Yosemite, CA

So I guess it's been long enough now that time has healed some of the wounds and the intense experience we had (ok...so it wasn't that intense) has dimmed a bit, so it's time to record my version/experience of backpacking in Yosemite with Will.

  

I don't remember when we decided to do it, but I do remember Will saying that for his birthday...the big FOUR-OHHHH!!!, he wanted just he and I to go backpacking somewhere.

Going to Yosemite has been a dream of his for almost a lifetime, I just remember it from a postage stamp (anyone??) so in January we started making plans to go.

I want to be sure to record as much as I remember..with the pictures, so here it goes... 

First, we were 30 minutes ahead of our worst case scenario time schedule, so we started out awesome!  We wanted to drive all the way to Sacramento, CA where we were going to stay that night, but of course I hadn't even packed yet and leaving the kids at home was weighing more on my mind than I thought it would.  Thank goodness for family who stopped by and checked on them all week.

And for macaroni and cheese and cold cereal!

I've driven through and by the Great Salt Lake and the Salt Flats before, but not with a camera...so...

Our short stay in Sacramento was great.  Thank goodness for GPS and the iphone!  Is there a Jimmy Johns in Reno?  Hold on and let me look it up!  Yup!  It may be in a scary part of town, but the iphone doesn't know that!  We stayed right downtown Sacramento and had a great view of the Capital Building from out our window...around the trees, so in other words, no view of the Capital...but we did see it coming in!

I enjoyed the bed full of pillows and the thought of the mini-bar full of yummy treats as much as I could (I would never take anything from a mini-bar...I'd walk 2 miles to a store instead) before we ventured out into the wilderness.  I also think I drained the hot water tank in the hotel enjoying my final shower and did my hair super big so that it had a chance to last the week.  Me and big hair...best friends!

The drive was beautiful...vineyards, olive orchards, little towns in the middle of nowhere on the windy (twisty, not blowy) in the mountains...total touristy, quaint places, water coming from everywhere as the snow was quickly melting.  The day we drove out of Sacramento to head to Yosemite it was 102! 

We thought we were going to freeze, but instead we cooked in Yosemite!

Our first day there was the official first day of summer...YAY!  Except on that day there was free admittance into Yosemite...THOUSANDS of people flocked to where we were going.  It was crazy!  Nowhere to park, people everywhere, cars backed up, we needed to find the wilderness office to get our permit, it was insane, which added to my anxiety about the whole plan.  

Some of my anxieties...

1.  I was worried about bears.  Really worried.

2.  We weren't sure exactly where we were going to camp that first 

night before we hiked out the next morning.

3.  The bear thing.

4.  Do I even need to mention the bathroom situation?

5.  I had NEVER backpacked before.

6.  It was quickly getting dark.

I was in awe of the beauty though.  There is no way to describe the beauty and the massive size of some of these rocks.  I tried almost 400 times on our hike to capture some of the beauty...you have to see it to believe it.  I'm thinking that it would have been even more beautiful with about a half million less people there too!

This is most definitely going to be a long story...

So to add to the anxiety, we had spotty phone service and a call somehow got through on my phone from Lauren's softball coach...Lauren had been hit in the face with a softball and her eye was swelling shut and bruised (that's not fair to do to a mom...absolute guilt!!) and her coach wanted a family member to come take care of her.  Lovely.  My baby sis Holly came to the rescue on that one and we came home to a beat up looking Lauren...all ended well though, thank goodness!

And then...the little map they gave us didn't show where we could camp.  Backpackers can camp at a certain camp site before and after their hike, but we had no idea where it was and we were literally driving in circles trying to figure it out.  Thank heavens for Will and his sense of direction.  I had to keep reminding him not to listen to me if I dished out my two cents...I was completely turned around!  All the camp sites were full, and to get anywhere it required a lot of walking.  Then on top of that, the wilderness office closed 20 minutes before we got there...so that meant that we couldn't start hiking bright and early like we had planned, we had to wait until the office opened at 9 to get our permit.

Rule followers!  

We flagged down a park ranger, who showed us where to park, gave us a little map that  showed the trails and campgrounds and he gave us directions on how to get to the backpackers campground.  He told us it was a short 2 mile walk around a horseshoe shaped trail, which could have been shorter but one of the foot-trails was underwater.  As was half of the backpackers campground.

No problem!  We thought.  We'll put on our boots, (at this point, I had to take off my tiara...princess Julie was not welcome, nor could she have done it), douse ourselves with mosquito repellant, walk to the campsite, set up the tent and get some sleep (without thinking of bears), wake up, walk back (2 miles, remember) to the car to leave the non-hiking clothes we had to wear to the campground in the first place, walk another mile to the wilderness center to get our permit and the bear canisters we had to rent to hold our food...pics of that later...then walk back to the campground, take down the tent, re-pack our backpacks and GO!!

Do you need me to draw you a map? :)

Problem!  It was stinking HOT!!  It was almost dark and we still had no idea where we going exactly.  Add to that that I had never strapped on a backpack before...let alone one that weighed around 50 pounds, so when I did, initially I was ok.  Then we started to walk and I think I started having a panic attack.  I couldn't breathe, I felt like I was suffocating.

I need to add here that Will is the most awesome man, ever!  He was so patient with me.  He packed everything for us and had done all the research.  He was willing to have me dump my pack in the bushes, finish walking to the campsite, walk back to get MY pack and walk back...he was saying we should just slow down, but I was all business...let's just get there already!  Needless to say, I had an attitude.  In the middle of one of my temper tantrums where I thought that complaining would get us there sooner, I thought I saw a dog right off the path.  Dog? At that point, I'm sure any animal could have sensed my get-out-of-my-way energy from miles away and knew not to mess with me.  A few steps more and we saw that it was a bobcat.  Pretty big, I thought but it had less interest in us than we did in it.  That was our only encounter with "wildlife".  Yay!

I'm not sure how long it took us, but by the time we got there, it was almost dark.  We could see the lights of the rock climbers as they were hanging on the side of Half Dome...that was awesome!  We were also soaking wet with sweat by the time we got there too.  (I'm sure this will be TMI, but I was wearing the only "normal bra" I brought on this trip.  I wasn't expecting to sweat like a pig in it.  I brought other sports bras for that...so that little issue made things interesting at the end of the trip when I needed a bra...Lake Tahoe...90 degrees...Julie's wearing a jacket)

We put up the tent with the help of our head lamps...which attract moths by the way...used the last "civilized" bathroom/outhouse we would see for a couple of days, put all our food into bear proof cupboard things they had all over the campground (bears?), got in the tent, had to take off our sweat soaked clothes, and try to rest while backpackers right next to us felt it necessary to hammer in and anchor their tent stakes with big rocks.  Really?  

That night was also the first night I ever slept without a pillow.  Oh, I love pillows!

We woke up at 5:30am...ate our dehydrated breakfast which was really good actually, and headed back to the car.  We did't take our backpacks so I was able to take a few pics.

We got to the car and made a new, smarter plan, which was driving to the wilderness center where we rented our bear canisters, took a quiz about what we could and could not do in the wilderness and got our permit, drove pack to where we had parked before, and found a shuttle that took us closer the campground.  Why did that park ranger give us directions to go the long way?

In addition to taking off my tiara, I had to check my sash in...so I think my attitude was much better the second day.  I was still nervous about what to expect.  We had no idea what was in store for us.  We had a topographic map which showed elevation and landmarks...Will's pretty good with a map, he's had a little training, and we knew that we had to be 4 miles up the canyon before we could camp.  It was a 2.6 mile climb up the face of the mountain...3,000 feet.  Optimistically we were thinking that if we went 1 mph, it would take us maybe 3 hours.

What we didn't take into account was that we were carrying WAY too heavy backpacks (Will wanted me to camp in semi-luxury...he loves me and wanted me to stick around) and that the trail we were taking was, as it said in the brochure, one of the hardest hiking trails out of Yosemite Valley.  I should have known it was going to be hard when I noticed at the wilderness center that almost all the other hikes were full/reserved = easier, and the hike we were taking was available.  There were people waiting on "stand-by" to get a permit to hike one of the other trails.  I thought, why don't they do this one.

I wonder.

We hiked for almost 2 miles past this beautiful lake, Mirror Lake, before we got to the beginning of our trail.  This is where the smart people stopped.  It wasn't really touristy when we went up, but when we passed this point on the way down, it was as if we were in another country.  We were close to the only English speakers there.  I can see why people flock to Yosemite though.

I kept my camera with me for a little while thinking that I could hike with it around my neck...that didn't last long.  The sun started to really heat things up and taking pictures seemed a lot less important at that point.

You can't see the trail we took...but it's there.  Really.  Seriously, I'm looking at the trail right now in this picture.

As Will tells it...from the time we started the switchbacks to the top of the mountain where we could find a place to camp was 2.6 miles.  South facing slope, which means it was full on sun, and the equivalent of climbing a 300 storey building.  Sound fun?

 Nope.

For about the first two hours, it was ok.  I was still enjoying the adventure.  That's the time when we thought we were about halfway up.  Not even close.  NOT EVEN!  We were enjoying the beautiful views and we had seen a couple of other groups of hikers that we kept leap frogging with.  It became part of my goal to not let them pass us after we passed them, but towards the end they all smoked us.  there was no way to keep up with them with our heavy packs and towards the top we lost sight of them altogether and never saw them again.  We hiked back and forth up the switchbacks...113 of them---once my irritating brain started to keep track, I couldn't stop counting on the way back.

The trail was so steep that we would have to stop every couple of minutes to let our heart rates come back down.  Over and over and over.

So many times I had a conversation going through my head like...oh, my H.E. double hockey-sticks!!!  I can't believe how hard this is, how could I describe into words to have anyone comprehend how hard this is!  There is no way to describe how hard this is!!! Nobody is going to believe me when I tell them how hard this is!!  And there were so many times that I would make another turn on a switchback, look up at the trail and see it still going and going when I thought we couldn't possibly get any higher, and say "seriously?" and "honestly!" in such a way that it would have made a sailor blush!

Glass half full side, we got to some nice shade at the first place we crossed water...the wind was fairly strong and felt cool and great on our sweaty backs (lovely!) and we had already drunk our gallon of water, so we stopped and filled up the water filter and waited for our containers to fill again.  That took a while because we would drink it as fast as it would fill up.  That was another first for me...drinking water not from some sort of tap or pipe. As long as the weeds and moss weren't floating in it...I was drinking it!

Tired gage:  Will fell asleep waiting for the water containers to fill.  That's how tired we were.  Me, I just can't sleep on any old rock unfortunately.  I think that's the part that scared me the most---Will was exhausted!  I consider myself a pretty tough girl.  I may look fat, but underneath it all I could compete with an ox in a strength competition.  I've decided that I am going to stop talking about how much I work out because I don't think people believe it by looking at me.  Not once was I worried about breaking a nail or getting dirty or being tired.  I knew that would happen.  I knew backpacking was going to be hard (not as hard as this experience was...but...) and I'm not so prissy that I can't rough it for a few days.  The only part that scared me about this entire trip before we left was getting attacked by a bear.  Not killed.  Attacked.  I kept asking Will if he would still love me with half a face or one arm and one leg.  I was seriously nervous about encountering a bear.  I even almost bought bear spray and would have but it was $32!!!  I was thinking more like $6...so I guess my vanity isn't worth $32.  Now...at this point in our adventure, bears were at the bottom of my scared list.

Will being exhausted was at the top.  

I know Will.  He's THE toughest man I know.  He can do anything.  I trust him 1000%  When he said that he was the size of a bear and he would wrestle it to the ground and stab it before he let it attack me, I completely believed him.  Except,  I had to point out that he doesn't have long sharp claws and big sharp teeth in a mouth that can open wider than his head.  I still believed him.

But when he said he was spent.  I was worried.  Will is never supposed to get tired.  He's the energizer bunny!  He never plays or has fun...he works!  His backpack was at least, 70 pounds. At least.  He was carrying the entire bathroom and kitchen, minus the kitchen sink, so that I would be comfortable at camp.  A lot of the stuff he carried was for an emergency mostly, so we never used it, but if we hadn't have brought it up...we most definitely would have needed it.  That's just how it goes, huh?

I know I am mostly a pessimistic person (drives Will nuts!!)...the glass is half empty, always plan for the worst type person, and I know that this whole story sounds so negative, but it gets better.  The views kept getting better and better for sure and I knew we would eventually make it to the top.  There was no other option.  Crying didn't work.  I tried that a few times.  I didn't want to make Will feel bad and the trail was so steep and narrow that sleeping on the trail was not an option either.  Believe me...I was ready to go right back to the valley floor and spend the next couple of days pretending to speak another language to fit in, but I couldn't let all the hard climbing we had done be in vain.

So after about 6 hours (remember that our original time estimate was 2 hours) we finally made it to the top and I was ready to camp right there.  Take 40 paces off the trail, set up the tent, go to sleep.  

But no.

We kept walking for another hour...deeper and deeper into the woods.  No beautiful meadow at the top.  No easy to pick out camping spot.  It was steep and covered in huge tall pine trees and a tree graveyard.  Skeletons of trees were covering everything.  Obviously there had been a fire years before so it was haunting to see some of the trees hollowed out by fire, yet still standing.  Some trees looked like they were snapped in half for no reason.  Some branches had beautiful florescent green moss stuff growing on them.  It almost looked like fluffy green coral.

Still not what I was expecting.  I wanted something easy to happen after the hardest thing I had ever done.  EVER!  E.V.E.R.

We kept walking until most of the trail was a sludgy, moggy stream from all the snow melting.  I had to keep reminding myself that I had waterproof hiking boots on and it was ok to get them wet and dirty.  It was a wall I had to climb.  When we started to walk over snow and hikers passing us telling us that the trail was covered with snow and they were using their GPS's to find their way through, I was done.

I let Will get a little ahead of me and when he finally turned around to see where I was I gave him the  knife cutting the neck motion.  "I'm DONE!  I'm not going any further!"  So I sat on a huge tree that had fallen and they had to cut a chunk out of it to let the path through, watched big, black ants eat holes in the wood, and waited for Will to find a spot to camp.

We had to find an existing fire pit and be at least 40 paces off the trail and at least 40 paces away from water.  It was a millimeter away from being impossible.  We eventually found a spot that met all three criteria, barely, and set up camp.  The only problem with our spot was that it was visible from the trail and we didn't like that. But...we were there!  

We made dinner, cleaned up, crammed everything into our bear containers that had a scent and went to bed.  It was cold.  We were camping amid the snow, not necessarily ON the snow, but we had snow all around us.  So when the wind would blow, it was a brrrrr cold.  

Exhausted.  

Something I didn't really think about needing was a pillow.  I always take my pillow when we go camping, but this was obviously different, so my fuzzy warm jacket became my pillow.  I rolled it into a ball and laid my head on it and got a huge whiff of wonderful civilization...fabric softner.  Ahhh, it smelled so good it gave me goosebumps and brought tears to my eyes!!!  That made me more homesick than anything else the entire trip.  So I made sure I didn't use that jacket for anything else but sinking my nose into at night.

Exhausted, yet unable to sleep.  Not because of my fear of a bear, which Will was secretly hoping to see, but because of total and complete uncomfortableness.  Will was having the same issue, he was sleeping in some sort of a ditch from a tree we had to move to set up the tent.  Sheesh!  I was warm, but had leg aches and my head was pounding and I knew that my salvation from this headache was 100 paces away, in a bear container...and it was 3:30am.  I heard Will's watch alarm go off hourly for 3 hours until it was light and I told Will I needed pain meds for my head.

He's my hero.  Fortunately, the bear containers hadn't moved an inch...to Will's dismay...and I got my relief and got back in the tent to squeeze my head and sleep some more.  The next thing I remember is Will unzipping the tent and saying good-morning and him telling me that he had found another, better, flatter campground further off the trail and he had already moved our backpacks and everything else and wanted to move the tent now, too.

It was a good move.  Today was a new day.  I told Will that I would NOT go up any more hills.  My brain was already freaking out just thinking about having to go back down the trail...it had been freaking out half way up the trail, so today was for sightseeing and relaxing.  

Which we did.  We found a stream and soaked our feet in it's freezing cold water.  It felt sooo good.

Then we hiked back toward the valley to get another view of Half Dome.  Saw a deer, lots of lizards and no bears. :)

I needed to make all Will's hard work pay off for carrying my heavy camera equipment up...so I got in a few pictures.  Who cares at this point! We had accomplished something that people can only dream of doing.  I was proud of what we had accomplished and it's something that can never be taken away from me.  

There are a few things in my life that I can say I'm proud of.  Of course my family...my kids are my proudest accomplishment.  I've done some crazy hard, physical things in my life.  I/we've also endured some pretty emotional, stressful things in our life which I would never wish away or want to do again, either.  I don't really get a choice in that though. And most of these accomplishments, I can safely say, I will NEVER, N.E.V.E.R. neverrrrrrrrr do again.

This is one of those accomplishments.  Safely.  NEVER.

This is home in Yosemite.  We didn't see another human soul our entire time up here.  And when I got bored, I used the rest of the battery on my phone to get addicted to a certain game involving birds who are angry! ;)  Technology saves the day again!

This little container was our safety net from the bears.  That and Will's muscles!! :)

And this was the soundtrack to our adventure.  From the second we got into Yosemite we could hear roaring water.  Even to the top of our hike we could hear roaring.  It got deafening though, and it was nice when Will moved our camp and we weren't so close to this river.  As beautiful and incredible as it is, it's nice to be in the middle of nowhere and hear silence, this was nowhere near silent.  

Will was so good to me.  He made me blueberry pancakes both mornings...yes, he even packed up a griddle to make me pancakes on...he made good fires, fetched the water, built me a shower and he continued to carry my camera stuff around for me so that I could take as many pictures as I wanted.

Our second night was cold, but I think we slept better.  We (umm, I was...) were really nervous about getting to the bottom and the wilderness center in time to return our bear containers, and we still had to drive to Lake Tahoe so we decided to leave camp at 7 in the morning hoping to make it there by 5 that afternoon.   Well, it was more like 9 when we left...but our attitudes had improved from the hike up.  How could they not!  How many hours does that give us to get down...10 hours?  We weren't going to risk it.

Awww, my favorite picture!  I lugged two tripods up in my pack and used one of them once.  It was worth it!

Finally seeing where we were heading back to.  It doesn't look that big...but it's huge.

This is the famous El Capitan.  We joined the photo crazy tourists in a meadow and tried to catch glimpses of rock climbers.  Which we did.  Amazing.  I think my experience was easy compared to what these guys are doing.  Did I say amazing?  I mean crazy!

Leaving the valley.

Obviously, I'm standing on higher ground than Will is. Just clarifying!

A little snow.

And we were off to Lake Tahoe, CA on a beautiful twisty turny ride...where on the way, we THINK we saw a bear high-tail it off the road leaving a poof of dust (I might have been playing that bird game so I didn't really see it) and we bought the most expensive soft-serve ice cream cone ever and Will found me a place to get the most well-deserved, delicious diet coke EVER!  Will got nostalgic and wild (he's always a water guy) and got a half dr. pepper, half rootbeer.  I think that might be my new favorite!

I'll show Lake Tahoe later.  I think even I've had enough of this!