Melina: Fischertrails Yosemite Trip Day 4 and A Tale of the Half Dome Adventure, and The Mama BEAR!!!

An excerpt from the Journal!

Thursday June 20, 2013

We woke up early this morning and closed up our tent and headed out to hike up to half dome. The morning was chilly and we thought we would be the only one on the trail, but into our hike we met a family who had started hiking from Yosemite Valley at 3am. We took our time until we saw more people coming up the trail then; we made it our goal to get up there before it was too crowded. The hike was a bit strenuous at the start; along the way we saw a large group of young boys we found out once we got to the top that they were a group of boy scouts. We began to make our way over the sub dome and I began to have that woozy feeling it was pretty scary climbing over the first dome. Then we finally got to the cables of half dome, and that is where I froze I looked up at the cables that led straight over the face of the dome, and I sat there quietly contemplating the torture I would endure climbing over (not because it was too physically difficult but to emotionally difficult) my palms began to sweat and I looked into Tim’s eyes, and I could tell that he saw the fear I was feeling, and then I just began to tear up (again it might have been the PMS). I asked him to go up without me, it was never a dream of mine to climb up half dome, it was one of Tim’s for years, so I didn’t want to have him miss out but I
knew I couldn’t do it, afraid I might start to panic halfway up I made the decision to stay down and just watch.

As I was sitting on the bottom watching Tim climb up, praying for his safety the whole time I began to cry again (seriously it was the hormones ladies you can relate I’m sure). There were a few of the boy scouts sitting there also too afraid to go up. I overheard them encouraging each other saying “it’s alright nothing wrong with a fear of heights” one of the scouts whispered to his friends “I have a long life to live, I don’t want to die a virgin!” I giggled quietly to myself. Then one of the Boy Scout leaders came sat by me gave me a hug and asked if he could ask what’s wrong. I told him that I was afraid to climb up and was worried that I let my husband down. He then told me he would be back with a story to share with me and the other boy scouts that feared the heights. He shared a story about his wife feeling afraid and his 5-year-old and eight year old daughters, but he reassured them he would get them up safely and they trusted him and they did it (can you imagine how silly I felt a 5 year old was braver than me). He then offered to hook me up to him and the cables so we could go up safely. I thought about and for a minute considered it, but then I was filled with a sense of relief when I saw Tim making his way, down, I graciously thanked the man and said that it was ok my husband was on his way down. One of the boy scouts then said “you can meet him halfway” to the tune of Black Eyed Peas “meet me halfway”, I laughed but was just fine staying down waiting and watching Tim make his way down.

When Tim finally made his way down the dome we sat and waited for him to rest a bit then climbed back over the sub dome and then made our way down the hill, we made it back to our camp, and packed up our stuff. We then made our way on the trail that led down to the valley from half dome, the trail was really starting to get crowded and it was now noon people making their way to half dome looked exhausted I couldn’t help but feel bad for them because they still had a really long hike to go.

We were so tired when we finally got to our midway destination of Little Yosemite valley there was a backpacker camp there and I was so thrilled when I saw they had bathrooms, (days of going in nature was not really my favorite part of the trip) sure they were just port a potty style bathrooms that smelt horrible, but at least they were bathrooms (trust me when I say it was a luxury). It was here that we ran into our Boy Scout pals again.

We stopped by the river and decided to take a dip, the water was freezing cold, but we were so hot it felt refreshing and was magic to our sore muscles and aches and pains. After lying out and drying in the sun we were so refreshed and ready to continue our trek. We hiked a couple more miles near the river to this beautiful waterfall called Nevada Falls it was so beautiful we had planned on staying just off the trail a little ways, up as was recommended by our backpacking expert Laurie, but we could not find the spot she was talking about. We debated in our heads for a good 20 minutes whether or not to keep searching among the woods and hills to find a flat ground to stay (seriously couldn’t find anything flat, the ground was slanted along the hillside), but we finally decided (discouragingly I might add) to head back to Little Yosemite Valley and stay at that backpackers camp. As bummed as I was to add 4 extra miles to our day I was secretly thrilled to camp where there was actually a bathroom (sorry to freak anyone out with this TMI info but my time of the month had come for a visit that day and the luxury of a bathroom was like a 4 star hotel to me at the time).

We finally made it to the camp it was crowded with boys scouts and other tired backpackers; we found a spot in the middle of all of them (which we would find out later was a great idea). Set up camp and cooked a delicious dinner of herb seasoned rice orzo and rice pilaf with some lemon herb marinated salmon, we scarfed down our food as it was the best meal we had all week. We had no more meals in our bear canister and started talking about what our first meal would be when we made it down the Valley, at the site next to us we heard a man talking about getting to the valley and eating a cheeseburger and chocolate shake, I looked at Tim and smiled yeah that sounds good a cheeseburger and a shake, no even better a bacon cheeseburger with a side of fries and a chocolate shake. We giggled to ourselves bellies full thinking about how we would enjoy a heavy meal after all this labor.

We decided to relax in our tent a little early as we were soooo exhausted and shortly after we got comfy a ranger came knocking out our tent asking for our wilderness permit, (first time we were asked for our permit the whole week) I quickly got up searched in my pack and gave him the permit, he reiterated the importance of locking away any scented items and food so bears do not come for a visit. I smiled at him thinking to myself sure thing we haven’t seen a bear yet (I was beginning to think there were no such bears or they were such rare occurrences we would not encounter them at all).

We went to sleep and slept deeply until late that night, when I woke up to the sound of campers around our tent clapping and shouting “Go Away Bear” I quickly woke up and sat alert ready for action, listening intently for a bear growl. I looked over to see Tim sound asleep, I wondered if I should wake him, but when I heard the mention of another bear I quickly woke him up and whispered “Tim there’s a bear out there” (too afraid to speak too loudly as I feared the bear might jump in the tent to get me, completely irrational I know) Tim sleepily said “no there’s not go back to sleep”, then he heard the sound of campers shouting “get out of hear bear”. We heard the voice of a young boy say “Dad it’s a bear cub, look up in the tree”, then we heard the cub cry out in fear. We heard the campers around talking about another cub that was now also up in the tree afraid of all the noise and flashlights that the campers were making. We heard the cubs crying out to the momma bear........... and then we heard the deep growl of the momma bear coming for her cubs. At that we heard the young boy shout “dad look it’s the mom she’s huge”, then he called for a man named GARY he said “Gary, Gary!! now would be a good time to use your bear whistle Gary!!” We then heard Gary blowing his whistle loudly. Tim couldn’t resist the action; he jumped out of our tent to see the bear. He walked over in time to witness big mama bear climb up into the tree after her cubs right above the young boys tent. She had been frightened by “Gary’s famous whistle”, all the campers flash lights, a man far down the road roaring, and banging his pots. When the commotion died down everyone agreed it would be best to move the tent, quiet down and let the bears come down and leave on their own. After a few minutes of silence we heard the sound of the bears climbing down from the trees a few minutes later the campsite was silence with the sound of all the camper’s peacefully sleeping knowing those bears probably would not be back anytime soon, in large part thanks to Gary and his whistle.