Vernal Fall Mist Trail

The trail to the bridge below Vernal Fall, and then up the mist trail and beyond is considered by many to be the best short hike in Yosemite Valley. For people who want to do the Mist Trail and continue with the hike to the top of Half Dome and back in one day, it should be started by 5 a.m. For a shorter excursion, the best pictures with rainbows in the mist are taken if you start the hike at around 10 a.m., but this is also the time with the most crowds.

The mist trail section can open in late March to early May and stay open to late November or mid December.

Wear sturdy shoes (boots are best) with good tread on the soles. Take the Yosemite Valley free shuttle bus to Happy Isles. From the trailhead at Happy Isles, the initial walk on a paved path to the bridge below Vernal Fall is .8 miles. If you have any extra time, you should not start immediately from Happy Isles, but take a few minutes to walk directly up the path from the bus stop to the best nature center in the park, and maybe wander for a bit in the fen. There are pictures at: Yosemite visitor centers

Then go back to the bus stop, walk across the bridge on the main road, turn right and walk through an area that is dusty from wear of feet. Ahead there is a big sign with trail distances on this section of the John Muir trail. After .8 miles you get to the bridge.

Just over the bridge are (open most of the year, opening day after winter varies, but often in early April) restrooms and a drinking fountain with purified water, but you should have carried more water or a filter for a longer hike. It is not safe to drink unpurified water from streams, rivers or lakes in the park.

Too many people make the mistake of ending their hike at the bridge and returning to Happy Isles. Many think they are too tired from walking, either because they went too fast or didn't drink enough water. Some think it is too much of an adventure to go farther, but they should at least try going part way up the Mist Trail for great closeup views of the fall.

Below, a May 22, 2005 NPS photo during the ten year flood:

A couple of hundred yards uphill past the restrooms another trail comes in from the right. It might be your return route, so stop for a few seconds and look around in the direction you are coming from and up the trail you will continue on now, so this junction will look familiar on your return. For now you should continue alongside the river.

In the photo below you can see the start of the staircase shortly ahead.

When we hike the Mist Trail in its mistiest months we like to either wear better rain gear than this, or wear a minimum amount of clothes and plan to get soaked. (But we always bring warm things to put on at the top after.)

At the end of the Mist Trail there are a couple of sections with railings:

At the top there is another railing to keep people from falling over the cliff where the falls drop 320 feet into the gorge you just walked up.

For a few weeks around the summer solstice there are fragrant azaleas just upriver.

If you made it this far, you should have a picnic, but the best place for one is not necessarily with the crowds at the huge flat sheet of rock at the top of the fall. Walk a bit farther upriver past the side path to the restrooms, to find the Silver Apron cascade and it's resident ouzel:

Please don't feed the ground squirrels, they need to fill up on natural foods to make it through the long winter. Watch out, they can get into the pack you set on the ground in seconds.

This whole area is closed to wading, sliding and swimming, as every year people lose their lives in the park from overestimating the power of moving water and being swept over waterfalls, crashed into submerged boulders or drowning. Rescue teams do respond to this area if needed, but not in time to actually save people in trouble in the water.

After a picnic in either the sun to dry off from the Mist Trail or in the shade if you are tired of the heat, some people who want to make this a short hike will return back down the Mist Trail. Others, who don't want to slip on the steep downhill sections of granite steps with sandy surfaces which can be fine going uphill but potentially dangerous downhill, take an alternate route with new views.

The other route is longer in distance, but has mostly wide switchbacks that can be walked briskly if you wear shoes/boots with sufficient tread. This section of trail starts in the vicinity of the Silver Apron. There are signs, but the whole area is so worn that the trail is not distinct. It goes uphill at first through mostly open sections, aren't you glad you have a well brimmed hat?

The trail intersects a trail which goes to the left towards Nevada Fall or to the right (your route to the valley). A while later don't miss the short turnoff on the right to a viewpoint down to the top of Vernal fall.

This uphill section is for a half mile to Clark Point with views behind you to Nevada Fall,

then there is more shade and mostly fast hiking along countless switchbacks, past a horses only trail to the left, and down to the trail section above the first main Vernal bridge. Turn left here and continue downhill. If you stopped on the way up and looked around you should not feel as though you are lost. From the bridge/restrooms/drinking fountain it is only about 15 to 20 minutes to Happy Isles.

If you go to Glacier Point and Washburn Point later you can spot a lot of the trail you walked:

Enhance your hike by reading:

Day hike gear

GORP and hiking snacks

Thunderstorm and lightning safety

Yosemite nature and photography links

How much water will there be in the Yosemite waterfalls?

http://www.nps.gov/yose/photosmultimedia/ytp.htm click on Beautiful but Deadly

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The mist trail can be a part of a Half Dome hike. The Half Dome cables were put up on May 24 2013, May 25 2012, June 22 2011 and June 6 2010.

Info on the Half Dome hike is at:

http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/halfdome.htm

You need to apply for the preseason lottery for permits to climb the cables to go to the top of Half Dome . They will be available May to October. 18,000+ people apply by lottery in the preseason,12,000+ for the daily lottery. Saturdays are the most popular day people choose, (example Saturday 35% in 2014, Sunday 16%, Friday, 14% and other days at around 8-9% each).

Permits are required every day of the week, with each person needing their own individual permit. Up to four permits can be obtained under one reservation. Fees include a non-refundable $4.50 to $6.50 application fee and a $8 service charge for each permit you actually get (as of 2014). Reservations can be made through www.recreation.gov or by calling 1-877-444-6777.

For the most current details go to http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/hdpermits.htm You will find a link there to a page with graphs of the day-by-day permits actually issued to help you make an informed decision of which day(s) to try for a permit.

Why the permits? In summer of 2009 on Saturdays and holidays Half Dome hikers averaged 840 per day (estimated at a peak of 1100 to 1200) and people have had to wait up to an hour to go up.

Start early. It can be sunny and dry at the start of the day and have fog/rain/lightning storms by mid day. As a sign at Half Dome warns:

Travel on Sub-dome and Half Dome

DANGEROUS

During and after lightning and rain storms

SERIOUS INJURY AND DEATH

Have resulted from:

Falls on wet, slick rock

Lightning strikes to hikers on exposed terrain

EVALUATE THE WEATHER BEFORE

PROCEEDING PAST THIS POINT

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John Muir compared Vernal and Nevada falls in the book The Yosemite.

"The Vernal, about a mile below the Nevada, is 400 feet high, a staid, orderly, graceful, easy-going fall, proper and exact in every movement and gesture, with scarce a hint of the passionate enthusiasm of the Yosemite or of the impetuous Nevada, whose chafed and twisted waters hurrying over the cliff seem glad to escape into the open air, while its deep, booming, thunder-tones reverberate over the listening landscape. Nevertheless it is a favorite with most visitors, doubtless because it is more accessible than any other, more closely approached and better seen and heard. A good stairway ascends the cliff beside it and the level plateau at the head enables one to saunter safely along the edge of the river as it comes from Emerald Pool and to watch its waters, calmly bending over the brow of the precipice, in a sheet eighty feet wide, changing in color from green to purplish gray and white until dashed on a boulder talus."

Read the whole text at: http://www.abovecalifornia.com/lib/JohnMuir/Yosemite/index.shtml

In the same book he recommended a one day hike of: "If I were so time-poor as to have only one day to spend in Yosemite I should start at daybreak, say at three o'clock in midsummer, with a pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff, for Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, the head of Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, the top of Liberty Cap, Vernal Fall and the wild boulder-choked River Cañon."

This would be about a 24 mile hike, starting with the Glacier Point "Four Mile" trail.

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From Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California (1862) by James M. Hutchings, a description of the trail nearing the original ladders up to Vernal:

"Upward and onward we toil; and, after passing a bold point we obtain, suddenly, the first sight of the Pi-wy-ack, or Vernal Fall. While gazing at its beauties, let us, now and forever, earnestly protest against the perpetuation of any other nomenclature to this wonder, than “Pi-wy-ack,” the name which is given it by the Indians, which means “a shower of sparkling crystals,” while “Vernal” could with much more appropriateness, be bestowed the name-giver, as the fall itself is one vast sheet of sparkling brightness and snowy whiteness, in which there is not the slightest approximation, even in the tint, to any thing “vernal.”

Still ascending and advancing, we are soon enveloped in a sheet of heavy spray, driven down upon us with such force as to resemble a heavy storm of comminuted rain. Now, many might suppose that this would be annoying, but it is not, although the only really unpleasant part of the trip is that which we have here to take, on a steep hill-side, and through a wet, alluvial soil, from which, at every footstep, the water spurts out, much to the inconvenience and discomfort of ladies—especially of those who wear long dresses.

As the distance through this is but short, it is accomplished, and in a few minutes we stand at the foot of “The Ladders.” Beneath a large, overhanging rock at our right, is a man who takes toll for ascending the ladders, eats, and “turns in” to sleep, upon the rock. The charge for ascending and descending is seventy-five cents; and, as this includes the trail as well as the ladders, the charge is very reasonable.

Formerly there were no means of ascending or descending this perpendicular wall of rock, except with ropes fastened to an oak-tree that grows in one of the interstices; and that, too, at great personal risk and inconvenience—so that but few persons would make the dangerous attempt.

Ascending the ladders, we reach an elevated plateau of rock, on the edge of which, and about breast high, is a natural wall of granite, that seems to have been constructed by nature for the especial benefit and convenience of people with weak nerves, enabling them to lean upon it, and look down over the precipice into the deep chasm below."

It does take awhile to load, but the original ladders up to Vernal Falls can be seen at:

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/history/scenes_of_wonder_and_curiosity/images/114.jpg

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Yes, you can often do part or all of this trail in the winter, just check with the Rangers first. Sometimes the trail can be open for days in the winter then quickly closed due to ice. The restrooms at the Vernal bridge aren't open all year.

Photo below of Vernal Fall from Clark Point, February, 2004, by Sudharsan Sripadham.

Swimming or wading above waterfalls is dangerous. Almost every recent year someone, or even more than one person, has been swept over a Yosemite waterfall. Some people just got too close trying to get a picture. Others climbed over protective railings/fences. Look at: fatal, near fatal or close call incidents/accidents in camping, backpacking, climbing and mountaineering for details.

photo below by Quang-Tuan Luong/terragalleria.com, all rights reserved.

Yosemite trips index