The Best of Yosemite National Park. (For the First Time Visitor)

Half Dome and Yosemite Valley as seen from Glacier Point 

Yosemite National Park is a a hiker's paradise, but the number of great hikes in the park makes planning a trip a daunting task. I literally spent weeks planning and researching my first trip to Yosemite National Park. I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss anything awesome. The end result was an amazing trip. Yosemite is probably my favorite National Park.  I've already done the work, so why should you? I'm posting the list of my favorite hikes in Yosemite so you won't have to. If you think I missed anything major, feel free to add it in the comment section.



1. Hike up the Mist Trail from Happy Isles to the top of Nevada Falls and come back down the John Muir Trail. If you have the time, the permit and the leg strength, you can hike all the way to Half Dome.

2. I would plan a day and do the short hikes around Yosemite Valley. My favorites are Bridalveil Falls, The Mariposa Grove of giant Redwood Trees, Lower Yosemite Falls, Mirror Lake and possibly a short raft trip on the Merced River from Curry Village.

3. I would highly recommend a drive up to Glacier Point. This is the best place in the park to view Yosemite Valley. You can pick up the Panorama Trail from Glacier Point and hike 2 miles downhill to Illouette Falls. This hidden waterfall is one of the best in the park. The return trip to the car is a leg burner.

4. Definitely consider driving east and exiting Yosemite through Tioga Pass. The crowds are sparse in this part of the park and the scenery  is definitely worth an little extra drive time. Lembert Dome is one of the best hikes in Yosemite. This part of the park features glacial lakes and green meadows around every turn. Mono Lake is located at the East entrance and features some of Southern California's best natural hot springs.

Attention: Tioga Pass and Glacier Point are usually only accessible in the summer months. 

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My Top 5 Favorite Hiking Movies

The Way Back 2010

I thought I would make a list of good hiking related movies. I tried to link all of the movies back to IMDB. The Way Back and The Road are two of my all time favorite movies in any genre.  If you think of a good movie that I missed, feel free to add it to the comment section at the bottom of this post.

Backcountry 2014
I recently caught this film at the Newport Beach Film Festival. I added it to the top of the list because it's easily the best hiking films I've ever seen. Without giving too much away, the story is about two hikers from the city who run into some serious trouble on a backcountry trail. Do yourself a favor and don't read about the film on IMDB before you actually see it.

1. The Way Back 2010
This is a film about a group of WWII prisoners who escape a Russian gulag and hike several thousand miles across Siberia, the Gobi Desert and finally the Himilayas before reaching freedom in India. This is my all time favorite hiking movie.

2. Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago 2012
I caught this documentary at the Newport Beach Film Festival in 2013. I don't think it has been officially released, so good luck finding it. This is a documentary about several people who are hiking the ancient El Camino de Santiago trail on a pilgrimage to the the Santiago de Compostela cathedral in Spain.

3. The Way 2010
A father heads overseas to recover the body of his estranged son who died while traveling the "El camino de Santiago," and decides to take the pilgrimage himself. -IMDB

4. The Road 2009
This is one of the most brutal films I've ever seen. It's essentially about a father and son who are trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. They hike through abandoned towns with a shopping cart full of supplies trying to avoid marauders, rapists, thieves and cannibals. This film is almost too depressing to handle in a single sitting. From a visual standpoint, it's easily one of the best films made in the past ten years.


5. America's Wild Spaces: Pacific Crest Trail 2010
This National Geographic Documentary is amazing and nearly impossible to find. I can't find the link to buy it from National Geographic or even rent it from Netflix. This is easily the best documentary ever made about the Pacific Crest Trail. You can download it from Pirate Bay as a torrent.

Honorable Mentions:
SouthBounders 2005
This is a low budget indie film about a group of people hiking the Appalachian Trail. Its feels more like a great documentary than a film. It really makes you want to hit the trail. The only downside to this film is the horrible soundtrack.

127 Hours 2010
It's not really a hiking movie, but it's a must-see movie for anyone who hikes. Not to spoil it, but the movie is basically 90 minutes of James Franco stuck in a canyon.

The Lord of the Flies 1990 1963
Both Lord of the Flies movies are classics. I prefer the 1990 version because I saw it in the theater when I was a kid and I feel some nostalgia for it, but most people say the older black and white film was better.


And finally, here is a list of movies on IMDB that a user put together of hiking and nature related films
http://www.imdb.com/list/YCmflZ_Ek0I/?ref_=tt_rls_5

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Cactus Eaters. How I lost My Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Crest Trail

Cactus Eaters Dan white

I just finished Catus Eaters by first-time author Dan White. It was one of the best things I've read all year. Cactus Eaters is a dark comedy about a guy who goes hiking with his girlfriend on the Pacific Crest Trail and all the mishaps they ecounter along the way. This is really a novel about man vs nature, where nature kicks man's ass for most of the story. The Amazon reviews are mostly favorable, but I got a kick out of reading the negative responses from readers who thought Dan was a narcissistic asshole. I can just see those West Coast hippies at their LGBT book club ranting about gender inequality and male privilege and it cracks me up. If you plan on hiking the PCT, you may want to read this book first. Perhaps it will knock some sense into you.

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Pacific Crest Trail Gear

Hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail

This is a cool blog about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. I've started doing some preliminary research for a hike of my own in the next few years. The author of  includes a lot of gear reviews. The picture above is a re-post from her website.
http://www.walkingwithwired.com/2011/11/complete-pct-thru-hike-gear-review.html

And here is a link to another great website with resupply points on the Pacific Crest Trail.
http://www.planyourhike.com/

And another amazing resource
http://www.pcta.org/discover-the-trail/long-distance-hiking/

And here is a Google map for the entire Pacific Crest Trail
Pacific Crest Trail Google Map

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Hiker Wore Sneakers in The Snow, Got Hypothermia

Noob Hiker

I don't know how I missed this story. I have an Google alert for "hypothermia+hiker+Darwin". This guy should be permanently banned from hiking in California.

http://banning-beaumont.patch.com/articles/missing-hiker-found-cold-wet-but-safe-in-hemet

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