March 4, 2020 - A Different Wawona Meadow Hike

Title: March 4, 2020 - A Different Wawona Meadow Hike
Hike Info : Description : Background : Extra Photo's : Animals : Flowers and Plants

Trail head: Wawona Parking Lot

Hike Info:

Type: Hiking

Trail: Several areas,: A around north end of golf course to Big Creek, Up Chowchilla Mountain Road, Across Mt Savage, trail to Wawona Meadow Loop, and flume back to Wawona Hotel

Destination: Loop

Distance:  7.16 miles ¹

Start Time: 10:54

End Time:     4:04

Travel Time:  5:10 (1.39 mph)

Moving Time:  3:28 (2.07 mph)

Elevation Rise:  1,331'

Descent: 1,349‘

Maximum Elevation: 4,818'

GPS Tracks

 ¹The first quarter mile the GPS was off or syncing up. So a better mileage is around 7.5 miles.

Description:

Dear readers of my blog: If you are curious of what I said during my talks, you can follow the links to the bottom of the blog, under background. Also Neither Sherri nor I took that many pictures, so you will need to be content with my words.

Another Meetup hike. This time Sherri and I are organizing it. Carol comes by our house at 8:00am and we are off to meet the rest of them. There are 23 of us on this trip-one will meet us in Oakhurst. All show up and we leave at 8:30-Yippee. So we get to Oakhurst before 9:30, leaving Starbucks at 9:45. So far things are going to plan.

We gather up around 10:30. In the parking lot, I give the start of my pedantic talks about what we are seeing. I am fortunate as one of our fellow hikers, Tom used to work at Wawona and was curious enough about the stories of places. So he is able to compliment what I have to say, or even correct some of it.

Our loop starts at the western end of the main parking lot by the store. Instead of doing the usual route cutting across the meadow on the Chowchilla Mountain Road, we go a bit more north and head towards the first hole of the golf course. Butterflies are frolicking all around us and will continue their play until we return to the road. We go to the far northern end of the golf course when we see the smokehouse.

It is here where we realized that one of our group is not here. How can we have lost someone in the first third of a mile on a road? Then we start remembering that nobody saw him in the parking lot. So Sherri and several people go back to the parking lot to see if he could be tracked down. The rest of us will go onward.

Galen Clark's Sequoias

Then it is a trip down a road to the location of the old fish hatchery. I also talk about that there used to be an arboretum beyond Big Creek. Several people want to know more about where it is, how to get there, … Also who and why did this arboretum get created? But we stay on the south side of Big Creek and just explore the area. I personally think this is one of the better places in Yosemite. So close, but so isolated. Even in the summer, no crowds.

Onward we go, back the way we came, back to the smokehouse. Sherri and the others come along and she takes them to the hatchery for a quick visual. But we go on, veering off at the seventh hole. We head off into the forest instead of the golf course. The four Sequoia trees which Galen Clark planted are found, along with a clearing. Tom shows us the well which Clark used. And then people found berms where structures stood. Exciting investigating and finding the history of Yosemite right before our eyes.

We are about to leave when Sherri and the others catch up with us. They explain that the missing person did not turn off, but realized he was not at the right spot when he came to Wawona Tunnel. A day in Yosemite Valley is not a bad compensation for our hike in Wawona.

The Well

After a brief excursion trying to find a way through some small trees, we go back the way we came. This puts us to the bottom of the seventh hole. We follow a road around a couple of more holes until we get to the Chowchilla Mountain Road. Here we break for lunch. So far so good. But now we will start climbing up the flank of Mt Savage. While not a bad climb, as far as climbs go, it is much more than what we have been through so far.

The climb up Chowchilla Mountain Road has me keeping up with the front group-sort of surprising to me as I have not been hiking very strongly for the past nine months. Or maybe they are just being kind. But we wait at the gate where we turn off. Once the back group catches up with us, it is more uphill until we reach what I call the Mt Savage Road-I do not know if that is a true name for it or not. Once again we wait-an added benefit for me to catch my breath.

Then we take the Savage Road. Funny how the mind plays tricks on you. I remember this road being more series of gentle ups. But I think someone has changed it on me. I seem to be constantly going up. An NPS truck down the road-I am surprised. There is work being done on the new area by the entrance gate. Now I have lost contact with the front group. My one concern is that they will see the pole where the trail goes off. I can see some of them going on and hitting the guard station. But all have stopped at the right place. Relief.

Note to Gary: on the meetup hike, I said something like Easy to Moderate depending on route we take. This is definitely moderate. A few people are feeling the more moderate parts of this. But coming to the pole, we have finished the hard part. It is almost all downhill. The problem is that once you have used up your energy reserves and you are no longer feeling fresh, it takes a lot to keep on trudging.

Liability Tree

 This is the part of the loop I like the best. Not because it is downhill-that helps. But each time I travel this way I feel like I am alone on the mountain. No-one else around-once we did meet some people coming up, but not today. There is a quietness in this path-even with us being chipper. Mountain misery accompanies us down the mountain. Some trail maintenance has been done recently. At least a log Sherri and I had to crawl over now has a nice walkway through it.

Today we found the trail instead of going down the service road. Much better. Of course, when we passed under a tree leaning, which looks like it may not lean too many more years, I had to remind our hikers that they did agree to absolve the hike organizers of all liability for this hike.

Wawona Meadow and Mt Savage

Now that we are down off the mountain, we just need to complete the loop around Wawona Meadow. This is all level. But somehow after coming down the mountain, this seems like a bit of a trudge. Maybe if it was green it would help. Still there is stuff interesting in the meadow. Such as it sort of looks like egg-carton packing with all of the bumps from the dried tufts of grass. One of the things I had advertised was to walk along the flume or irrigation ditch. But it looked like a lot of trees had fallen on it, so we skipped it this time. Tom knew about the ditch. As we discussed its source-was it the creek in Wawona Meadow or the Merced River-we decided that it came from the Merced and was used to irrigate the crops the Washburns used to grow.

Dinner at DiCicco's

And then I, along with the first group get back to the car. But as I said before, some of our group ran out of energy and are dragging in. Sherri is shepherding them in. Seems a bit different being towards the first rather than the last. But we all get in OK. It seems like everyone wants Italian for our after dinner hike. So it is DiCicco’s tonight. A good choice. The waitress there was top notch and we all get fed well. We drop off Terry at the parking lot in Fresno and take Carol home with us. A good day.

Background

Wawona According to Shirley Sargent, the ruling historian of Wawona,, the native Americans of the area called this area Pallahchun', meaning a good place to stop. Many people found this to be true. Such as a traveler by the name of J Smeaton Chase was by here around 1910 and thought the area should be called Sleepy Hollow of the West. He thought it was the most peaceful place in America. But even before it being called Wawona, in 1852, according to Steven F Grover, it was called Crane Flat-which is now along Highway 120. The reason? A large crane was shot here. By 1857, it got to be known as Clark’s Station beccause of the hospitality of Galen Clark. Then when Edwin Moore got half interest in the Hotel in 1869, it was known as Clark and Moore’s. It was not until 1882, after the Washburns took over the running of the Wawona Hotel did the area gets its present name of Wawona, It is in dispute about what Wawona mean, either Big Trees or Great Sleepy Owl-probably more l;ke the call of this owl.

Wawona Golf Course In 1917,the Washburns added the Hotel Annex and the Sequoia building, a swimming pool, a 3,035 yard golf course in one end of the meadow and a landing field in the other. When you look at the creek which runs along side of the golf course, sometimes you can see beavers.

Wawona Smokehouse Take a look at this building. It is currently being used as a pro shop for the golf course. But any guesses about its original use?

If you were standing here in the 1920’s, you might be meeting Ah You, Ah Louie, or Ah Wee, of which Ah You was one of the finest chef’s in the area for about 50 years. These Chinese men were chef’s, laundry or other workers. They lived in a house near here. During World War II the smoke house burnt.

Wawona Fish Hatchery. There are two things which the modern tourists would never guess was in this area. The first is what we are standing close to: the Wawona Fish Hatchery. the hatchery opened in 1895 to provide fish for the lakes and streams in Yosemite. Started by the Yosemite Stage Lines, then the California Fish&Game (probably its forerunner). The idea was to generate 500,000 eggs annually.

This was a tourist spot as guests would come out to see fish hatch

By all accounts it was well run. When the hatchery at Happy Isles closed, its equipment moved here.But a problem would happen around July 1^st of each year. Any guesses? The water from Big Creek which fed the hatchery would get warm enough that algae would form, sucking the oxygen out of the water, killing the fish. By 1928 the hatchery was closed.

The second thing was the Wawona Arboretum. It was over beyond the ridge and I have not see the area yet. But the reports I have read is you can only find traces of it, even though 25 years ago there was a plan to restore it. The Arboretum was constructed in 1904 by the 9th Army Cavalry (i.e., Buffalo soldiers) and 24th Infantry About 1,400’ west of the confluence of Big Creek and the south fork of the Merced., on the slope above the river. It was acting park superintendent Major John Bigelow, Jr, who commanded Troops K and L and the 9th Cavalry who created the first National Parks arboretum. 75 acres. It was the first marked nature trail in the National park system.

Galen Clark’s Cabin What do you know about Galen Clark?

He came to Wawona to homestead in 1856 because a doctor had told him he did not have long to live because of consumption. He was then 43 and lived to be 96, 1910.

In 1853, gold fever seized Clark and he left his children with Eastern relatives to go to the gold fields. Clark came to California by steamer. Intending to work at his trade of chair maker he instead headed for the Mariposa area where he worked variously as a miner, packer, camp-keeper and hunter. He camped at the meadows in Wawona in 1855 and returned there in 1856. Clark wrote that, after a hemorrhage of the lungs, he went to Wawona for his health and “spent the first season in leisure.”

His idea of “leisure” was to homestead a 160-acre ranch and build Clark’s Station, a rough overnight lodging place for tourists. lark was well loved for his erudition, gentleness, integrity, independence, modesty and devotion to the wonders of Yosemite. He was the second white man to see the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees

Oh yeah, he was also the first Guardian of Yosemite, in 1864 for about 30 or so years.

Chowchilla Mountain Road The road from Raymond to Wawona generally followed the route of present State Highway 41, while the stage route from Mariposa, called the Chowchilla Mountain Road, exists today, rutty, dusty and little-changed from its 1870 route.

Flume/Irrigation Ditch Springs, wells, a large irrigation ditch supplying water for cattle, hogs, sheep, horses as well as crops of hay in the extensive meadows were developed.

Extra Photo's

Hunting for the footprint of Galen Clark's cabin

Animals

Wild Turkey's

 
Flowers and Plants

Fungi

Fungi

Fungi