I saw footprints on the trail as I hiked down to the river from Morrison Creek camp. I only saw them going in one direction. Strange because I was pretty sure there was no one ahead of me. It would be odd for anyone to go down here at this time of year. Besides the Madman of course.
May is my favorite time of year to hike. No mosquitoes. No people. Waterfalls roaring. But creeks can be dangerous. The Morrison Creek crossing was my big concern on this trip. My only concern. When I was here 3 years ago it was very easy. This time the creek was higher already and the temperature was about to sky rocket, which means the snow melt was also about to sky rocket. I estimated the flow could potentially double by the time I returned later in the week and if that happened I would not be able to cross. However … there was a log on which I could shimmy across. I tested it out with my pack on and it was easy. This gave me confidence to continue. If the creek was too high to wade I could use this log to cross. If there was no log there I would have definitely turned back. It would have been too risky otherwise.
I made it down to the river around noon. I did not have the energy to climb 3500 ft. up the mountain in the afternoon. I would not have been able to make it all the way to my planned camp. This was a lesson learned. I can hike up 3000 ft. and then down 3000 ft. in a day but not the other way around. Maybe if I was in better shape but not today. I decided to camp at Far Lower Piute Falls again, which is what I did 3 years ago. It is a beautiful place along Piute Creek. In the evening I went up to photograph the lower falls and was on my way back down to photograph the far lower falls before sunset. That is when it happened…
Directly across the creek from my camp I saw a bear coming up to the creekside. A small black colored bear. It soon became clear that the bear wanted to cross the creek. He really really really wanted to cross the creek. However, Piute Creek was not a creek, it was a river and it was raging, and he wanted to cross right above a small waterfall. All the while I was across the creek watching him and filming him on camera. He saw me watching him. He considered the roaring creek for a long time before venturing out into the water. He got to about the middle of the creek. What is he doing, I thought? He is not going to make it. Finally, he decided to turn around. He climbed out of the water and walked back down the mountain where he had come from. Whew. I was 99% certain he would not make it if he had tried to continue. The creek was much more dangerous on this side. The odd thing is that he probably could have crossed if he had tried further downstream below the waterfalls. I wondered why the bear tried to cross here and what effect (if any) did I have being there (though I was more than 150 ft. away from him). My thought is that it was a very young bear and he probably crossed the creek here last fall when the water was low enough. Now spring is here but he has never seen the creek this high in his life before and had no idea it would be like this when he came to cross it. That is my theory and I’m sticking to it. It was easily the most incredible bear encounter I have had yet. Day 3 of Yosemite backpacking trip complete.
