Yosemite Day 2

So I went to bed last night with full intentions of not having to go outside to use the bathroom, since they have just as many bears in Yosemite as Sequoia. I purposefully didn’t drink anything after 6:00pm, but of course I had to go outside, so I did my now famous 5-10 minute ritual of gathering the courage to go outside in the dark. I woke up sometime in the night and heard animal footsteps outside the tent. I lay awake in terror for a good 5 minutes before I realized that it had to be a deer since it sounded like hooves and what ever it was was eating grass. As soon as I turned over it ran away anyway, so that was a relief.

As I was walking to the bathroom this morning, I saw a large pile of poo in our campsite. It was definitely not deer poo. It could have been dog poo from one of the other campers, but I’m betting it was bear poo. I can’t be certain, but of course it’s bear in my mind.

We had a delicious breakfast of sweet potato pancake and bacon. My sister, Nicole’s, mom got them for us when we were in Atlanta. It’s a mix where all you have to add in water and they are so good! You don’t even need to put syrup on them.

Today we planned to take a hike in the Yosemite Valley. On the way to the valley is a viewing point called Tunnel View. It is a spectacular view of the Yosemite Valley with great views of Half Dome, El Capitan and Bridalveil Falls. It’s an image that you may even recognize as it shows up a lot when you see pictures of Yosemite. We also passed the Yosemite Chapel on the way in. It’s pretty old and would be a cool place to get married.

Kate snapped a good picture of Stellar’s Jay while we were in the valley today. They are a pretty big blue jay and they like the tourists for all their food and trash.

We got into the valley at just the right time and prepared for our hike. The hike we took was on the Mist Trail and was a hike up to the top of Vernal Falls. The Mist Trail is the signature hike of Yosemite. We figured it would be kind of steep since we were hiking up to the top of a waterfall, but we weren’t prepared for what lay in store for us. Virtually every step of the hike was very uphill. When you finally get to the end of the paved uphill path, you start on the unpaved uphill path. I have never hiked anything like this before. You are picking your way up these paths and steps that are so steep. Not to mention the fact that there are people everywhere. Yosemite is so crowded in the summer and there were people trying this hike that looked like they may have a heart attack at any moment. Kate and I may have looked like that too because this hike was crazy. The total hike is 1.8 miles and over that 8 miles you climb over 1,000 feet in elevation. This trail is called the Mist Trail because you walk so close to the waterfall that it sprays mist on you for a good portion of the trail. We ere literally soaking wet by the time we got finished, but we were so tired that we didn’t care.

We ate lunch at the top of Vernal Falls and watch all the tourists ignore the 10,000 signs that say not to feed the squirrels. I hate squirrels, so when they come up to us, we scare them away, which is what you should do since they are wild animals. Instead, people feed them so they get used to getting food from people. There were over 300 squirrels bites in Yosemite last year, making the squirrel the most dangerous animal in the park.

We made our way down the trail, which was equally as strenuous because it’s so steep. Our knees hurt quite a bit from the strain of going downhill, and we were glad to get to the bottom.

We got a little snack and then rode our bikes around the park a bit. Yosemite has a bike trail that goes around the interior of the valley so you can see a lot of the valley on your bike. It was a nice ride and it made us glad we had brought our bikes with us.

After the bikes, we headed back up to Glacier Point to get Kate a t-shirt that she really liked. I liked it too and was going to get one, but it didn’t fit right. It is the only t-shirt I have seen on the entire trip that I really liked and now Kate has it and I don’t. Not fair. We had a little supper back at our campsite then lit a small fire for a while. Our neighbors had gathered a bunch of firewood and were leaving the next day so they gave us some of their wood to use. We now know for a fact that our trouble keeping a fire last year was 100% due to the bad wood we got in Gran Teton. This fire lit with one match and burned like a champ. We spent the time by the fire waging a small war against the Yosemite mosquitoes. They were a formidable opponent. I was doing well defending my front, but they were sending soldiers to distract me in the front while they bit me through my shirt on my back. I had a little section of 4 or 5 bites on my back. It was a good strategy, although they lost of a lot of good men in the process. Once I got wise to their strategy, I think I won the day.

As I was walking back from the last bathroom run of the evening, I saw our neighbors just casually sitting by their fire smoking a joint. They had been cooking massive amounts of food all weekend and now we know why.

So darkness falls again and fear returns. I am not the least bit scared of bears during the day, but something about them at night freaks me out. I know they don’t want to eat me, but I also know that people in California are crazy for the most part, so why would the bears be any different? Let’s hope my bladder and I can get on the same page.

That’s it for day 2!