The Adventures of Team Parker

Hey everyone. It’s late at night and we’ve just done packing our bags. Oh my lord. You can’t possibly imagine it. The box with the Xbox alone weighs about 46lb — about 20kg! The giant duffel bag is much more than that. And we got around the packing issue by completely emptying the overnight bag, squeeeezzing all that stuff into the duffel bag, and then shoving the laptop bag into the overnight bag. Same amount of stuff, fewer items to carry. Well, its heavy heavy heavy. Sameer can only walk about half a block carrying the Xbox box and I can go only a bit more withe duffel bag, which has wheels and a handle but not an extendable handle so it keeps bumping my leg. Anyway, so we’re probably going to take a taxi to the train station and then ride the train all the way to the airport. Then get a big ass cart and check everything in. Damn! Thank God Lamiese is coming to fetch us from the airport. I think we could possibly have gone to her house by bus/train/taxi but it would have been a major schlep.

Anyway, what? Yosemite! This was one of the major highlights of our trip. I really should dedicate so much more time to this blog but it’s late and I’m tired and I need to get it out the way before we run out of our 24 hours of internet. (Don’t you hate hotels that charge for internet access?)

So, okay. We drove from Cambria to Yosemite and that took us about 4 hours or so. When we got there we drove in through the gates and saw a sign that said “Giant Sequoia Grove”. Since check in wasn’t until 5pm, we decided to go thataway. Initially we thought we’d just take a peek at the immediate sequoias but we actually ended up hiking all the way up the mountain and back again to see most of the big trees marked on the route. It took us about three and a half hours! Sameer started to get a bit woozy at the end coz we hadn’t had lunch and he’d declined by offer of pumpkin bread and apricot creamcheese (leftovers from breakfast at J Patrick House). But I was glad we did it because we never did end up coming back to the grove and it was the only big hike we did while there.

Sequoias are incredible trees. They are very resilient and grow for hundreds of years to incredible heights of over 300 feet. They take ten to 15 years to mature and then they have seeds, which take about another 20 years to grow before dropping from the upper branches! Here are some of the awesome trees we saw.

The Grizzly Giant. This guy fell over about 300 years ago and he’s still mostly intact! It’s the tannins in the bark of the tree that give it the red-orange color (think “Redwood”, a distant cousin), make it resistant to fire, drought, and disease and also prevents decay after the tree dies.

Then the California Tunnel Tree. They cut a giant hole through this tree to let stage coaches through during the gold rush era and it just went right on growing. This was the winter alternative to the Wawona Tunnel Tree which is much bigger with a much bigger hole cut in it. That one died years ago but people still go up the mountain to see it. We didn’t coz we were lazy and it was pretty far up there.

Then there’s the Bachelor and the Three Graces which you can see on my Picasa album for Yosemite.

And then the Faithful Lovers. These guys were amazing. They sprouted from seeds that landed close together and over the (hundreds of) years they grew together and now seem like one tree.

Then the Clothespin Tree. This one looks like a giant clothes line pin, it’s split right up the middle but it’s still alive and well! It doesn’t look that impressive at first view but it is absolutely enormous!

And finally the Telescope Tree, unbelievably also alive and well! This picture was taken while standing inside the trunk!

After we got back from the grove, we had to drive for about an hour at speeds of between 25 and 30 miles per hour until we got into the Yosemite Valley itself. The ride made me absolutely car sick and I was just holding on for dear life with a little just-in-case baggie in my hands as we drove. Then we passed through a tunnel and then we got our first real look at the area and it’s granite mountains.

We went to book into our accommodation at Camp Curry. Camp Curry was founded in 1899 by a mom ‘n pop couple — the Currys — who hosted and entertained guests at seven tents in their camp in the Yosemite Valley. It’s grown in size since then and now has over a hundred tents and cabins but the feel is still rustic and laid back. Ideally we would have wanted to stay at one of the slightly better accommodations in the valley but like the Grand Canyon, this books out over a year in advance. We were lucky to get the tented cabin we got.

Our tented cabin cost about the same as staying at a Holiday Inn elsewhere but it was a tent with two metal frame beds, with army issue bedding, and a single light. Showers and toilets were shared. Here’s a picture of Sameer being unimpressed with our accommodations.

The other drama with staying in the valley is that you have to bear proof your site. California black bears roam the valley and they are voracious scavengers who will sniff out any food or smelly stuff you have, including toothpaste, deodorant, and even water bottles. You’re not allowed to keep any of this stuff in your cabin or tent or even your car. Bears have torn the doors off cars to try to get to food stored inside and in boots. Everything has to be stored inside a bear proof locker and all food related items, including sweet wrappers, handy wipes and used gum must be disposed of in bear proof trash cans.

So after our long hike and after settling into our cabin and stowing all our food and toiletries in the bear locker, we decided to take a trail up to the lower Yosemite Falls. It was an easy walk with a lovely view at the end and we eventually strolled down just after sunset. And then we realized that when camping, you really out to have a flashlight.

Ten o’clock is lights out at Camp Curry and it’s supposed to be quiet time but we kept hearing talking and laughing and giggling. The beds weren’t too comfortable and the room got chilly so I woke up in the middle of the night to pile on more blankets. I also woke up at one point to the sound of snuffeling. My half addled mind registered that this was probably a bear sniffing around for a snack but I figured he wouldn’t be half interested in us and I went back to sleep. We had a four hour mule ride planned for early next morning and I needed my rest. Sameer had ear plugs in and managed to sleep pretty well.

We were woken the next morning by a loud shriek and what sounded like the pop of an air gun. But we were tired and groggy so we lay in bed while a commotion started to build around us. Then we heard someone just behind our tent and say “Mikey, come here. There’s a bear in the camp!” and decided we better get in on the action. We pulled on our clothes and I opened the screen door. I barely got it open when a gruff voice shouted “GET BACK INSIDE! THERE’S A BEAR OUT HERE!!!” It was a park ranger and he was standing just outside our door with a huge club in his hand.

We lifted the shades on the door and looked out and there in front of us were two bear cubs, halfway up a tree. Then the ranger shouted again “STAY IN THERE, THE MOTHER’S RIGHT NEXT TO YOU”. We couldn’t see what he was talking about so we went to the other wall and pulled up the shades on that little window and there she was, the momma bear, looking for her cubs.

Well this was drama. We were the only people in our row still trapped inside our cabin and we couldn’t move coz we had bears in front of us and bears on the side of us. Eventually, the babies started crying and the ranger got everyone who was watching to back off so the mom could come get them. She gathered them up and led them round the side of our tent. Then the ranger started banging on bins and making an almighty racket to get her to leave the camp.

We later found out that a women had woken up earlier on and gone to get some food out of her bear locker. The bear charged her, she screamed and ran off. Then the cubs came in and they all had a bit of a feast. Apparently it was quite a rare incident. They say when you see a bear you should stand your ground, make yourself look big and make a lot of noise to scare it off coz bears are generally non confrontational. But if they charge and you run, then they get what you want and become braver around people.

So anyway, by this time we were running late for our mule ride. But we managed to get over there in time and saddle up. Sameer rode a mule called Gertie and I got Twitch who really needed a switch. He was such a slow poke that he slowed the whole train down. Sameer spent about four hours chatting to our guide while I spent four hours kicking Twitch in the sides to get him to move. Our guide, Dawn, said the only way you get a mule to move is by being more stubborn than they are. All the concentration put a bit of a damper on my day.

But the mules were kind of cool. They don’t use horses because mules are apparently smarter and more sure footed than horses. They don’t scare that easily, they naturally walk in a line, and they always manage to ferret out the safest path up the mountainside. I wasn’t allowed to keep my camera with me so unfortunately I don’t have any pictures but it was the most amazing ride, right alongside huge gushing rivers and on a steep incline up the mountain through woods and dales.

When we eventually got back were sore all over and covered in dust. We stopped for lunch at one of the cafeterias, then changed into shorts and went to hire rafts. There’s a river called the Merced that winds slowly through the valley and taking a slow ride down it in a raft is one of the most recommended things to do in Yosemite. It was amazing. The water was so clear you could see straight down to the pebbles on the riverbed. You could see fish just sitting there on the bottom. In some places the river was so low the bottom of the raft barely cleared the stones and at other times you could stick your paddle straight down and it still wouldn’t touch bottom. And all around just woods and hills and sheer rock face.

At first we were just focused on paddling and steering but we eventually realized that we could aim the boat straight and then pretty much lie back and float along. When I wasn’t sitting on the edge of the raft with one foot trailing in the chilly water (it all comes from snow melt high up in the mountains), I was lying flat on the side with an arm and leg in the water and my face turned up to the granite behemoth that was Half Dome.

After that, we were done. We were tired and mellow — a bad combination coz all it makes you want to do is lie down and snooze. We went to take showers (terrible queues but such bliss!), then took a stroll through a nearby meadow. There were deer in the meadow, just grazing in the tall grasses. Who knew where they came from as the meadow, though large, was far removed from the woods and bordered by roads on all sides. Everyone stopped to watch and take pictures and we couldn’t help but think of the young Bambi.

And then we had dinner and an early night before driving on to San Francisco. Oh San Francisco. The dodgiest town we’ve been to. Lordy, there is a story to tell.