DAY 2. TRIPLE WHOPPER
I got up very early in the dark because I wanted to get to a couple waterfalls up the trail on the Merced River before the sun. That is about 4.5 miles in a couple hours. I made it but I screwed up on the first one. I had set my ISO very high and forgot to turn it back. Ugh. I do hope that picture still turns out ok. The second falls was only 12 ft. high, so that was a bit disappointing. I would not even call it a waterfall, but the park service calls it a waterfall. I found some other waterfalls on the Merced River that were much bigger and yet the NPS does not recognize them. More on that later.
After that initial rush, I could finally relax. I ate my breakfast at the second falls, and tended to the blisters on my foot. I stayed an hour at the small 12 foot waterfall, watching the birds play in the river.
From here I only had four more miles to hike on this day. I arrived at my campsite by 10AM. All I can say is WOW. At its source, the Merced River has three main forks that come together. All three have waterfalls. The biggest fork is the Triple Peak Fork and this has the biggest waterfall. It is a monster waterfall. It is almost 600 feet high (my calculation is 585 ft. high). That makes it just oh so slightly smaller than Nevada Falls (officially 594 ft.), and thus easily the second biggest waterfall on the Merced River. Unofficially, I believe the NPS measurement of Nevada Falls is incorrect, and that would mean Triple Peak is actually the biggest waterfall on the Merced. Anyhow, Triple Peak was flowing magnificently. It was absolutely stunning. I had only seen one photo of it before and that was at low flow. At high flow, it is incredible.
It is also very difficult to photograph. Although you can see the entire waterfall, it is blocked by many trees, and is not photograph-able from any single viewpoint. That means I had to photograph it in sections. This was difficult because it is in the sun for most of the day, so I could not even get to all the sections before it got dark, but I got to the main ones anyway.
Now to find a campsite. I wanted to camp as close to the waterfall as possible. There was one big problem today: mosquitoes. There was not much of a breeze. It came and went. When the breeze stopped, the mosquitoes would come attack me immediately. When the breeze started again, I had a bit of relief. There were more mosquitoes closer to the falls so I tried to pick a spot further back that was more open and had a bit more breeze. The only trouble was that the ground was uneven. I would have a lumpy sleep tonight. Was it worth it? In my opinion, anything is worth enduring if it means less mosquitoes.
It was still early in the day. What would I do all day? I decided to climb to the top of the falls (500 ft. climb up the mountain) to see what it was like, and to see how long it would take. The top of the falls is about a 80 ft. drop, and it was spectacular, well worth photographing from up there. So … that meant I would have to go back down to camp, then climb back up to the top a SECOND time, later that evening. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment. Some people might say that, but to me it was worth the effort. So I went back down the mountain to my campsite, lounged about all afternoon, waiting for evening to come.
Finally it came. Yet I was still too early. I had to wait an hour at the top of the falls for the sun to go down behind the mountains. It was also far more misty at the top than it was at noon. The flow in the waterfall was noticeably much stronger due to snow melt from the day. My calculations were also off. I calculated that the falls would be in shade by 7:30PM. That would give me “just” enough time to go down, photograph the middle tier, and then retreat back to camp before dark. It was 7:40PM and the top of the falls was still in the sun. I could not wait any longer. I had to photograph it now. After doing this, I ran down the mountain (which was difficult because it was very rocky), made it over to the middle tier (shown here), then ran back to camp. I got back just in time, got ready for bed quickly, and went to sleep. It may have been a lumpy sleep, but I slept.