Ready to get out into the wild after several days in the city, we made our way to Yosemite National Park, a destination that had been on both of our to do lists for ages. We knew it was one of the most visited National Parks, and beyond that one of our parks most developed for tourism. But we also knew that it was one of the most stunning and beautiful places that one can explore. Hell, it was one of John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt's favorite places, it had to be worth the crowds.
If you like going to the mall and wandering around bumping into people who aren't paying attention and being bombarded with opportunities to consume, Yosemite Valley is your park. I must admit, we were a little shell shocked driving into the Valley, where we had the best cell signal one can find in all of California, and where there were paved sidewalks, and so many people. We're a little bit purist in that regard, we like our wilderness to be, well, wild. And while we expected tourism, which we're very familiar with in Rocky Mountain, we didn't expect the mall like set up. It was jarring for us.
So, in an attempt to enjoy the majesty which is Yosemite, we found the Visitor's Center and asked where we could go camp outside of the Valley and away from as many people as possible. The ranger laughed a little as he pulled out the camping registry with a list of backcountry campsites and their occupancy in response to our question posed in desperation. He listed off the camping areas that weren't full yet and nominated one or two that we could hike to before dark. We chose one and he showed us where it was on a map, where to park and start our hike and had us fill out a permit and obtain a bear canister.
I want to take a moment to pause here in this chronology of our visit to Yosemite National Park to clear some things up. We knew how touristy Yosemite is, and honestly we had only planned to hike around the valley and spend most of our time in the wilderness surrounding the park where few people venture. Our plans had been thwarted by a number of road closures keeping us from the areas we wanted to be backcountry camping and hiking. Being limited to the Valley and to the options you can access from there had us a little bit disappointed. But, it wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be. We expected one of the most touristy parks to cost a pretty penny, and that was perpetuated by initially being greeted by a ritzy hotel with fancy restaurants and gift stores and shops all over and throngs of people. But our backcountry permit was free, so was our overnight parking, and the bear canister we had to rent only cost us a flat $5 for as many nights as we needed it. The only other thing we paid for was a topography map of the entire Yosemite Park and Wilderness, which was a little overpriced, but we will surely use it again when we come back to explore the wilderness areas we had originally intended exploring. I digress; on with the adventure.
After obtaining the necessary permits and bear canister and map, we drove around the park to the trailhead parking where we'd be leaving Sherpa for of couple nights of rest. This parking was about a mile and change from our trailhead but was the only lot still open for the off season. We cleaned out the car of food and trash, deposited what food we weren't bringing with us in the bear bins nearby, and packed for our escapade while shoving down our "lunch" of Halloween candy we had earned in San Francisco. By the time this was finished and started our walk up the closed road to our trailhead we had started losing daylight.
I hope that the layout of Yosemite Valley makes more sense when all of the roads are open, because we ended up at the wrong trailhead by taking a wrong turn, despite following our park map and checking with the visitor maps that we passed along the road. This wrong turn cost us an extra mile of walking and the minutes of what precious daylight remained. Sunset was very much upon us as we started up the Mirror Lake Trail. We followed Mirror Lake Trail for just over a mile until we met the Snow Creek Trail that we'd be following another couple of miles to our campsite. Let me be clear, this was not an excessively long hike in terms of mileage. With our little wrong turn, our total mileage was probably just under 5 miles total. But look at this map:
You see that weird squiggly bit, bottom center? Yeah, those switchbacks that are so steep and on top of each other that the map can't even properly designate them. We plodded along them, taking in the views of Half Dome and the Tenaya Canyon and the Valley below. It was breathtaking. Even as darkness engulfed us completely about a third of the way up the switchbacks, the moon was bright and the sky clear and we had just as amazing views.
Exhausted, we made it to camp and started a fire for a quick dinner of everything soup. Chelsea was so tired that she was falling asleep sitting by the campfire, barely waking to take bites of soup. We slept hard and it was glorious. We spent two days in the wilderness around Snow Creek, hiking and climbing and just enjoying living outdoors in one of the most beautiful places in our country. The views here were almost incomprehensible. The scale of the cliffs and the depth of the vistas made us feel like we were seeing a painting rather than thousands upon thousands of feet of stone and miles of river and forest.
After exploring our surroundings, seeing all the scenery we could, we packed up and made short work of the return trip. Having eaten every single morsel of food and all but a few mouthfuls of water, our packs felt light and comfortable and descending the previously agonizing slopes went by easily, except for a few nagging aches from the previous days' exploring. We even managed to catch a bus! An actual shuttle bus full of tourists picked us up at the trailhead and brought us closer (we thought) to Sherpa's camping spot. In actuality we missed the stop we should have gotten off at and had to backtrack to the parking lot. Probably ended up walking the same distance, which is only our just reward for trying to cheat at backpacking.
From Yosemite, we headed straight to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. This area of California between these two parks and Yosemite is one of the least developed we experienced, but still had great roads with plenty of turnouts for camping, some of which even had potable water! That's a luxury worth mentioning even though we didn't end up staying at one with a spigot. Our first stop upon entering Sequoia was Grant's Grove, a section of old growth forest with a minimal history of logging. In fact, one of the only cut stumps present belonged to a tree that was felled specifically for the purpose of Californian timber men bragging to their east coast contacts about the literally unbelievable size of the California Sequoias. A cross section of this massive tree was cut into 12 sections (so it could be transported) and shipped to Philadelphia for display in 1876. It was promptly dismissed as a "California Hoax" that must have been assembled from smaller trees. Good try, California. Almost got us.
Aside from Grant's Grove, home of the General Grant Tree and an inspiring 140+ year old log cabin, we visited Stump Meadow, an eerie and slightly creepy graveyard of charred stumps of sequoias that were hungrily cut down in the early 1900s, far faster than they could even be milled and processed into lumber. This sunny meadow was an excellent secluded place to explore where we didn't see any trace of other visitors aside from the eternal brass ammunition litter, bottle caps, and cigarette butts that plague parks everywhere. We also stopped to see General Sherman, the world's largest tree (by trunk volume) and drove through much of both parks sightseeing and looking for camping. If you haven't noticed by now, we really like big trees, even if they're dead.
We eventually stayed at an unnamed dispersed camping area near Ten Mile Campground. Again we had the place completely to ourselves, aside from the infuriating amount of trash left everywhere. An informal survey of the brown grocery bag of litter we were able to fill up in about 30 minutes of collecting shows that people who drink Corona and Bud Light bottles, rip the pop tabs off of their cans, and feed their children Kool Aid Bursts are the worst people in the world at camping. Also bottled water lids. Do people just open the bottle and say "Wait, why did it turn into two different parts? Is it broken? What do I do with this little white lid thingy?" I'll just leave it.....right here seems like a good spot." And to the geniuses who tried to incinerate fiberglass tent poles in their campfire only to have them burst into a dandelion of toxic fuzz... I bet a lot of that ended up in your lungs.
The next day we woke up bright and early and headed out of Sequoia National Forest, squeezing in a couple of stops along the way. Some were planned stops so we could see more big trees and big views. Others were unplanned slamming on the brakes so Corbin could jump out to ralph up his breakfast, water, and eventually nothing at all. He had been feeling nauseous all morning, and was well and truly sick all morning even after popping some leftover prescription anti-nausea meds. He finally started to feel better around midday when we rolled into a Starbucks to use the wifi, wash up, and catch up on the latest news, like who won the Presidential Election.
Corbin figured he was well enough to take a little nourishment at this point and, in order to be scientific about it, he ate and drank more of what he had earlier to see if that was the cause of his ails. Since Chelsea had eaten the exact same breakfast he was pretty confident the food wasn't suspect but he was rather suspicious of the gallon of sweetened tea he had been working through for the past couplefew days. After very carefully measuring and ingesting a conservative yet bold serving of said tea he sat down to wait. An hour passed with no issue. Then disaster: as he bent over Chelsea's shoulder to read her latest blog progress Corbin was struck by an epiphany. it was the tea.
At this point the reader should note that it is far, far easier to find a socially acceptable place to vomit in 1,865 square miles of national forest than it is to find in a crowded Starbucks, on a crowded corner, in the crowded little town of Visalia, CA. But necessity is the mother of invention and he made it happen. He then cleaned up the last of the mess with liberal splashes of the tainted tea before throwing the bottle in the same receptacle. Wouldn't you know it, he then had to spend the next few minutes trying very hard to convince a poor soul riding by on a bicycle that he really, really did not want to remove the bottle from the trash and take it for himself. It would not be even a little bit fun to drink. The moral of the story is that the all natural organic cage free sweet tea from the health food store does not keep in the heat like a bottle of the HFCS laden, preservative rich stuff from the bargain basement. Gotta use the right tool for the job, and the right lubrication for the application.
With the big rocks climbed, the big trees begrudgingly not climbed, vomiting under control, knowledge of current events updated, and our clocks set back to whatever time and day it was, we headed to the City of Angels to get another dose of city and a visit with Amanda and Alessio.