Yosemite: Day Four

Yosemite: Day Four

Day Four

During his morning stroll to our bear can, Carl discovered a ripped open bag of half-eaten tea satchels, something that was sweet and pink but was so gnawed up it was impossible to tell what it had once been, and ten packs of Starbucks Via coffee less than a hundred feet from our tent.

We set off to find the owners. Mostly because I was mad and I wanted to know which idiot hadn’t stored their food properly. I know that sounds mean, but by not following the rules they put everyone in camp, and the poor bear, in danger. Yosemite has a stringent bear policy. If this bear became accustomed to people food, he wasn’t going to be relocated; he was going to be killed.

We don’t find anyone missing food. Instead, we meet a couple who’s foodstuffs had been in a Kevlar Bear Sack tied to a little Charlie Brown Christmas Special tree about fifty feet from their tent. The bag was more or less intact if you overlook the giant teeth holes, but everything inside was a crushed mess. They hadn’t even heard him.

This, they believed, was partly due to the sleeping drugs they had taken the night before, and partly due to the hairs between a bears foot pads that make them stealthy little buggers.

I suddenly had a new chapter for my book.

“Chapter 3: If a Bear Rips into Your Food Stuffs, Does it Make a Sound?”

I am neither a scientist nor a genius, but looking at the teeth marks in their food bag, I questioned the “bear-proof-ness” of the Kevlar Bear Sack. It appeared to be the equivalent of sticking a sandwich in a Ziploc baggy and tying it to a twig and then insisting it was raccoon proof. I mean technically, I guess, the food was still in the bag, mostly, but it was most definitely no longer edible, which in my mind kind of defeated the purpose. Meh, what did I know? Maybe they had been using it wrong; they seemed groggy and a little drunk.

We asked if they needed food, but oddly enough, they insisted they had all they needed. They also told us the food we had found, had likely belonged to an Asian man they had met the night before. He was out of water, lying “overturned turtle” on his backpack, calling for help. I had a sneaking suspicion I knew who this was. They filtered him water as he told them the story of how he had gotten separated from his friends. Unfortunately, the way they had divided the gear, one was carrying all of the water filtration equipment, one had the tent, one had most of the food, etc. The man had told them he had been “leaving” things on the trail to help lighten the load. They had already found his cologne. Carl and I laughed and told them we had his food and sandals. As funny as it was, all of us hoped the four of them made it out alive.

Back at our tent, we rummaged through the garbage we had collected from around the tent. Most of it ended up in our trash, but the Starbucks Via coffees were completely unharmed! I guess bears don’t like Starbucks coffee, which worked out brilliantly for us because we did but we were too cheap to buy any! After rinsing the slobber off of them, they were as good as new!

We ate breakfast next to the sparkling blue waters of the lake. Near the edge of the lake, a “Pacific Crest Trail” sign was just visible.

“One day, I want to hike the Pacific Crest Trail.” Carl mused as we ate our oats and happily sipped our Starbucks.

Sounded like a pretty good adventure to me, though I highly doubted it would ever happen.

We hadn’t been on the trail for more than an hour when the couple with the Kevlar Bear Sack came passed.

Carl was happy to see they were packing out because earlier the man had not been very coherent and Carl was afraid he was suffering from altitude sickness. I had thought it was the sleeping pills.

“Weren’t you going to stay two nights?” Carl asked. “Or did you decide to head back a day early because the bear mauled your food?”

The man thought about this.

“No. We were going to spend two nights, but the bear ate our food. So we’re going to head back today.”

‘Wait, isn’t that what I just said?’ Carl looked at me quizzically.

“Book Chapter 4: Are You Drunk or Just Too High: Knowing the Symptoms of Altitude Sickness.”

Gem Lake was perfectly tranquil, and we had the entire thing to ourselves. And at Gem Lake, I found two of my absolute favorite things – silence and stillness. Finding ourselves a premium campsite on a large piece of exposed rock that hung out a hundred feet above the lake, we sat down and drank it all in.

It’s amazing how well you can sleep when there’s no one yelling at bears…

Yosemite: Day Three

Yosemite: Day Three

Day Three

The morning was chilly, and once we’d shaken the frost off of the tent, we were eager to get back on the trail just to stay warm.

On the hike up to the top of the pass we passed three men on their way down, but other than that the trail was all ours. And what a beautiful trail it was – wide, with flat rock stairs, and perfect grades. I cannot get over how spectacular America’s National Parks are.

We were approaching the top of the pass when we encountered a fourth man. Standing majestically on a rock outcropping, one hand on his hip, the other holding a GPS, he reminded me of a bald eagle preparing for flight.

“You haven’t seen three other Asian guys, have you? I lost them last night when I was lost for three hours trying to find Thousand Islands Lake,” he asked, grinning from ear to ear.

We responded that we had passed three men earlier. He was happy to hear they were only an hour or so ahead of him. It turned out this was their first backpack ever. They were hiking sixty-nine miles in five days. This was day three.

“I am learning a lot!” he said enthusiastically. “Weight is important. My pack is too heavy, so I have just been leaving stuff on the trail. Hopefully, someone else will pick it up!”

Carl and I were curious as to what exactly he had been “leaving” on the trail.

“Oh, you know, like my colognes and stuff.”

I am by no means an expert backpacker. In fact, (assuming we survived and didn’t have to throw any pinecones or rocks at hungry bears) this forty miles would be the longest backpack I had ever taken. I was a weekend warrior. Ten miles to a lake, overnight, ten miles back. I stood there, looking at this entirely too enthusiastic man, completely bewildered by him.

I don’t know what was more perplexing to me, the fact that for their first backpack ever, they were eagerly attempting sixty-nine miles in five days. The fact that he was hiking with cologne (hot date? bear attractant?) Or the fact that he was lightening his load by leaving his shit stuff in piles on the forest floor. Or maybe it was just a combination of all of those things, combined with the fact that he had been lost overnight, seemed less than worried about it, and that his buddies had just left him up there.

As we left, I got the idea to one day write a cheeky book called “Backpacking 101.” As we hiked up the trail, I formulate the first two sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek chapter titles:

“Chapter 1: Ambition vs. Stupidity, How to Choose a Trail that’s Right for You” and, “Chapter 2: You are Not a Donkey, Notes on Packing Light.”

Four miles further up the trail, we stumbled across a pair of sandals, and a gallon Ziploc bag full of half-eaten foodstuffs stacked neatly together on a rock. Carl picked up the shoes; I grabbed the food bag and, thanks to our overzealous friend, our packs instantly became that much heavier.

Thousand Islands Lake was stunning. We rolled into camp just in time to get the tent up before it rained. Much to our dismay, the campground was surprisingly full. We snagged the last available campsite, which provided a jaw-dropping view of the sepia sunset that ripped through the clouds, casting the mountains and the perfect alpine lake dotted haphazardly with hundreds of tiny little rock islands, in a haunting orange hue.

“Honey, wake up! Someone is yelling at a bear!” Carl whispered in my ear.

Groggily, I opened my eyes. It was pitch black. Listening intently, I heard voices in the distance.

“Get out! Go On! Get out of here!”

“Either that or he and his girlfriend got in a fight,” I replied, but Carl didn’t find my joke to be that funny.

I unzipped the tent door and watched entertained as two headlamps bobbed after a black shadow in the night. He wasn’t a big bear, but he was hungry, and they obviously had something he desperately wanted because he just kept on going back for more.

My survival instincts are strong, and they distinctly told me not to get out of the tent and throw rocks at the hungry bear. Instead, we did what any sane person would do, zipped up the tent door, and went back to sleep.