We now continue with Chapter 2 of our North American Journey Chronicles. If you missed Chapter 1, don’t despair, you’ll find it here:
North American Journey Chronicles
First, a Note: I’ve decided to change the name of my NECTARBALL: High Quality Life Substack to LOVE STORIES because that’s the direction my writing has taken me. And I have moved all my subscribers from “A Diary Left Open” to this one, in the interest of efficiency. I hope you will continue to join me on the ride! (If not, that’s okay. C’est la vie.)
(Spring 1986)
The first day, we explored as much as we could of Yosemite Valley. We were amazed and amused to see valet parking at Yosemite’s hotel; and the “camper’s market” was stocked with items like rare-vintage champagnes, various types of cheeses and caviars, and other culinary extravagances favored by the gourmet recreationist. Certainly not your usual rice-and-beans camper fare.
We bought enough staples for a three-day hike and parked the camper in a safe-looking lot where we spent the night. The next morning, we awoke early, and wearing forty-pound backpacks strode hand-in-hand toward the trailhead. As we were about to enter the trail, a woman emerged from between sets of birch trees.
“Hello,” she said.
“Good morning!” we said. “That is a beautiful walking stick,” I added.
“Thank you.” She held it out to me. “Keep it. Use it for your hike.”
I was flabbergasted. “Really?”
She nodded. “Hike with it in good health.”
I inspected it in wonder as she walked away. I couldn’t tell what kind of wood it was, but it was blonde, straight and sturdy. Perhaps she had found it here in Yosemite. Before I could ask her for any further details, she had disappeared.
The stick came in quite handy up the drenched foot-tall rock steps that led up to and beyond Nevada Falls, a mile above the valley. It was nice to lean the hundred-and-eighty pounds of me and backpack on the magic walking stick.
After admiring the waterfall for a few minutes, Mark and I continued onward, upward, away from most hikers who at this point turned back toward the valley, toward their champagne, salmon and truffles, their valet parking, and all the other trappings of civilization.
That first night we set up camp beside the fast-flowing Merced River. As the cold darkness enveloped us, we built a fire and told each other ghost stories over our rice, tuna and cheese casserole. After we’d run out of food, conversation, and firewood, we decided it was time for bed. On a rope we attached to the limbs of two separate trees, we suspended our bag of food so bears could not get it. We brushed our teeth and went into our tent.
It was one of those cold Aprils in Yosemite where the weather could go either way at any moment.
Mark and I had learned an important lesson in ‘82 when we’d trekked New Zealand and endured one night in Invercargill (we later dubbed it “Inverted Call Girl”) sleeping in separate sleeping bags. This time we were prepared with sleeping bags that zipped together, so that we could feast on each other’s body heat on such cold nights as this. Our Thermarest inflatable mattresses also connected, so we could sleep in comfort, an inch above pebbles and pine needles.
It took a while to fall asleep.
I’d finally fallen into a deep slumber when Mark nudged me awake. “Ssshhhh, hear that?”
I sat up and listened. I didn’t hear anything. “No.” I lay back down. Mark sat there, tense, listening, for a while longer. Then he sighed and settled back into the sleeping bag where we both slept soundly until morning.
It customarily took me longer to get dressed and out of the tent, as I steeled myself against the cold. Therefore, Mark was first to discover evidence of a nocturnal wanderer.
“Patty, get out here. You’ve got to see this.”
When I finally emerged from the tent, Mark led me to a set of tracks. “Black bear,” he said. “Retractable claws.”
He then pulled me over toward the log stump on which we had left a bottle of insect repellant and tube of toothpaste. The toothpaste was untouched, but there were teeth marks in the Muskol bottle.
“Look, notice the teeth marks don’t go through. He must have sensed that this doesn’t taste very good.” Mark laughed. “But I wonder why he didn’t go for the nice, minty toothpaste.”
“I wonder if he tried to grab our food.” I looked up at the food bag which was still right where we’d put it.
“Oh yeah, he did,” Mark pointed at claw marks in one of the trees, about five feet up, just a foot or so below the bough on which our food rested. “He was a tall boy, too.”
“Well, I’m just glad he decided not to come and visit the inside of our humble little abode.”
“That’s why the rangers tell you to keep all food items outside the tent. Yogi is more interested in our food than he is in us humans.”
“I wonder which way he went.”
“Well, whichever way he went, I’m sure he’s not the only bear on the premises.” Mark laughed.
After a breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, bread and hot cocoa, we pulled up stakes and spent the day hiking to our next campsite, at the base of Half Dome.
Just as we had erected the tent, a chill wind rose, and with it a flurry of snow. Despite the cook-and-eat-outside-to-avoid-bears-inside rule, we concocted a vegetable soup over the flame of our stove just inside the tent. After dinner, finding a place to hang the food bag was more difficult as this location featured fewer trees with boughs at convenient heights. And a steady snow was falling.
“I’ll find a place to stash the food,” Mark told me. “You get our nest all comfy.”
He was gone for about half an hour during which time I worried endlessly about what could have happened to him. I cowered inside, listening to the snow landing softly on the tent. Suddenly I heard the rapid brush-brush of a hand on the tent’s rain fly. Ah, he was back!
The zipper came open and his rosy-cheeked face leaned down towards me. “Found a good spot for the food about a quarter mile away. But we have other worries right now. The snow is coming down pretty thick. We’re going to have to get up periodically in the night to brush it off.”
“You mean we could get buried in snow?”
“It’s a distinct possibility. This tent is not made for snow.”
Three or four times in the night we took turns waking up, getting a coat, pants and boots on, and eradicating the inch or so carpet of snow on top of the tent.
By morning the blizzard had ended. When we came out of the tent, we found ourselves surrounded by a silent, glittery Ansel Adams winter-scape.
After Mark fetched the food bag, I fixed our now customary breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, bread and hot cocoa, which we ate inside the tent.
“Do you still want to climb Half Dome today?” I asked Mark.
“Let’s try it. It’s not snowing anymore. If the weather turns, we’ll just hike back down.”
“Okay,” I said, “But you know what the guidebook says, the weather can change in the blink of an eye. Don’t forget those hikers who got struck by lightning at the top of Half Dome and were burned to a crisp.”
“Don’t worry. We’re going to have fun today. We’ll know when to turn back.”
Mark re-stashed the food bag up and away from potential bears. We left the tent up, and our belongings locked inside with a miniature padlock. We were sure our remote campsite was probably safe from thieves. Padding through virgin snow, we hiked up the backside of Half Dome.
After two or three miles, we came to a spot where two parallel cables lay on the sloping granite. No snow clung to the rather steep rock.
“These cables are usually up for hikers,” Mark told me. “They must be down for the season.” He looked at me and grinned. “But that’s not going to stop us, is it?”
“Nope!”
We kissed. Then I followed in Mark’s footsteps, gripping the cables in our mitten-less hands as we ascended, clinging to Half Dome’s smooth backside.
A picture kept coming to my mind of the unfortunate hikers who had been stung by lightning on the top of this venerable peak. One of them had apparently skittered right off the edge, in a sort of electric tango.
It took about forty-five minutes for us to make it to the top, where we ate a lunch of M & M’s, raisins, nuts and apples, and snapped a few photos of the vast beauty surrounding us. A few gray clouds gathered above, and a light rain ensued, bringing the lightning-struck hikers back to mind.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
We made for the edge where the cables awaited. Our route looked much steeper going down than it had coming up. It’s a fact that the descent is more difficult on any mountain. We carefully began picking our way down.
When we reached the granite’s base, we both let out long, relieved breaths as though we’d held them from the top. We continued our hike down the switchback trail until Mark tried skiing on his boots down the snowy slope.
“Hey, this works!” he laughed. “Come on and try it, Patty.”
My mastery of skiing literally fell short of his and I landed on my butt every time I attempted to follow his ski treads. “I don’t think my boots work like yours,” I said, and regained the trail.
“I’m gonna keep on skiing down,” Mark said. “This is too much fun!” And off he went.
It took me at least half an hour longer to join him at the base of Half Dome.
“That was great!” he bragged. “Imagine that - skiing down Half Dome!”
“You are a wild and crazy man,” I told him, hugging him.
“You know what?” He hugged me back hard. “I am wild and crazy about you!”