What a beast of a route! The day started off by Joe dropping his cell phone directly onto his fourth toe from shoulder height, immediately following our 3am wake up. We knew we’d be in for a long day from then on. Arrived to Yosemite with an excruciatingly painful and swollen toe, well before permit hours so we could stash a bike at Tunnel View in case we couldn’t find a ride back to our car later in the day (we couldn’t). Started up BOF just after 6am with full packs prepped for long day. First half was pristine. Air was cool, views were stunning, and stoke was high. The toe pain eventually became unnoticeable as we fought through the crowds on their way up UYF to make it back to the valley floor. We made it to the bridge to refill our water reservoirs, have a quick bite of our sandwiches, and mentally prepare for the next big climb out of the valley.
We powered up four mile trial as best as we could, desperately craving the time when we’d see flat, runnable trail again. We arrived to glacier point to find crowds of valley gazers eating ice cream cones, and drinking ice cold beverages. We put our heads down, resisted the urges, and powered on. Tried to get a little time back where we could once we hit Taft point. At some point with under 10 miles left, we ran into a beautiful mama bear with her cub. Her eyes didn’t leave us until we were out of sight. Good reason to pick up the pace! We treated ourselves to one last valley view at Dewey Point then finished it off by trying not to take headers on the steep descent.
This route was pretty incredible. Very cool to be able to stand on both rims of the valley in the same day. Conditions were absolutely perfect and weather couldn’t have been better. Very thankful for this experience. Much respect to Austin and his time, and big shout out to Jeremy who biked back to our car after such a long day!