Yosemite Sam

Take it from me: it's not easy to be an aspiring model for North Face running apparel.  The aerobic routine of logging miles day in and day out requires commitment.  Next, there's the volumes of unreturned handwritten correspondence you may elect to send to the company's San Leandro headquarters.  After time you'll find that you get that little bump on the inside of your middle finger where the pencil is held.  Commitment.  And equally important to those first two considerations is to come across as an born outdoorsman, comfortable in the elements and physically hearty.  To aid in that third objective I take it upon myself to visit Yosemite National Park somewhat regularly.  This weekend I was to return, to spend two days and nights living off the land.  And whatever I could buy at the Curry Village Gift / Grocery Shoppe.


A Friday afternoon departure from San Francisco put me on track to be in Yosemite Valley during the final moments of rare (for northern California) 8:00 PM daylight.  That is just fine with me; it is always pleasant entering Yosemite at dusk.  During the drive in, after cresting Old Priest Road, I stop for gas.  Just as I step away from my car for a moment, a stranger asks me if I work at the gas station.  Things can only improve from here.


It is indeed dusk when I make my arrival at the Upper Pines campground.  After fixing camp and eating dinner, I burn a campfire¹ for a few hours, then put it out, then walk out into the meadow.  The stars above Yosemite Valley are out as if it were a formal occasion.  Gradually, voices throughout the park submit to the forest and the night.


AB,I enthusiasts may recall that on separate trips in 2011 I hiked Yosmite Falls and the Mist Trail.  For this trip I've decided upon the Four Mile Trail², which climbs about 3,000 feet to an overlook called Glacier Point.  As the trail winds its way up, it presents a series of views of the Falls...

...Sentinel³, El Capitan, and the Merced River below...

...Half Dome...

...and up near the top, the Overhanging Rock.

Thankfully, there are no devastating rockfalls during my ascent.  There were, however, several explosive encounters with beasts of the wild.

One other thing I wanted to do (after I got back down to the valley floor) was scout for interesting views along the Merced River.  I figured the late afternoon light would be good for that.

On Sunday, after my visit has come to an end, I'm eating at a restaurant an hour outside the park.  At the table next to me is a group of hikers, and I overhear one of them relating a story about Chongo, a homeless climber who lived in the park for several decades.  I looked up Chongo's story later (one version can be found here).  Among his writings:

All the dreams

all the schemes

and all the beautiful scenes, that ever were

First never were

Then were forever

Then never, ever were again

He was a man very interested in, among other things, destiny.

I'm not sure how many Yosemite trips remain in store for me.  Five?  Ten?  I hope I'm undershooting it.  I do know that I plan to be back in August, with 11 others, to hike Half Dome.  

¹ Recommended further campfire reading can be found in my heretofore unannounced upcoming book Zen and the Art of Campfire Maintenance (Bantam, $19.75).  An excerpt:

There are two essential stages to any good campfire.

The first of those stages is the fire's creation.  You must go from a state of being fireless to one of being fireful.  Here, your primary interest is to establish and maintain a heat source, and then build around that.  The placement of every log is an act of careful decision-making.  The fire's preferred means of accessing oxygen often seems to be a mystery, one that log placement may emphasize more often than solve.  During the creation stage it is entirely likely that setbacks will be encountered, refinements required.  But if the setup is thoughtful, adequate, and in harmony with the conditions, the fire enters its second stage, that of self-reliance.  At this point the fire will burn on its own accord.  Log placement is not of practical importance any longer, nor is respect for the subtleties of air flow.  The campfire endures and can do so in the background, without the attention paid in the first stage, and its creator(s) can go about whatever activities the fire's presence enables or enhances.  

There are two important things to note about the two stages of a campfire.  The first is that they are symmetrical in requirement / reward.  A fire that takes a great deal of care and effort to ignite is very satisfying once it becomes self-sufficient.  Conversely, a fire that lights immediately with the stroke of a single match affords neither great joy nor great disappointment later.  Second, the stages are discrete in their identification but blend together chronologically.  In this discussion we can conceptually tie the stages of creation and endurance together with a single physical element: it being the one log or piece of fuel that we recognize as crucial to the whole operation as it is being deployed.  We may feel that the entire fate of the fire hinges on this one log and the decision to incorporate it and the method with which to do so.  If things work out, and the fire burns on its own, and that particular log breaks down and becomes less log-like and more an arrangement of coals, we regard it specifically with a sort of wistful nostalgia, of reverence for its performance.  Through the destruction of the tree we have become uncommonly connected with it.

² Next on the to-do list, after Half Dome this year, are Cloud's Rest, Tenaya Peak, and TBD in Toulumne Meadows.
³ A climber named Alex Honnold has free solo'd many of the iconic peaks in the park, including Sentinel.  60 Minutes produced a captivating feature on that climb, which is worth watching if you haven't seen it yet.