I made my usual run to Yosemite National Park. It took over a month from me setting foot on land to me making my customary pilgrimage, but I fit it in.
This time I went hiking in the Wawona section of the park, in the south. The Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias is down that way as well, so I detoured through there on my way out. I laid out a three-day, two-night itinerary in a lower elevation area of the park. The Wawona region has plenty of alpine meadows in the 7000-foot elevation range, which would make them safely free of snow pack this early in the season (yes, snow is common in May).
I went in two days after the rangers had been deployed throughout the park, and many trails had not been fully surveyed yet. I got very lucky, and had an excellent trip with few mosquitos, fordable creeks, negligible snow pack and fantastic waterfalls. The weather held out, despite the threat of an epic thunder storm on the afternoon of the second day.
The first day consisted of a hefty climb that lasted nearly the entire 4 miles. I hit the trail around 6pm, after visiting the Valley (no Yosemite trip is complete without getting your breath stolen by Half Dome), getting the appropriate permits, checking on trail conditions, packing my bear canister and ferrying my car to a different trailhead. That gave me a scant two hours of light left, so I started right in. 1500 vertical feet and a beautiful sunset later, I was ready to begin the long task of making camp.
I stopped beside a stream when it became definitively headlamp time. I was nearly out of water too, so I hunted around in the last glow of the thoroughly-set sun for a suitable campsite. I found a nice site with an established fire ring on the sandy ridge of a granite slab. What a beautiful site. It had water within an easy trek, a clear space for stargazing and a sandy, (relatively) flat spot for a tent. Perfect. On to making a fire and cooking dinner over a campfire (no stove=less weight and more room in my 33-liter backpack).
Dinner was couscous and veggies with some salmon. After only 4 miles and a feast like that, I didn't even want my snickers bar for dessert. It was straight to bed for me (where I found a rip in my inflatable sleeping pad and attempted to tough it out for the rest of the night... What anguish! So cold...).
The next day dawned slowly and incrementally. I lazed around for a while after the light woke me, but eventually had to get up to go to the bathroom. I looked at my watch and nearly choked. 6:45am. Seriously? That's a time?! And I was up? After having snoozed my way to wakefulness? What black magic was this? What time warp had I stepped through? Camping is its own time zone, and I was getting the full effects of jet lag.
I stirred my campfire awake and relit it to make myself a morning cup of tea (usually I never bother, but if I see 6:45am on my wrist, I'm taking my sweet time). After breakfast and packing, I hit the trail before 8:30am. I powered on past a waterfall that was my loose destination for the previous night (but I made the best choice by stopping at my lovely campsite; there were no easily accessible campsites at the waterfall, which I had been counting on), eating up the miles on a dead level trail.
After limbering up, I started one of the only two climbs of the day, and I hesitate to even call them climbs. It was a two-mile stretch uphill, gaining about a thousand feet. Ok, some switchbacks. But come on. So an hour later I was at the top of the world and into the meadows.
The meadows proved to be even flatter than their flat topo lines suggested, and 6 miles flew past before lunch. I decided to stop and take a nap (my sleeping pad was promptly fixed during my leisurely breakfast, once I dug out my repair kit) over lunch, and give some of my sweaty, grimy clothes a quick dunk and dry in nature's laundromat (read, creek). A two hour nap later, I hit the trail again.
Two hours after that, I was at my designated campsite for the night, at the top of a 2000-foot descent with restricted access prohibiting camping along the way. The other end was the trailhead. So 10 miles had gone flying by. It was only midafternoon.
I met a couple on their honeymoon and chatted with them for a while (Woah, talking to people in the backcountry? Novel. But I guess it's a great place to meet people with similar interests ["So are you into hiking?" "No, I don't like nature."].), then checked out the local scenery. (Sorry, as a complete aside, did you check out that punctuation convention in that previous sentence? Six consecutive punctuation marks! I want a cookie.) I headed down to a peak at the falls, and experienced another trademark Yosemite moment. The light was coming in from the setting sun, in that Golden Hour, and lighting up the towering granite formations. Spread a few thousand feet below me was a valley banked by rolling hills, with pine trees blanketing the land as far as the eye could see. In the culvert to my right, backlit by the late-afternoon sun, were hundreds of silk strands from spiders kiting their way up the mountain, riding the updrafts to higher elevations. Water plunged off the cliff to my left, creating the beautiful and hidden Chilnualna Falls, bursting at this time of the year from the snowmelt. It was exhilarating.
I went back to camp with plenty of time to make dinner, and took my time making the labor-intensive fire that is required for cooking. Halfway through growing the fire to the correct size, heat and configuration, I look up as I detect a presence. There's a deer in my camp.
Uhh, lady, did you see Bambi? I'm bent over a FIRE. Like a real fire. Like a deer-consuming, nature-ending FIRE. And the doe just walks through. What?? Ok, so the fire aside, I AM RIGHT THERE. One, I'm playing with popping, blazing death in my little fire ring, but two, I'm a hunter. A predator. I eat deer. But that was ok with her, as she browsed her way between me and my tent, about 10 feet from me. I eventually grabbed my camera to document the incident, and I saw her buddy who had the good sense to go around my camp site. But I considered myself extremely lucky, and very happy, to have experienced such a close encounter with such a large, wild animal. I'm glad it wasn't a bear.
So another sunset, another moonrise and another dinner (this one was rice and red lentils with veggies). After cooking, I built the fire up nice and hot, and spent a good hour just staring into the flames. Who knew campfires were so compelling, but I hold tightly to the belief that everyone's a little bit of a pyromaniac. There is something so alluring, so captivating about fires. How they breathe, how they move, the range of colors that they display. I consider it an evening well-spent.
The next day was the opposite of the previous day, with me waking up at 9am once the sun hit my tent directly. Crap! I need to descend that 5-mile, 2000' plunge of a trail, see the sequoia grove, drive back to San Francisco and still make Aikido practice at 7:30pm! It's a busy day!
So no tea this morning. I packed everything up and within half an hour, I was munching on a bagel and hitting the trail.
An hour and a half later I was at the trailhead, dumping my pack into the trunk of my car.
That was fast.
I've always been a quick downhiller, and when I mean business, I can cover the miles. The trail was a very reasonable grade, with plenty of switchbacks, and most of it was under pines, giving the trail a nice fallen-needle cushion. Add in a light pack of only a liter of water (plus all my food was consumed) and you get a blazing fast pace on the downhill.
After stretching, changing and chugging my gatorade I had waiting, it was off to the sequoia grove. I had visited Muir Woods, just over the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin, so I had seen giant redwoods before. But I hadn't seen these. These trees were bigger than the Muir Woods trees, and more importantly, they had names and personalities. Each tree was a character in the ongoing drama of the area. Not only did each tree have a history, but they had a backstory with thoughts and moods, all carefully cultivated by the local rangers and various members of the press throughout history. The Grizzly Giant is a nightmare of a tree, bearing a branch that is seven feet in diameter, which puts most dining room tables to shame. The bachelor and three graces perpetually dance and court. The faithful couple slowly merge into one. The tunnel tree is a real-life postcard, hearkening back to the creation of the national park system and a drive to get tourists to the area. Now the hoards of tourists must be managed, rather than petitioned.
Another trip came to a close, with that satisfied soreness settling into my legs. I climbed into my car, hit the requisite Cold Stone Creamery on the way back, and returned to the concrete jungle. I'll be back.
