Yosemite!!!

I feel a little nuts for not visiting more of our national parks sooner. After Edward and I visited, for not nearly enough time, Yellowstone, I got the idea I was missing out on something incredibly beautiful. That in mind, I can't believe I almost passed on the opportunity to spend five days in Yosemite National Park with five other friends (well now they're friends-I had not met two of them before). Initially I was a little worried about my finaces, but looking back, I spent very little money compared to other vacations I've had, and the majority of what I needed for the trip I had already purchased.

Our plan was to fly into Reno, Nevada on Thursday, drive to the park where our trail reservation provided for a campground site the night before and after we are on the trail, camp one night, backpack for three nights, camp one more and drive back to Reno and fly home (we found out later, via Phoenix). The reality was...different, but you might say it enhanced our trip in more ways than it detracted from it.

Our plane from Chicago left over two hours late due to what the pilot described as the equivalent of the plane's hard drive crashing. Any time you hear the pilot of your airplane start an announcement out with "don't hate me, but..." be prepared to seriously alter your plans for the day. The whole ordeal caused us to miss our connecting flight to Reno from Las Vegas, fly to Salt Lake City and connect to Reno. However, after leaving Reno with a belly full of In and Out Burger (animal style!!!!) in our fifteen passenger van and accidentally getting off the highway at the wrong place, we ended up driving up to a beautiful beach in Lake Tahoe just as the sun was setting over the mountains behind the lake.

Seeing the beach and feeling more than ready to take a dip, I asked the guys if they felt the same. I was not surprised by their enthusiasm toward taking a break from traveling and get our first taste of nature. We were excited to say the least.




After watching the sun set from atop a pile of large rocks donning a sign that said "No Climbing On Rocks," we dried off and hit the road. I drove the van through the mountain passes leading up to Yosemite. It was a little hairy at times being my first time driving a vehicle that size and the end of a very long day, but we made it safe to the park, eventually. I think it was about 1am or later local time (which as you probably recall is two hours earlier than the time zone we left from that morning). Obviously when we entered the park, there were no rangers posted at the gates or campground so we were on our own for figuring out our campsite and bear storage for the night. Apparently this was a busy night for the backpacker's campground (where we were guaranteed a spot one night before and after our trail reservations) because there was not a free spot in the whole place, nor was there an available bear box to store our food (it is illegal to store food in anything but a bear box or can, not even the car). We snooped around and decided to check out the car camping area as well and stumbled upon a free site with an empty bear box. Due to the late hour and the fact that taking this spot was more or less squatting, we decided to hastily get all the food and toiletries into the box and just sleep in the van, get up early, and get out before a ranger could see that we weren't supposed to be there.

We woke up with the sun, I say "woke up" but that would imply that we would have actually gone to sleep, which certainly didn't happen to any significant extent with me and, I'd say all of my companions as well. It was COLD when we got up, the sun had not come over the mountains yet and it was chilly!! We warmed up by hard boiling some eggs and making oat meal and coffee. We hastily ate, and broke "camp," getting out of there as soon as we could so as to avoid any suspicious rangers.

The line at the ranger station that morning was moving very slowly so Matt and I got to chat and listen to a few other people's plans for backpacking in the area before we got our trail pass and bear cans. By the time we packed up and set out on the trail it was late morning and the sun was high, our packs were heavy, and we'd had almost no sleep... Ready to rock!!

More to come later...