I guess I can finally get back to blogging now that summer has finally come to a close. I think this summer can go on the record books for the busiest summer, thus far. It has been a month since we got back from our amazing backpacking trip through the Yosemite Wilderness. This blog is dedicated to that trip, and what a trip it was!! This adventure was tough and challenging, pushing us to our upper limits, but at the same time surreal. Sometimes I felt like what we were looking at couldn't possibly be real. Did Disney sneak in here and fabricate these "too perfect" rock formations? I felt like we were at some outdoor, wilderness, theme park. The granite rocks/mountains shimmered in the sunlight, and they were all sorts of colors. I saw pink granite (with black flecks), green, white, orange and some where a conglomeration of granite and quartz that seemed to almost be too bright to look at. I kept grabbing at ones, along the way, and saying "Oh, Levi would love this one..." or "Calder would think this was so cool....." Joe thought I was crazy, why add more weight to an already heavy pack? However, I couldn't help but filch a few specimens, to take home to my boys. I LOVE rocks, and I think that my boys kind of got that gene too! By the end of the trip I had collected 3 rocks for each of my boys! But, hey, that weight was nothing, compared to what might have happened if I didn't finish my Stephenie Meyer's book before we left! (I am wary to admit that, yes, I would have brought it with me, sad as that fact may be)
As it turned out, I was the only girl that went on this trip. My sister Lani had originally planned on coming, but as these things go, she ended up expecting her very first baby instead! (She is now due in a couple of weeks!!) I grudgingly accepted this excuse......well no....Okay, I admit, I was ECSTATIC that I finally get to be an Aunt on my side of the family!!
So, without Lani, I forged ahead to be the trip's solo Lady! That said, I pretty much just ended up being one of the guys! (THANK HEAVENS!) We had so much fun. I do have to say, though, that most of the guys were just too slow for me! :) I kept getting ahead and having to wait, and
none of them were willing to run down the cliff faces with me, with their packs on! Where is their sense of adventure?!
Our Adventure began Saturday morning, Aug 2nd, as we left our home for the Portland Airport. (Friday night, we flew my mom up to watch the kids, furnished her with a "grandma's guide" book to help her in her own adventure with the boys, and then promptly abandoned her early the next morning.) When we got to the airport we were met with the longest Southwest check in line I have ever seen. It wrapped all the way through the line queue and then kept on going past all the other airline carriers and all the way back to the security screening area. YIKES!! Joe and I were pretty nervous that we wouldn't make the flight.... then what? Fortunately we just made "Late" check in, after a thorough chastisement by a very cranky SW attendant. How
dare we expect "check in" to be done before next Christmas! (we had asked if we were going to make our flight, and that is what set her off) Then I had the audacity to ask if they had any protective plastic bags for unusual bags like our backpacks (like they do for car seats), and she about burst a blood vessel in her forehead. Apparently not....
Everything else went pretty smoothly (the rest of the people were very nice and accommodating) and we ran to catch the plane and hoped that our baggage did the same.
We arrived in Oakland safe and sound
and with our baggage, so we figured that this was a good sign. Joe bought me
Breaking Dawn (by Stephenie Meyer) in the airport, on our way out, and I set to the task of finishing it before Monday when the trip would "officially" start. (Breaking Dawn had just been released that day)
The next two days were fun and relaxing. On Saturday, we went shopping for last minute things, like gas for our stove (funny thing.... they don't let that on airplanes.....), then to a family party at Brandt and Aubyn's (where I mainly read my book..... BUT, I
wasn't the only one doing so!!) and so on. Sunday we went to church and then drove out to Becca's family cabin (near Yosemite) for the night. Weird to be without kids..... But, I got used to it!! ;)
Monday was the big day. We (Joe, Larry, Ben, Paul and I) drove out to Tuolomne Meadows early in the morning and met up with the rest of the group. Everyone was pretty pumped to get out on the trail. It was exciting to see all the hikers who had just gotten off the trail, all dirty and tough looking, and think "that will be us in 6 days!". We ate our last "good" meal at the Yosemite Grill (a yummy breakfast sandwich) and then waited (it seemed like forever) for everyone to be ready to get out on the trail. We kind of all ended up leaving in clustered groups, in the end. I think that first day was the hardest. We hiked 7 miles, which wasn't the reason it was the hardest, but it did make it long. The biggest issue for me was the horse dung all over the trail, and in the air. It had been pummeled into small floating particles and was everywhere for the first few miles, where the trail was the broadest. As many of you know, I am allergic to horses, so this development was not really in my favor. I opted to be at the head of the pack to avoid horse poo to the face, and the subsequent sneezing, itching and swelling. Good thing I remembered to bring Claritin!
Paul doing some underwater fish viewing
Joe getting ready to jump and scare some fish into view
Looks like a Disneyland prop
Me, swimming. After the first 10 minutes you become numb
and the ice tingling cold isn't so bad after that!
My sole source of beverage the entire trip. (We pumped water morning and night)
I ended up chewing a hole through it by the end. Sharp teeth, I guess.
Funky tree growing between two boulders
Definitely rugged terrain
Seriously, though.... Can this be real?
One of the exciting things that happened that first day involved a bear and a composting toilet. Yes, that's right a composting toilet. Don't think about it too much, it helps get past the gag reflex. We had a meeting place, we had set up earlier, so that we could all get together and find a good camp spot for that night, it was at the Group Site Glen Aulin. We were not allowed to camp there with our permits, we had to hike at least one mile past it. It was a large "camp" with framed tents, composting toilets, water, etc. I decided to take advantage of the last "civilized" bathroom that I would see for the next week. On my way on find the bathroom I came upon several young rangers banging pots and sticks. I looked up in the direction they were banging, and low and behold there was a adolescent bear, with blond hair. He was up on a cliff about 15 feet above us. Obviously, they were trying to scare off the bear. I asked them where the bathrooms were and they pointed to the trail that went directly under the bear and 10 feet to the side ending in a staircase up to the door of the composting toilet. "Of Course" I say. It would have to be that way wouldn't it. The toilet was a very interesting contraption, it reminded me of the industrial revolution when wacky inventions were all over the place. It had levers/cantilevers and all sorts of angles, and made out of some sort of antique metal. When I ventured back out I had a welcoming committee meet me right at the door. The Bear!! He was waiting right outside of the door for me, about 10 feet away, looking at me. I very bravely (it really felt like I was being brave to leave the toilet) shut the door and started walking down the hill/stairs. The bear started walking too. My heart was fluttering just a bit as the bear closed the distance and was only a couple of feet away. It really felt like he was joining me for a walk, like a long lost puppy or something. He was probably just let off his mom's leading strings, and missing some guidance, like "don't go near humans, they are bad news". Finally the fluttering hearts won and I stopped, faced him, and clapped my hands and yelled "go!". He jumped a little and took off in the other direction. For some reason, I felt a little guilty scaring him. The rangers had watched the whole ordeal and started laughing at the younger ranger who had been most vigorous in his attempts to scare off the bear. "You have been trying to scare that bear away for 15 minutes and she comes here, claps her hands and he takes off!" They were rolling in the dirt with amusement. I guess you kind of get hard up for entertainment way up here in the mountainous wilderness.
Later that evening, after we had found our first campsite of the trip, set up tents, experienced our first attempt to cook a meal on a minute stove and had rested a bit, there was some ruckus back in the tent area. The bear was back, definitely the same bear too. It was blond and young. I think it was following me! He was eating trash out of Ben's bag. The guys were all yelling at the bear "HEY, Hey..." and so on in their deep men voices and the bear was COMPLETELY ignoring them! I decided to take matters into my own hands and came running at the bear, like a bat out of hell, screaming "You get out of here, RIGHT NOW!" The bear nearly jumped out of his skin, and took off running for the hills. We never saw him again. Poor thing, probably thought I was it's mother and felt rejected all over again. It was pretty funny, that I could scare it off, but the men couldn't. Maybe it was the high pitched screech that it had never heard before, seeing as how it is mostly men going up and down the canyon. Hopefully, it would spread the news "stay away from the crazy lady". Poor Reeves (the 10 year old on the trip) I think he had a hard time getting to sleep that night.
This is my blondie bear, from far away. Too bad I didn't bring a camera to the toilet. Who knew?! I swore from then on I would bring my camera everywhere, just in case.
A twice a day ritual, getting into the bear cannisters. Ugh. They were a pain and really bulky. Good thing we saw a bear or I wouldn't have seen the value in carrying them the whole way.
The rest of the trip was filled with many more exciting encounters with animals. We saw countless lizards, a few snakes (rattlers included - I think one of the guys almost stepped one, and other joined us in our camp in the night, and a few more along the trail), eagles, squirrels, horses, cranky mountain men (that looked liked animals!), and heard many animals in the night (that I wished I couldn't hear). But we never saw another bear, until the last day. I had heard it rummaging around in our camp the night before and I couldn't sleep because of it. It sounded so big. But in the morning I had supposed that it was my imagination, and not a bear at all, until the guys reported seeing a bear near our camp on the way out, and I just knew that that is what I had heard the night before. I definitely felt more vulnerable in the dark than during the day, when I could see it! So much for being brave!
A little water snake
A VERY friendly baby lizard. He let us hold him and play with him. Reeves (the 10 yr old) really wanted to take him with us.
One of the many rattlers we saw on the trip. This one was our camp "buddy".
Here are some of the highlights of the trip:Nature's Water Park, (I think Paul named this one) was amazing. Rock water slides, crystal clear pools for swimming in, cliffs for jumping into crystal clear pools, and riding river rapids on your belly and hands! It was SO MUCH FUN!!! I think we all wished we could have spent more time there. I did all of the slides/swimming/jumping too, but I don't have any pictures of me doing them.
From the top of the waterslides
Joe venturing down the slide
Allen, about to biff it.
Ben and JD making their first attempts
Matt,..... He looks terrified, doesn't he?! :)
Muir Gorge was amazing. There are no photos of this because no one wanted to risk ruining their camera up what was supposed to be an impassible gorge. We scaled boulders, cliffs and swam when we couldn't do the former. It truly did seem to be impassible when we got to one point. We scaled up along a waterfall only to find it impassible at the top of that cliff face. We found an amazing cave waterfall near this same spot and we all had to venture in, get the willies and come out with a shiver. No one dared venture to close to the cave water fall, we couldn't see anything in there. But it did exit into a pool, just outside the cave, with small multicolored pebbles all the colors of the rainbow. It was so beautiful. I was determined to find a way past the "impassible" so I backtracked downriver and found a way up a cliff face and found a way around the tough spot. Joe joined me and we were able to go up the rest of the gorge, with sheer cliffs on each side and fish everywhere. Joe was so excited because he was sure that he was the only one to fish here, possibly ever! We had fun exploring a rarely seen part of the gorge, unfortunately we did have to turn around eventually because it was going to be getting dark soon, but we could have kept going it all looked passable from what we could see!
Star gazing at night was fun! Allen had a fancy laser pointer that looked like it touched the stars, and we used it point out the constellations and notable stars in the night sky. What an experience, laying on the sun warmed granite staring up into a black night sky filled with glittering stars. I looked forward to doing it every night that we could!
Waiting for the sunset and stargazing
All of us lounging, but Matt and Reeves still diehard fisherman.
Nothing can outlast a 10 year old!
Ready for stargazing. Joe in his handy-dandy headlamp.
Fishing. Of course the fishing. We had fresh fish almost every night. Every day after the hike we would get on our suits and water shoes and hike back up the river fishing and swimming and exploring, Joe usually had a fishing pole in each hand (just in case, you never know which type will come in handy, fly or spinner!) The guys went crazy with the fishing, because there were so many just begging to be caught. I even caught one, a big one, and we got to eat it that night! Paul caught the biggest of the trip, right at the foot of Nature's Water Park. That was a fun fight to watch. That guy (oops girl, I forgot we found out that night that it was a female) fought Paul for a good 20 minutes. Finally Matt was able to wrap up the fish in his shirt as a make shift net and we all ate Brown Trout fillet for dinner!
Joe, letting the little one go.
Medium sized rainbow
My large rainbow!
(Please ignore my get-up, we are roughing it, as you know!!)
One of Ben's many fish
The biggest catch of the trip!! A female Brown Trout.
The champion fisherman
The AMAZING vistas. I couldn't believe my eyes most of the time. The views were so amazing. I think I took just under 300 pictures on this trip. But, as always is the case, one can never really capture the true breathtaking beauty in a photograph.
JD, Reeves, Allen, me, Joe and Matt
The water you see down below, I was sunning myself by about 2 hours previous to this picture. It gives you a feel for how high we hiked this day. It was a KILLER! 80+ degrees and straight up. I wasn't sure we would make it! We all ran out of water, before we got to the top.
River running straight down the mountain side. The picture just doesn't do it justice.
I am carrying little Reeves' blue bedroll.
Don't worry, we did end up finding a better way to attach it to my pack!
Sheer cliff down into the water, once again doesn't show the true awesomeness!
The beautiful sunsets. Every evening we watched the sunset and mother nature always provided us with the perfect display of clouds to really flatter the evening sky scene. Just beautiful, every night.
The Hetch Hetchy can be seen from our campsite the last night. Cool campsite huh?!!
The Hetch Hetchy is the water supply for San Francisco.
How come they get all the good water?!
Sunset over the Hetch hetchy
Joe and Larry (joe's dad)
This trip was such a great experience. Yes, I definitely was
so happy to see a real bathroom again, but the trip was worth every inconvenience of that sort. Besides when one has a Freshette on her side anything is doable! ;)
The Adventurers:
Top Row: Allen, Larry, Matt, Reeves, Joe, Cami
Bottom Row: JD, Ben and Paul
So, the challenge is out there! Who will join us next time?!
