Down The Western Sierras

Is this thing on finally? [Whacks the tape recorder.] I just recorded a whole day's narrative, or thought I did, but I hadn't pushed the right button. Duh.

Anyway: after Maureen returned from PT in Jackson we rolled down the mountain, stopping for mail and coffee. Down below Jackson we cruised along past Buena Vista and over Pardee Dam (which is spectacular, we gotta get back), thru rolling oak woodlands to that narrow dam's medieval battlements - all that's missing were archers above and catapulted flaming refuse flung up by besiegers below.

Then we sashayed thru Campo Seco and Valley Springs (the downhill suburb of San Andreas) and Jenny Lind, dry flattish Eugene and Milton to Knights Ferry (another viewable place worth a return visit). Around Milton I think is where I got the pictures of the old WINES LIQUORS & CIGARS purveyor.

We were skirting the upper edges of the Great Central Valley, the lower edges of the Sierra foothills, our first time on that route. Very scenic but hot and dry with terrible smoky and smoggy air, backwash from Merced and Fresno (America's worst) and the Stanislaus Forest fires. We must return just after the first rains have cleared the air but when the dry grass is still golden, that'll be a good time to capture vivid images.

On up past Yosemite Junction and through Chinese Camp where we spent WAY too much on fuel. Up from there into the 'Yosemite Gateway', to Big Oak Flat and Groveland, gas is 55 cents per gallon CHEAPER! Coulda saved ten bucks. Oh well. We can always eat locusts - keep our mouths open and swim on our bellies in B&B's pool, we'll get all the locusts we want. Prime protein. Cut down on expenses. Yup.

The ascent from Knight's Ferry (200 feet) to Chinese Camp and Moccasin (1200 feet) is easy; to Big Oak Flat and Groveland (2800 feet) it's abrupt and dramatic. Then climbing the ridgetops amid rolling forests up to moderately high country, the Tioga Road junction at Crane Flat (6000 feet), then down a couple thou to Yosemite Valley (4000 feet). The air is pretty thick - but at least it's 'natural' smoke and not that 'unnatural' smog - that's quit a consolation, eh?

Our entire low-level route today is worth repeating after the first rain. We should make that a multi-day trip too, so that we're in no hurry. Of course after the first rain we also want to get up Highway 88 to the Leek Springs Fire Lookout, to see the available world from up there. Reportedly spectacular it is, yes.

INTO YOSEMITE:

So it took 4 1/2 hours to get here, we pulled into Curry Village right at five o'clock and made contact with our party. The reason we're here, the rationale for this trip, is that Chris and Mayari and hosting Mayari's sisters [correction: just one sister, Anaíte] visiting from Guatemala for a couple weeks. So the abuelitas and Carters and Barnards and *us* have invaded Yosemite for a couple nights, have a picnic dinner out under the sequoias tonight, then show la hermana around -- all for a lower budget than was originally anticipated but what the hell, we can be frugal.

In Yosemite Valley we were speeding along the Merced River trying to make contact in time, and it's a moral and aesthetic CRIME to speed thru this floodplain. We should just amble along, looking at stuff slowly and deeply. Now we're en route to the picnic site and that's exactly what we're doing, ambling. Ah, the late-afternoon light is stupendous, filtering through the leaves and needles of the valley-floor forest.

Maureen had her usual PT session this morning, so now she feels free to flail me with a newspaper. OUCH! AWWW! Oh, and she took pills! Watch out, she's dangerous!

The reason for being in a hurry back there, whipping along the Merced River in this quotidian paradise, is because we didn't want to miss dinner. We're bringing the bread and drinks, but others in our party will supply the salads and ribs and desserts. We didn't want to end up with pizza at the Curry Village deli tonight. But we made it in time.

So now we're rolling along under the spires and towers and crags and cliffs and trees and dust/smoke clouds and all the usual stinking beauty. Hey, is this thing on this time? [Whacks the tape recorder.]

Wednesday night, Curry Village, Yosemite.

All is well, a beautiful warm evening, great as log as it's too dark to see the smoke-infested atmosphere. Curry Village is crowded, I wasn't expecting this many people at midweek after the end of the summer season, over three weeks past Labor Day.

Our party, those who have arrived, are in the rustic lounge playing cards and laughing, the card game UNO. I'm content to sit in an Adirondak chair on the covered porch in the illuminated darkness, watching the press of humanity go trooping past like frenzied muskrats, or take their refreshments on the deck across the way. I'm just too tired to try to be sociable.

And in the RV: fairly quiet but WAY too much campfire smoke, these people just can't have a wilderness experience without burning something,eh? Great for decongestant sales.

Waiting To Inhale

Sleep late, breakfast slowly, stroll over to Happy Isles, amble along the Merced River and through the Fen, then back to the RV in Upper Pines Campground. There we find a note, the group picnic lunch has been canceled, so we shuttle around to the Awhannee Hotel and Yosemite Village, poke around and look at goodies. The air is *pretty* clean today (so far); the sun is blindingly bright, bouncing off the shiny foliage; not *too* much dust/smoke now, can't chew the atmosphere yet.

Now we're awaiting the shuttle back to Curry Village where we'll get with the group, roll on up to Glacier Point and thence on to the Wawona Hotel for a festive dinner. Ah, the good life. With sweat.

Off sight-seeing with our party of eleven, large enough that the gratuity will be pre-added to our bill at the Wawona. I just counted - in our party we have 4 Carters, 3 Barnards, 2 O'Connells, and 2 'others'. And a partridge in a friggin' pear tree.

GLACIER POINT etc:

Late afternoon, Glacier Point (7200 feet), my own very first time here. Tremendous vistas over Yosemite's valleys and mountains, obscured by unholy haze. Smoke plumes from several fires are visible from this lofty vantage - a couple small ones and the really big bugger, the Kibbee Complex blaze over in Stanislaus Forest, north of here. The falls visible from here are very dry - all the Old Yosemite Hands among us look down at the faint traces and exclaim with dismay. This high, and we're still pretty hot. Ah well, on to Wa-Wo-Na.

A memoir: This is hardly our first trip to Yosemite. Besides those trips here already journaled, there was that long-ago (20 years back?) excursion in our ancient Chevy pickup. We'd traveled from Somona County to Amador County, acquired one good Shenandoah Valley wine, then trundled up here in some intemperate season, I forget exactly which. The only available lodging was a tent cabin at what was then Camp Curry. We spent a cold snowy night in that unheated abyss, huddled together in a too-narrow bed collapsing in the center, drinking that strong late-press Zinfadel; looking up at the white canvas ceiling, at the drawing of stick figures tumbling off a stylized El Capitan with the legend, GO FALL OFF A ROCK.

And then some years later, probably for our previous fling at the Awhanee's lucious Easter Brunch, we took a prime wheelchair-access room at Yosemite Lodge with a wonderfully accessible shower perfect for playing water games, and where we could look from the front door directly up to Yosemite Falls. A fine brunch, a fine view, a fine playroom, and the spring air was tasty and tangy.

Now we're staying in the RV in Upper Pines Campground, the plebian parkinglot. Our fortunes fluctuate with the years, as do our body shapes. What comes next? Quien sabe?

Thursday night, Upper Pines Camp

Back in our humble RV abode in the campground. Fewer fires, less smoke, or maybe everybody just doused'em at ten o'clock like they were supposed to. Meanwhile we got in early enough that we can actually take showers before the quiet hour, our noisy water heater and pump precluded that last night.

Meanwhile, it was a nice drive from the Valley to Glacier Point and then to Wawona and back with Trevor and Chris and Mayari, gassing and joking the whole way. At the Wawona, good food and decent service until the end, when we waited forever for the checks. The dining room had a classic feel, almost French, lots of thin white wood and old glass, small-paned windows and a high high ceiling. Then there were the fuzzy decorative western lampshades strung from chains strewn with redwood-sequoia cones, a decorative element we can add elsewhere.

Now we're to our last night at Yosemite this trip - mañana, quien sabe? We shall see.

Friday morning, Curry Village

Ah, a nice night, cool night, fewer fires again, less smoke, I might have noted that last night. We're up almost bright-and-early this morning, but early enough to make checkout and come over to Curry to see what the rest of our party is up to, and they are leaving early. Darn. That's OK, we can still spend the day shuttling around from point to precious point.

It turns out that of our party, we might be the only ones who actually PAID to get in. Two of the vehicles split up the abuelitas before they got to the entrance gate, they both had their free GOLDEN DONGLE passes. Another had some ex-employee's expired ID/pass, he waved it around and got in - sez he gets employee discounts on food and clothes here too. We're the suckers, we bought an annual GOLDEN DONGLE pass but that isn't too expensive, it amortizes quickly, flitting around from park to precious park, monument to momentous monument over the next year.

Meanwhile we observe the crowd at Yosemite midweek, there's lotsa older folks in big RVs or wearing hotel-lodge garb, lotsa younger folks too - what should I say? - sexy and/or thuggish-looking youngish folks, some with squealing and/or solemnly staring infants in hi-tech prams or backboards. Lotsa people looking like they're outfitted for outdoor adventures - some need to set fires to have that adventure - some go climbing or at least carry climbing gear. But all in all it's quieter than your average city with a similar population.

ON OUR OWN

And now we've hugged everyone goodbye and sent them on their way, and we're lying about in the lounge at the Curry cafeteria, sipping a large cup of organic coffee to power us thru the day - oh, they just closed the coffee shop, we made it here *just* in time! Lounging in here looking at the - I won't say *rustic* architecture 'cause this is all pretty new - but it's definitely *woodsy* - and the big stone fireplace with the painting or poster of the old Glacier Point firefall, from earlier decades, hanging up there over the mantle.

I heard part of a video presentation a couple nights ago, a history of the firefall, how it was accomplished by a couple guys with long sticks shoving big piles of coals off over the Point. And they had to get the timing and rhythm just right or they'd get hundreds of phone calls the next day complaining about a crappy firefall. And people coming up to the Point wondering, "Well where's the river that you set on fire?" and "How do you set the water on fire?" and "How do you set it on fire if there's no water?" Ah yes.

But sitting in here reminds us of our earliest visit, when we stayed in the tent cabin that freezing night. The next morning we were so hungry and cold, we dashed in here to scoop up vast amounts of pancakes and coffee and eggs and ham. And last night at the Wawona, some in our party talked of how hungry they were becoming. And I said, "No no, if you want to see hunger in affluent Americans, go to the Camp Curry cafeteria and wait til hikers come down from the backwoods, people who've been upcountry for a few days or weeks eating their freeze-dried crap. And they dash back here to civilization and soak up entire pizzas almost instantaneously. Yeah, down HERE is where you see HUNGER!"

Before the last big flood, Camp Curry was a funky little place. All that was washed away, rebuilt into this new Curry Village, much more substantial, upscale, gentrified. Rural renewal. There are still tent cabins, hopefully new ones. That same flood took away that wonderful cabin we had at Yosemite Lodge, been replaced by motel units. Bother. Always change. Go to Happy Isles, see the rebuilt Nature Center, rebuilt because a major rockslide seven years ago took out the old one.

Now a squirrel has run into the lounge here, scrounging around in front of the fireplace and under the massive woodcut furniture. I'm sure there's some rich droppings in here. We hear that all the squirrels are packing it up, loading on as much fat and protein as possible, filling their stashes, because the bobcats will be down from the hills in a couple weeks and the squirrels will head underground and try to wait them out.

And Beth sez she saw a coyote wandering around Curry Village yesterday, and along the line of the coyote's path all the squirrels disappeared except every ten meters or so a squirrel was standing atop something and squealing, "Danger! Danger!"

SHUTTLING ABOUT

So now Maureen is talking about coming to Yosemite to work, either as an employee or volunteer. We will explore that. I mean we could volunteer on a macadamia plantation in Guatemala, or we could volunteer here in Yosemite. Or probably in many places worldwide.

Standing at a shuttle stop, a car just went by with the personalized Nevada licence plate XUXA, a blonde woman driving. Could it be? The Real Xuxa? Quien sabe?

In case I didn't mention this before: we feel compelled to come back here in October or November maybe, after the rains and snows start, while the bobcats are out, see if we can see bobcats. I was thinking, "Oh, if I can get digitized squirrel sounds, we can *lure* the bobcats, eh?" So, search the web for digitized sounds of squirrels, chipmunks, mice, voles, and other small animals that bobcats might be listening for. Grab a site on theTioga Road for a midweek, go down to Benton and crash at Terry's for the weekend, then book into a Y.Valley campground for the next midweek, something like that.

And I was thinking of various ways to get into Yosemite free. Be 65 or over, or be totally disabled, or have counterfeit cash to purchase, a GOLDEN DONGLE pass. Be an employee or volunteer (current or former), or get an expired ID card from such - hopefully they'll look something like you. Or just walk in and pretend that you belong here. Dress in a bear suit. Or be a journalist, travel writer, be sent here to do a travel story - although that's already been done, right?

NOTE: When writing about Yosemite, emphasize the colors, scents and sounds. If writing about sights, be sure to crib from earlier (more competent) writers. Start with John Muir. After all, plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.

ROLLING OUT

Early afternoon, Friday 26 September 2003, just leaving Yosemite Village. We went to the Awhanee, I got my pot, a nice little Acoma wedding vase, with incisions and painted medallions, and now we are heading out, looking across meadows and up at domes and crags, all the usual gorgeous shit.

We'll be back. But right now I think we'll go up to Crane Flat, and then over Tioga Pass, we haven't been that way for a long time, and for all we know the next time we're here the Tioga Road may be closed for the winter, so this might be IT for 2003. That'll mean maybe driving on up to Minden to refuel but, we can do it. We WILL do it! We will see things along the way. Things will see us. There is symmetry.

We have calculated that, other than buying the GOLDEN DONGLE pass and the non-discretionary fancy dinner, this has been a fairly inexpensive excursion, so we can AFFORD to do it again before too long.

We just passed a bus from Ciudad Modesto, where everyone is modest and goes around fully-clothed in public. We're driving down the Rio Merced which eventually leads to Ciudad Merced, where everyone is merciful. Mercy mercy mercy! We are not going to Mariposa, home of the butterfly-heads. Not this time.

HIGHER COUNTRY

CRANE FLAT: That Burrito Grande for lunch at the Lodge just mellowed me right out, it's time now to stop here for coffee, gotta stay awake for this drive. [Altimeter gripes deleted]

We ascended the western Sierra slope through a verdant conifer zone, up to a ridgetop in another conifer zone, I don't recognize the bioeme right offhand - well, I see some firs and jackpines, guess I'd better review those SIERRA TREES books. Everything's looking drier, fried up here, maybe at 7000 feet. Then of course there's the smoke wafting over from the nearby Stanislaus fires. So this zone has a little less rainfall, a bit more desiccation. We're maybe five miles easterly of Crane Flat, from here the fire to the north is very visible. Just on the next ridge over, it looks like.

Before starting this trip I checked overnight low temperatures. At 4000 feet, low 50s. At 6000 feet, mid-40s. At 10,000 feet, 31°f. We didn't know how long we'd be able to stay in Y.Valley because of diminished air quality, really sucky AQIs. So we prepared to head for the Tioga country, Saddlebag lake etc, someplace really high where longjohns would be indicated. As it happens the agenda was otherwise, but we were prepared.

A brief aside: I've planned to do webpages about the electronic goodies we've enveloped ourselves with, cameras and computers and such, with reviews of each item detailing our long-term experiences with them. And since our extremely expensive JVC miniDV camcorder is apparently no longer working and has had a miserable service record, I will have very harsh things to say about JVC.

Contrawise, an awful lot of our goodies bear the SONY name. I guess we're satisfied with Sony, pretty much. Most of that Sony gear, we bought; some, we inherited. I think it all still works. Amazing! Well, everything except the BetaMax, gotta get a new Beta player (if available) and dub-off all those tapes.

[More altimeter gripes deleted]. Now we're at 8000 feet, we just passed a gaggle of Park Service fire pickup trucks, obviously the transport for these guys who are "monitoring the fires on the ground" as the forestry flacks say. Then a sign, MANAGEMENT FIRE - DO NOT REPORT. And now we are nosing into the smoke clouds. Everybody, hold your breath! Don't inhale until we reach Tuolumne Meadows! [Future visit plans deleted]

FRIDAY is FLEEDAY, the day to flee Yosemite Valley. Lotsa traffic. Ooh, lots more smoke now, what's the elevation? 8300 feet, we're going right into some pretty awful smoke. There are trees and brush burning RIGHT beside the road. There are fire crews here guiding the traffic thru this. It's not the most pleasant ride right now, but I *think* we'll get past this... Went past that last fire on the road, made it a few miles further, now we're just past Porcupine Creek and *another* fire right on the road...

FIRES: I know it's important to let the fires burn here, to restore the ecosystem. The same is true in big cities. Restore an urban ecosystem, let the fires burn! Cities are clogged with detritus, let'em burn down! That's only logical.

NOTE: Next time we come up here, be sure to bring all the Yosemite guides, don't just leave'em in the library. But when we haul'em along, we'll probably find ourselves diverted to the White Mountains or Tempahute or someplace. That's how it works.

OLMSTED POINT, the great exfoliated granite dome. Looking westward down Tenaya Creek canyon there's Half Dome, the way is Tenaya Lake. Maureen's favorite views in Yosemite, right here! The usual stupendous shit. I'm burning up electrons with the digital camera, to no real purpose because we'll be back in a few weeks with better cameras, higher resolution, to get better pictures. But what the hell, take'em while ya can, eh?

And now we're at Tuolumne Meadows in the dry season when all this dead golden grass with little shoots of evergreens interspersed. Altimeter says about 8850 feet, the air's still pretty bad up here - wonder if it gets any better around Ti-yo-ga?

Four o'clock, 9000 feet, ascending. We are rapidly being overtaken by Hypoxia - who know what stupid things we'll do next? That's ordinary Hypoxia, not Hypoxia Smurf.

Very close to the treeline now. On one side, granite, igneous intrusives. On the other side, volcanic, igneous extrusives. All glacially marked. Very mixed geologic metaphors here. The rocks are very evident when the trees and brush are no more, and the underlying surface is laid bare to our gaze.

We've just passed the Mono Pass trailhead, we're now up in a very different conifer zone, the sequoias are left far behind. Up here - I'll have to check the SIERRA TREES books to be sure - might be fir, it looks like, sitting just below the treeline. Or are these the famous Bristlecone pines? Hmmm.

TIOGA PASS, 9944 feet - TOP OF THE WORLD, MA!

Actually we don't feel nearly as stupid now as we have other times here, but then it's not as COLD as in our past visits. That makes a difference. Meanwhile up here in Tioga, the wind is blowing in from Nevada, no smoke on it. Finally, FRESH AIR, first time in a week or two or more.

On to Part II