I've gotten out of class early, and I'm in a giving mood, so I think I will treat you all to a rare long journal entry. I also have a topic--my trip this weekend. For those of you that are lazy, there will be a pretty picture at the end which pretty much sums it up:
I refer to Sara, in the kindest way possible, as a "fluffy bunny". She grew up in Florida where fables paint a picture of hell thats covered with snow and ice and they find "swamp" to be an endearing description of local climates. (A degoba system, perhaps. Something Yoda might have liked.) Before I left for my trip we checked the weather for Sequoia National Park--not good. At 5000 feet it was going to be cold. At 8000 feet the temperature would drop into the 20's and snow was a destinct possible. I didn't want to think about what 9600 feet would be like but I was leading the trip, I had to think about it. The days didn't sound much better. There was a significant chance of rain during the hours that we would be hiking. Not much warmer, and liquid water has a much higher therman conductivity. Not good. Sara was aghast, "I think you're coming down with a cough, better to cancel."
I wasn't going to cancel, but I wasn't pleased with the prospects. When I met up with James in the parking lot to load up his truck, I told him about the forecast. Change of plans. Let's go to Yosemite, instead. Shitty weather looks like its all down south. Who the fuck goes north to get out of the snow? Yosemite it is.
I found two options as quickly as I could. One option at the northern tip of the park near the Emigrant Wilderness would be a quiant tour of trout ponds and an opportunity to do some serious fly fishing. A total of 24 miles or so. Long, but relatively flat. My enthusiasm for fly fishing wasn't shared by the rest of the group and we eventually settled on the other option: a 10.5 mile, 4000 foot plug into the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River. "It'll be a heck of a climb out." I was already getting nervous about Sergio and Jin, the two members of our group who had never put on a backpack, but by 11:30 that night we were setting up camp at White Wolf, preparing for the trip down the next day.
"What the fuck is this solid stuff in my water bottle?" Our attempt--or at least my attempt--to get out of the cold had been foiled. I woke up at 7am. There was frost on the ground. A layer of frozen dew made my tent down right crispy, but not in the yummy french fries way. Ice cubes floated about my water bottle, only this time I didn't put them there. I was cold. It doesn't take long in coastal california to forget that ones freezer isnt the only source of ice. Time to get moving!
We did, and relatively fast. The trail started off relatively flat, with no view of the canyon for the first 3 1/2 miles. It cut through thinly groved forest, whose floor was shaded by massive pine trees overhead, occassionally intercepting gentle meadows. Giant boulders deposited by a glacier during the last ice age jutted out from the ground. They're so huge but must have like specks of dust for the ice that stuck them there. At the end of the initial three miles, the trail slowly rose to the top of a dome--a trademark of the Yosemite landscape--and hints of canyon snuck through the trees which still obscured the view.
"Anyone see the trail?" We lost it slightly in a sloped openning lined with boulders, but quickly got back on track. The first of a series of three significant descents took us down by switchback to the Tuolumne Canyon trial. By this point short scrambles up larger boulders offered views of the canyon below. The Canyon stretched east-west. To the east was the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. John Muir's last great environmental battle was to oppose the dam that created this reservoir. Before the dam was built the Hetch Hetchy Canyon was as spectacular as any, flanked on both sides with 2000 foot granite walls. The dam was built to provide water and electricity to the city of San Francisco in the early 1920s. I don't know whether it could have been built somewhere else. I'm not an expert, but I wish it had. Towards the east of the canyon was the Pate Valley, which we had identified as our goal to reach for the day. The Pate Valley was speckled with Pine Trees at the intersection of two forks of the Tuolumne River. We looked down at it from twenty-five hundred feet above. "Feel a little small?" I yelled to James. How could you not?
The trail surprisingly flattened out for a couple miles after the first series of switchbacks into a long meadow of Aspens with creeks running down the hillside. By the end of the second series of switchbacks, though, both Jin and Sergio were complaining about knee problems. I told them that we could camp anywhere, and if they were hurt we should stop. I tried to be as supportive as possible, while in the back of my head thinking "I don't want any of this death before dishonor shit... " It took us several more hours to get half way down the third descent. I had spent most of that time hiking for 5 minutes and then waiting for 5 minutes. We had covered only 8.5 miles in roughly 6 hours. An ideal spot suddenly presented itself. We hadn't reached our goal, but I didnt care and I sure as hell wasn't going to get Sergio or Jin's input. We were next to a good water source, we had beautiful views on both sides, and shit, we even had a perfect granite bench/counter top. That was that.
With a couple more hours of daylight, we finished the descent into the Pate Valley without the packs and caught several trout in the river. We also discovered another good reason not to camp in the valley. Bears--and lots of them. In the two hours we spent down there we had three run-ins with black bears. The worst of which occured on the way back, when we rounded a bend into a meadow and there was the biggest black bear I've ever seen in my life presumably trying to enjoy his dinner. Naturally, Sergio and Jin lagged 100 yards behind. We screamed and hollared at the bear to try to scare it off, but it was dead set on it's dinner. Then we screamed and hollared at Sergio and Jin, but neither of them are native english speakers and the message was not received ("What? What are you saying? Something about a bear?" "Jesus Christ, new plan") While maintaining my starring contest with the bear, I managed to communicate to my foreign friends that it would be best to slowly walk by. They did and we got out of there. The bear, I assume, continued what he was doing.
Theres always more stories to be told. Sergios objection to amount of pesto being poured in the pasta (duly noted... pour.) The way the stars look when your hundred of miles from the nearest light source. A 6am wake up call. A hard, but ultimately anticlimactic, climb back out of the valley. It all amounts to a quote I heard a long time ago, though, from the actor Steve McQueen. One I think about everytime I spend the night in the wilderness.
"I'd rather sleep in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth"
I refer to Sara, in the kindest way possible, as a "fluffy bunny". She grew up in Florida where fables paint a picture of hell thats covered with snow and ice and they find "swamp" to be an endearing description of local climates. (A degoba system, perhaps. Something Yoda might have liked.) Before I left for my trip we checked the weather for Sequoia National Park--not good. At 5000 feet it was going to be cold. At 8000 feet the temperature would drop into the 20's and snow was a destinct possible. I didn't want to think about what 9600 feet would be like but I was leading the trip, I had to think about it. The days didn't sound much better. There was a significant chance of rain during the hours that we would be hiking. Not much warmer, and liquid water has a much higher therman conductivity. Not good. Sara was aghast, "I think you're coming down with a cough, better to cancel."
I wasn't going to cancel, but I wasn't pleased with the prospects. When I met up with James in the parking lot to load up his truck, I told him about the forecast. Change of plans. Let's go to Yosemite, instead. Shitty weather looks like its all down south. Who the fuck goes north to get out of the snow? Yosemite it is.
I found two options as quickly as I could. One option at the northern tip of the park near the Emigrant Wilderness would be a quiant tour of trout ponds and an opportunity to do some serious fly fishing. A total of 24 miles or so. Long, but relatively flat. My enthusiasm for fly fishing wasn't shared by the rest of the group and we eventually settled on the other option: a 10.5 mile, 4000 foot plug into the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River. "It'll be a heck of a climb out." I was already getting nervous about Sergio and Jin, the two members of our group who had never put on a backpack, but by 11:30 that night we were setting up camp at White Wolf, preparing for the trip down the next day.
"What the fuck is this solid stuff in my water bottle?" Our attempt--or at least my attempt--to get out of the cold had been foiled. I woke up at 7am. There was frost on the ground. A layer of frozen dew made my tent down right crispy, but not in the yummy french fries way. Ice cubes floated about my water bottle, only this time I didn't put them there. I was cold. It doesn't take long in coastal california to forget that ones freezer isnt the only source of ice. Time to get moving!
We did, and relatively fast. The trail started off relatively flat, with no view of the canyon for the first 3 1/2 miles. It cut through thinly groved forest, whose floor was shaded by massive pine trees overhead, occassionally intercepting gentle meadows. Giant boulders deposited by a glacier during the last ice age jutted out from the ground. They're so huge but must have like specks of dust for the ice that stuck them there. At the end of the initial three miles, the trail slowly rose to the top of a dome--a trademark of the Yosemite landscape--and hints of canyon snuck through the trees which still obscured the view.
"Anyone see the trail?" We lost it slightly in a sloped openning lined with boulders, but quickly got back on track. The first of a series of three significant descents took us down by switchback to the Tuolumne Canyon trial. By this point short scrambles up larger boulders offered views of the canyon below. The Canyon stretched east-west. To the east was the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. John Muir's last great environmental battle was to oppose the dam that created this reservoir. Before the dam was built the Hetch Hetchy Canyon was as spectacular as any, flanked on both sides with 2000 foot granite walls. The dam was built to provide water and electricity to the city of San Francisco in the early 1920s. I don't know whether it could have been built somewhere else. I'm not an expert, but I wish it had. Towards the east of the canyon was the Pate Valley, which we had identified as our goal to reach for the day. The Pate Valley was speckled with Pine Trees at the intersection of two forks of the Tuolumne River. We looked down at it from twenty-five hundred feet above. "Feel a little small?" I yelled to James. How could you not?
The trail surprisingly flattened out for a couple miles after the first series of switchbacks into a long meadow of Aspens with creeks running down the hillside. By the end of the second series of switchbacks, though, both Jin and Sergio were complaining about knee problems. I told them that we could camp anywhere, and if they were hurt we should stop. I tried to be as supportive as possible, while in the back of my head thinking "I don't want any of this death before dishonor shit... " It took us several more hours to get half way down the third descent. I had spent most of that time hiking for 5 minutes and then waiting for 5 minutes. We had covered only 8.5 miles in roughly 6 hours. An ideal spot suddenly presented itself. We hadn't reached our goal, but I didnt care and I sure as hell wasn't going to get Sergio or Jin's input. We were next to a good water source, we had beautiful views on both sides, and shit, we even had a perfect granite bench/counter top. That was that.
With a couple more hours of daylight, we finished the descent into the Pate Valley without the packs and caught several trout in the river. We also discovered another good reason not to camp in the valley. Bears--and lots of them. In the two hours we spent down there we had three run-ins with black bears. The worst of which occured on the way back, when we rounded a bend into a meadow and there was the biggest black bear I've ever seen in my life presumably trying to enjoy his dinner. Naturally, Sergio and Jin lagged 100 yards behind. We screamed and hollared at the bear to try to scare it off, but it was dead set on it's dinner. Then we screamed and hollared at Sergio and Jin, but neither of them are native english speakers and the message was not received ("What? What are you saying? Something about a bear?" "Jesus Christ, new plan") While maintaining my starring contest with the bear, I managed to communicate to my foreign friends that it would be best to slowly walk by. They did and we got out of there. The bear, I assume, continued what he was doing.
Theres always more stories to be told. Sergios objection to amount of pesto being poured in the pasta (duly noted... pour.) The way the stars look when your hundred of miles from the nearest light source. A 6am wake up call. A hard, but ultimately anticlimactic, climb back out of the valley. It all amounts to a quote I heard a long time ago, though, from the actor Steve McQueen. One I think about everytime I spend the night in the wilderness.
"I'd rather sleep in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth"
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
And yeah--Hell is cold, definitely (I would say, "I live in Minnesota; I'd know," but really, it doesn't get that cold here--at least not in the city, and at least not on a regular basis--still, though, I know enough of cold). I don't know what Dante was thinking with all that inferno crap. I'd take that over a hard winter any day.
And you have a flask, eh? Do you like it?