcher and the other granite peaks in purple and pink hues.

Above Vogelsang Lake

Vogelsang also affords day hiking access to some jaw-dropping scenery in the Cathedral Range, and if you are willing (and able) to venture off trail, you can spend a whole day hiking without seeing another person.

What to share? During my wonderful sojourn at Vogelsang, I snapped about a thousand photos and wrote about twenty pages on my experience. I had a tough time narrowing down the highlights, but here’s my attempt.

Gallison Lake: “O!, the Joy,” exclaimed Capitan Clark at the wonders he saw during his famous trek across America. I am stealing this phrase to describe my day wandering in the Gallison Lake basin by following Lewis Creek to its outlet just below Simmons Peak. This area just vibrated with Sierra Nevada splendor.

Gallison Lake (photo by Beth Pratt)

Ranger Dave: A dedicated and passionate bunch of park rangers lead people on High Sierra Loop trips and Ranger Dave is no exception. I had not seen Ranger Dave in years, and it was great to reconnect, especially since he did his evening program on frogs! His knowledge of Yosemite is incredible and his enthusiasm for the park contagious.

With Ranger Dave or Danger Rave

Pika Whispering: This trip just confirms that I am a pika magnet (see my Picnic with a Pika entry for more evidence). On a slope of an unnamed lake above Townsley Lake, I sat mourning my lost photo of a toad (see below) when suddenly I head a familiar chirp, chirp. Not ten feet away a pika posed on a rock, saying, forget the silly toad, and take my photo. Two of them played for about 30 minutes in front of me.

Pika posing for the camera (photo by Beth Pratt)

Pika munching on lupine (photo by Beth Pratt)

The Toad That Got Away: I missed the amphibian photo op of the year, but was consoled by a pika (see above). On a ridge at about 10,400 above an unnamed lake, what I think was a Yosemite toad lumbered by me, but made it into a small den before I could take a photo. Very cool sighting. I saw no more amphibians, but did find many tadpoles during my wanderings.

Tadpole (Pacific chorus frog?) near Vogelsang (photo by Beth Pratt)

Why I Love Convection: Convection was the word of the day for my hike into Vogelsang—the air was up to some mischief, but the rambunctious winds cooled off what would have otherwise been a hot seven-mile hike. As weather patterns go, the two full days in July of cumulus congestus swirling around the basin is an odd one for the Sierra—usually it’s blue skies and we lack the daily build up of the Rockies. For my hike out, the sky birthed some great cirrus and cirrus cumulus clouds.

Cirrus clouds over Unicorn and Cathedral Peaks (photo by Beth Pratt)

Storm clouds over Fletcher Peak (photo by Beth Pratt)

Sunsets: Viewing the sunset on a ridge below Gaylor Lake was a nightly ritual. That’s Cloud’s Rest to the right and the back of Half Dome peaking out next to it.

Sunset over Half Dome and Clouds Rest (photo by Beth Pratt)

Sunset colors at Vogelsang HSC (photo by Beth Pratt)

Thanksgiving in July, or Why You Are Never Hungry at Vogelsang: The crew at Vogelsang is fantastic and boy can they cook. A Thanksgiving feast the first night (with a pretty splendid veggie option, thank you), pesto ravioli, raspberry pancakes, mint chocolate cake –you get the idea. Cooking at 10,000 feet and on propane isn’t easy, so kudos to the great crew—Chris, Matt, Dan, MaryBeth, Shad, et al. And thanks for the great route tips as well.

Hanging Basket Lake: Nestled in a small cirque below Fletcher Peak and above Townsley Lake, Hanging Basket Lake is worth the scramble up talus to view this sublime body of water.

Hanging Basket Lake (photo by Beth Pratt)

The aqua green waters of Hanging Basket Lake (photo by Beth Pratt)

Sierra Nevada, as in hotbed of chipmunk diversity: As my friend John Muir Laws taught me, the Sierra “is a hotbed of chipmunk diversity.” Not sure what subspecies these two critters were, but they are still cute.

Playful chipmunks (photo by Beth Pratt)

Wildflowers Gone Wild: Vogelsang did not disappoint and earned again it’s reputation for wildflower splendor during my trip, yet some species had emerged earlier than usual given the dry year and the lupine definitely was diminished.

Paintbrush in front of Fletcher Lake and Vogelsang Peak (photo by Beth Pratt)Monkeyflower (?) below Hanging Basket Lake (photo by Beth Pratt)

Packers, saviors of my back: I met another Yosemite friend I had not seen in years, the wonderful packer Sheridan, and we reminisced about old times. She also gave me the perfect end to my vacation when she discovered she had room on her mule train for my pack. Instead of carrying the heavy weight out, I instead spent the hike searching for frogs and tadpoles.

Sheridan, the fabulous packer/guide (photo by Beth Pratt)

Campmates, i.e., fellow Yosemite enthusiasts: Although I love solitary hiking by day, the evenings at Vogelsang are full of enjoyable encounters with fellow Yosemite lovers and some pretty cool people: a group of friends honoring the late Ann Otter of the Yosemite Conservancy with their annual trek to Vogelsang (some had been coming for 30 years); the reigning woman’s champion in the 75-79 age group for the Boston Marathon—at 78 she had run the race 8 times and we were all in awe of her; a man with fifty years of memories of Yosemite, including the firefall; a family from southern CA with three motivated young adults; a couple with a nine year-old boy who was doing his first hike—the entire loop trip!; a couple from Petaluma who I had soem good discussions about resource management; a developer of laser technologies who had run the Mt Diablo 50K, an environmental writer for Bloomberg, a couple with a son who is a nuclear physicist from MIT (we had some interesting energy discussions), and many others. Meal times at Vogelsang are never dull!

Coda: A brief journal entry I wrote during my trip:

“For me the sun on my face will always be a blessing, the sound of running water a comforting hymn, the voice of the wind a benediction, and the blue sky an aspiration.”

I belong among the wildflowers

One man’s quest to chronicle a vanishing glacier in Yosemite

Surveying the shrinking Lyell Glacier in YosemiteLast week the Petermann Glacier in Greenland made the news for calving a monstrous iceberg the size of Manhattan, with scientists attributing climate change as the catalyst for this startling occurrence.

Yet Californians don’t need to venture outside their own state to witness a similar, if less dramatic event, as climate change is shrinking many of the state’s native glaciers. “California and glaciers, it’s like pairing Hawaii and penguins. It doesn’t quite go together, but we actually do have living glaciers here in the sunshine state,” observed the Yosemite Conservancy’s resident naturalist Pete Devine.

Devine has ventured to the same glacier in Yosemite for over twenty years, and although his first trip to Mt Lyell and its glacier began as a simple desire to bag Yosemite’s highest peak, after crossing an ice field that had stood for centuries he began a personal quest to chronicle its story.

During this trip, he noticed the letters L and K painted on the rockwall surrounding the glacier in bright orange paint. When he returned from his hike he visited the Yosemite Research Library and found a comprehensive legacy of study that began with John Muir’s visit to the glacier in 1871 when he planted ice stakes to measure its movement. Devine also realized that this body of historical research had recently been discontinued and decided to take action.

“I noticed that glacier surveys that had been conducted for decades had been stopped. And I thought, here is this long stream of valuable data that is going to end and I knew we had to pick this up again somehow. So I obtained a small grant and brought a group of science teachers up to Lyell Glacier to help find the old reference points and do new measurements. And I have been returning almost every year since.”

Lyell Glacier is the second largest glacier in the Sierra Nevada, but the biggest on the range’s west slope. The glacier, currently just over a half square mile in area, has shrunk about fifty percent of its size since Muir first surveyed it. Muir writes an early description of the glacier in his book, The Yosemite.

“The Lyell Glacier is about a mile wide and less than a mile long, but presents, nevertheless, all the more characteristic features of large, river-like glaciers-moraines, earth-bands, blue-veins, crevasses etc., while the streams that issue from it are turbid with rock-mud, showing its grinding action on its bed. And it is all the more interesting since it is the highest and most enduring remnant of the great Tuolumne Glacier, whose traces are still distinct fifty miles away, and whose influence on the landscape was so profound. The McClure Glacier, once a tributary of the Lyell, is much smaller. Eighteen years ago I set a series of stakes in it to determine its rate of motion which towards the end of summer, in the middle of the glacier, I found to be a little over an inch in twenty-four hours.”

Today, the Lyell Glacier is close to “stalling out,” says Devine. “A glacier by definition is ice that moves. And you can extrapolate into the near future and know there will not be a glacier there. Just remnant, static ice. People ask me frequently, ‘since you’ve been here such a long time, what is the biggest change you’ve seen in Yosemite?’ And they assume I will comment about there being more bears or less bears or how crowded it has become but in those areas, I could not really say I have visually seen a change. The glaciers, however, are really shrinking away before my eyes.”

A time comparison of the Lyell Glacier (photos by Hassan Basagic)

In August, Devine is enthusiastically leading another group of people on a trek to the Lyell Glacier to gather more data and to witness firsthand some of the direct impacts of climate change. He’ll also ask the group to consider the repercussions of this and other shrinking glaciers on the Golden State.

Watch a Yosemite Nature Notes video on the park’s glaciers featuring Pete Devine:

“I am just excited to show people a glacier in California—it’s the same thing you watch on the Discovery Channel in Alaska or the Antarctic right here in our backyard. It’s the source of the Tuolumne River that supplies so much water to agriculture and so much water to San Francisco, so it has a direct connect to our home. You turn on your faucet in San Francisco and that water is coming from glacial ice in the Sierra.  If that glacier melts away—actually it’s more appropriate to say when that glacier melts away—who knows what will be left for your tap. So for people to actually see a glacier, to put their boots on it, to learn about that record of recent climate change, I think that’s a unique experience that’s different from a great documentary or website on climate change and glaciers.”

Want to see Lyell Glacier before it vanishes? Pete Devine is leading the Yosemite Conservancy Lyell Glacier Backpack trip on August 23-26 and there is still limited space available. I am excited to be assisting Pete on the trip!

A Picnic with a Pika

Even pika stop to smell the flowers (photo by Beth Pratt)Last week I had planned to hike up to the Dana Plateau on the border of Yosemite, one of my most cherished places in the Sierra Nevada. The rock filled plateau resembles a Martian landscape and presents an ancient geologic wonderland—the high alpine basin remained untouched by the last few glaciations, and as a result offers a rare glimpse of a landscape 25 million years old.

Yet for all the beauty created by the giganticness of the sweeping plateau and its surrounding imposing granite peaks, my favorite sight amidst this landscape is a small furry creature less than eight inches long who scrambles among the rock piles largely unnoticed: the pika.

Observant hikers can encounter the American pika (ochotona princeps) in rocky terrain at elevations of 8,000 to 13,000 in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, California, and New Mexico. The Dana Plateau, with a landscape dominated by talus, provides the ideal habitat for these small lagomorphs, also fondly referred to as rock rabbits, boulder bunnies, or whistling hares.

Pika peering from his rocky home (photo by Beth Pratt)

Although I observe these critters frequently on my hikes, on this excursion I encountered a very friendly pika that joined me for a picnic. Before making the final push to the plateau, I munched on my Alternative Baking Company vegan chocolate chip cookie (my preferred yummy hiking food) and soon after was joined by a very cute lunch companion.

A pika scurried on the rocks across from me with a stalk of grass and proceeded to nibble on his meal. Not shy in the least, he remained with me for an hour, dashing back and forth to gather a nice alpine salad of columbine and lupine stalks. I remained transfixed the entire time and even gave up the original goal of my hike to stay with my new companion. At the end of our picnic, he abruptly dashed over some rocks, gave his characteristic chirp, and disappeared.

Here is a short video of my picnic companion:

For me, watching the rabbit-like pika scurry over talus fields is as essential to the beauty and character of the high alpine landscape as the requisite towering peaks. Sadly, the cheerful chirping of the pika may soon disappear from the high country as the effects of climate change have already reduced their numbers. Rising temperatures have diminished the small islands of habitat for the cold-loving pikas (who can perish from overheating) and if temperatures continue to increase, even the highest elevations may no longer provide a home for the animal and the species may be threatened to the point of extinction.

Pika on a picnic (photo by Beth Pratt)

As much as I cherish the magnificent granite peaks and spectacular views of the Dana Plateau, something will be irrevocably lost from the intrinsic character of the land and from the delight of my experience if one of the smallest inhabitants of its landscape disappears and if when hiking through the talus fields I no longer hear the sunny chirping of the pika.

How can you help? Support National Wildlife Federation’s work to protect pikas and other wildlife struggling to survive climate change, habitat loss and other threats >>

For more adorable photos of my picnic with a pika, visit the National Wildlife Federation’s California Facebook page.

 My companion pika resting after stuffing himself at lunch (photo by Beth Pratt)

Pika ears are pretty cute (photo by Beth Pratt)

The Love Song of the Yosemite Toad

“Before the swallow, before the daffodil, and not much later than the snowdrop, the common toad salutes the coming of spring after his own fashion, which is to emerge from a hole in the ground, where he has lain buried since the previous autumn, and crawl as rapidly as possible towards the nearest suitable patch of water. Something — some kind of shudder in the earth, or perhaps merely a rise of a few degrees in the temperature — has told him that it is time to wake up.” George Orwell, Some Thoughts on the Common Toad

The intrepid Yosemite toad (photo by Beth Pratt)

Let us celebrate the Yosemite toad, for his sonorous musical trilling that matches any birdsong in spring, for being an intrepid amphibian who survives in the alpine meadows of the Sierra Nevada and, as George Orwell observed in his eulogy of spring, “because the toad, unlike the skylark and the primrose, has never had much of a boost from poets.”

Californians should take pride in the Yosemite toad—it’s a native son found nowhere else on earth except the high elevations of the Sierra. Mountain life isn’t an easy existence for amphibians, and the toad spends half the year in hibernation. Once the snow melts—or even before as the critter has been observed tip-toeing over snowfields to reach their breeding grounds—the males emerge from hibernation and find a suitable pool to begin their annual search for a mate.

The toads distinctive “love song” can be heard up to 100 yards away, and as the naturalists Grinnell and Storer noted in 1924, “its mellow notes are pleasing additions to the chorus of bird songs just after the snow leaves.” The toad definitely lives up to its Latin namesake, Bufo canorus, which translates into “tuneful toad.” The males urgently serenade throughout the day as competition for a mate is fierce—males may outnumber females at some breeding ponds by 10:1.

Toad hollow in Gaylor Lakes basin (photo by Beth Pratt)Last week, I wandered in the Gaylor Lake basin of Yosemite and encountered this delightful rite of spring, as my ears caught the unmistakable sound of toad music resonating in the alpine basin (see video below). It rose above the boisterous shouting of the Clark’s nutcracker, and could not even be diminished by the frequent noise of an airplane overhead. The Pacific chorus frog occasionally produced its loud “kreek-eeck” in challenge, but in this American Idol of the animal world, the day clearly belonged to the voice of the Yosemite toad.

Yosemite toad tadpoles (photo by Beth Pratt)After some patient waiting, I finally viewed the source of the trilling and hit the toad jackpot so to speak. Two pairs of toads in amplexus paddled by the rock I had perched on and I had an amazing (yet from the toad’s perspective perhaps a voyeuristic) view of their mating ritual. The smaller male toad, usually olive green in color, clasps onto the larger female and rides her in a watery rodeo-like game until she finds a location to deposit her eggs. When the tadpoles emerge about 12 days later the almost uniformly black color makes them easy to spot. One year, I observed Yosemite toad tadpoles while hiking up to the Dana Plateau—they appeared a bit spooky in appearance with just the two eyes penetrating the forceful black.

Yosemite toads in amplexus (photo by Beth Pratt)Sadly, visitors to Yosemite and the Sierra rarely encounter the spooky black tadpoles swimming in an alpine pool or hear the toad’s annual love song. Once in abundance, the amphibian pride of the Sierra is disappearing from its home. Overall, the toad populations have vanished from 50% of its historic range. In the Tioga Pass area the declines have been much more significant with reductions of up to 90% from 1971 to 1993.

What’s causing it? Decreasing snow pack and drought conditions from climate change, and increased predation are two possible causes. For example, when the snowpack decreases (and some predictions call for up to a 90% reduction in the California future from climate change) breeding pools dry up before tadpoles can metamorphosize into adults. I’ll be watching these toads closely this year as we’ve experienced one of the driest winters on record in the Sierra. I’ve been visiting Gaylor Lakes in the spring for almost twenty years and was a bit startled over how parched the landscaped appeared in May.

Gaylor Lake comparison (photos by Beth Pratt)

For this year at least, and for years into the future, we’ll hope the love song of the Yosemite toad wasn’t in vain and those eggs will transform into more of this remarkable creature. For to silence their high-pitched trilling is to silence a rite of spring that is inextricably linked to the Sierra landscape—how can we let this happen on our watch?

Spring—in the Sierra or anywhere—is robust melody, a chorus full of equally important voices and to diminish even one singer is to diminish the entire song. Ensuring the future of the Yosemite toad makes for a better future for us as well. Let me quote Orwell’s eulogy once again, “I think that by retaining one's childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and — to return to my first instance — toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable.”

My Rite of Spring: Yosemite’s Tioga Pass Opening

In front of Mt Dana on Gaylor Lakes Trail, May 8, 2012For some the arrival of robins in the backyard herald the arrival of spring, for others the first wildflowers blooming, the day the winter clothes go into storage, or when we remove the chains from our cars.

Tioga Pass opening is my celebrated rite of spring and as soon as the road becomes accessible, I dash up to Yosemite’s high country and beginning my wanderings in my favorite place on earth.

Nature is notorious for her flip-flops and unpredictability. In 2011, we experienced one of the wettest winters on record in the Sierra and as such Tioga Pass opened extremely late-on June 18. Then in 2011/2012, the year without a winter arrived and the pass remained accessible until a record breaking January 17, 2012. With a snowpack at a mere 40% of normal, Tioga Pass opened on May 7, which marks its earliest opening in 25 years.

Tuolumne Meadows, May 8, 2012 (photo by Beth Pratt)Tuolumne Meadows, June 24, 2011 (photo by Beth Pratt)

My first hike after the pass opens is always Gaylor Lakes. Depending on the snowpack level, in some years I trek through deep snow, other years a landscape free of any white stuff. Snow covered most of the trail to Gaylor Lakes when I hiked it yesterday, yet it was melting fast. Usually I don’t encounter anyone on the trail so early in the season (the piles of snow at the trailhead can be daunting to most), but this year I met a wonderful couple from Carmel Valley who had snowshoed to the top—they get bonus points for being intrepid hikers!

The intrepid hikers from Carmel Valley on Gaylor Ridge (photo by Beth Pratt)

First mango margarita of the season at the Mobile Station!My Tioga Pass opening spring celebration also includes the mandatory stop at Whoa Nellie Deli to devour fish tacos while enjoying the view of Mono Lake—and that first mango margarita of the year is tasty as well! Sadly, I missed another tradition, my spring baseball conversation with Chef Toomey as he’s opened his own restaurant in Mammoth. 

Before heading up the pass, I always check out the eclectic collection of books at the Mono Lake Committee Bookstore and pick up some scrumptious pumpkin spice cake at Latte Da for the drive home. Puppy Dome is the perfect coda (and a good place to eat the pumpkin spice cake) for the first trip every year. I sit at the top and gaze at Tuolumne Meadows and all the splendid mountains I’ll be exploring over the summer.

Ah, Tuolumne! Relaxing on Puppy Dome.

“The mountains are calling and I must go,” said John Muir. Once Tioga Pass opens, I hear the call—my favorite sign of spring!