The Spirit of Yosemite

Wow, we're running behind on entries. I have to step my game up. I believe we're on Yosemite...correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not.

Our first night at the Shilo Inn was fantastic, as to be expected. We woke up, enjoyed the free breakfast that we've become accustomed to and eventually made our way towards the park. The hotel was only about 14 miles from the park, but the road there was long and twisty. This was becoming a recurring theme in the area. This time we had the added fun of avoiding RVs...some of which even had a car trailing behind them, which was just fantastic.

We made it to the park in one piece by the grace of God and discovered that really the road didn't change once you got inside the park. It just went higher...and higher. So up we climbed, higher and higher, twisting in and out and in and out, around the mountain. Some cars chose to take the road painstakingly slow, leading to frustration when you got caught behind them. Other cars chose the "If I go fast enough I won't have time to freak out about the GIANT DROP on the other side of my car". These cars were almost always going into the opposite direction, which was fun when you rounded a twisted corner to see a giant Ford truck flying at you. Really, good fun. Just when you thought you've had enough fun dodging missles disguised as cars, you would run into a trucker who decided to take the route through Yosemite this time in order to get a change of scenery. So add in a couple of Kenworths hauling hogs as well (ok, sans hogs, but still...).

While I joke about the traffic situation of Yosemite, it is seriously scary. At one point we got caught in a traffic jam about 6,000 feet in the air. After stalling for about 5 minutes I put the car in park and went up to ask the people in front of us what had happened. The woman told me with a grave face that a car had tipped off of the road and gone down the side of the mountain. That was a sobering enough thought to make you drive 10 miles below the speed limit for the rest of your life/avoid all roads 6,000 feet up that lack barriers.

Now that I've terrified everyone, I have to tell the truth. Eventually the jam got moving again and we passed a truck that had said car loaded into it. A. They were able to recover the car on top of the mountain and B. I've seen worse damage from a car running into a lamppost, so clearly Jesus, Zeus and any other deity you please must have been in that car and guided it straight into a tree rather than allowing it to plummet to the valley floor. Still, lesson learned, cars are not attached to the road via magnets or super glue.

After that unfortunate delay we were able to continue on to the main spectacle of Yosemite. I don't know if this spectacle has a name, but it looks like this.

Tourist included. A good rule of the National Parks is if it's a famous vista, your own personal picture is going to have a tourist in it.

It's impressive. The story of Yosemites beginning notes that explorers going West stumbled upon this vista and were blown away. I have seen this image plenty of times before on assorted Veterans Association and SPCA calendars but it still takes your breath away to see it in person. The sheer size of El Capitan (the mass of rock on the left) is impressive on it's own, but couples with the sharp degree of the canyon and the other rock formations it's truly a sight to be seen. Also awesome, the Von Trapp Family reunions that take place there.

They were German and they were singing

The National Parks are great, as I assume the Ken Burns documentary has been telling you. I haven't seen it yet, I've been too busy actually going to the parks. They're great, but my major complaint with each of them is how much driving you have to do. There are pull offs for you to stop and snap some pictures, but the for the most part the only parking is at the visitor centers. As a result you really have to keep driving. There are limited opportunities to stop and go for a walk, unless you're super hardcore and plan on going for an all day hike. So we kept driving, around more mountains, dodging people with cameras jumping into the road the whole time.

Once we reached the visitors center I jumped out to go get a stamp for my National Parks Passport. We weren't planning on staying too long so Chiz stayed behind in the car. I started walking towards the center and discovered that this building was only the restroom, the actual center was a half mile walk away. I really wanted my stamp so I kept walking. 10 minutes later I reached the center, stamped my passport and took a quick look around. It was really, really cool. There were a lot of information and displays that I wanted to spend time digesting. Unfortunately I had left Chiz baking in a parking lot a half mile away. My phone is pretty terrible and never gets services anywhere in the wilderness so I couldn't call her. My only choice was to walk back to the car, inform her of the awesomeness, then walk back to take it all in.

Luckily I managed to convince Ch'nel that "it looks really cool" without having to provide too much information on what exactly was there. We trekked back and were rewarded with one of the best visitor center displays I've ever seen. It wasn't particularly elaborate, but it easily blended the natural history of Yosemite with it's history as a National Park. Very interesting, very cool. We capped it off with a viewing of Spirit of Yosemite, a half hour film in which Yosemite clearly spent a lot of money to get awesome shots of the park. Relaxing, but also strange as we were already in the park...we could see everything just by walking outside. The narration of the film kept stressing the spirit of Yosemite. The unknown spiritual force that people seem to experience within the park. I wrote it off as hogwash, but we'll get back to that in a few paragraphs.

After absorbing every single piece of information about Yosemite that we could, we set out to find some lunch. At Yosemite's sandwich shop I quickly decided on the number 1, a ham sandwich. I really can't handle choices and when faced with a first option that I enjoy I tend to just stop there and call it a win. Ch'nel unfortunately struggled between the turkey sandwich and the tuna salad. She then made the mistake of voicing this struggle to the sandwich girl who suggested a compromise of the chicken waldorf. While this ended up being a good compromise as Ch'nel was pleased with it....that is not a compromise. Turkey+tuna salad does not equal chicken waldorf. Chicken waldorf, however, has now become a running joke as a third option to all decisions.

With both our minds and our stomachs properly fed we were able to head back to the trail. We wanted to be up at Glacier Point by 5:15 for the sunset ranger lecture. By this point it was about 3:30 but we had no way of judging how long it would take to get up to the point. We had planned on exploring another part of the park but by the time we got back out to the main road we figured it would be better to just head further up the mountain.

This was a good plan because they were doing roadwork on the road leading up to the point, so we ended up sitting in a traffic jam for a half hour while waiting for the workers to clean up. Following this traffic jam was another half hour of twisty roads and stomach churning drops before we finally reached the top of the mountain. There we parked and joined the masses heading over to wait for the sun to set over the Sierra Nevada, apparently quite a beautiful sight. It was getting cold by this point, but we've been trying to see sunsets everywhere on this trip and for some reason we keep missing them. We were staying until that sun went down.

While we waited we stared 8,000 feet or so down into the canyon. It was a long drop. Two women next to me mentioned how they wished someone would take their picture so being the good person that I am I eagerly volunteered to do it. Before I knew it one of the women was leading me to a spot that she had picked out for the picture while her partner scampered over the restraining fence and onto a rock that was jutting out into the canyon...again, 8,000 feet up. After handing me the camera she herself jumped the fence and walked out there. My stomach dropped. I was sure that one was going to fall and I was going to take a picture of a woman plummeting to her death. I flashed back to high school and was convinced that I was going to get in trouble for condoning this act, that a park ranger was going to kick me out for encouraging their recklessness. As quickly as possible I snapped their picture, returned the camera and ran to the opposite side of the point to get as far away from them and their crazy as possible.

At 5:15 we were greeted by Ranger Dick. A spirited veteran ranger who has lived at Glacier Point for 23 years, he was very knowledgeable of the area. He began his lecture by pointing out a helicopter down in the valley that was at the moment rescuing a guy. He then went off on a rant about how that guy was a fool for only eating a banana before going on a hike. We were then encouraged to watch and laugh as the helicopter rescued him from his hike and flew him off of the mountain. I nearly fainted when I saw that the poor guy, who was apparently already in quite a bit of pain, was rescued by being placed on a stretcher dangling 150 feet below the helicopter and a couple hundred feet above the ground. I don't think I'd make it if I was ever in a situation where I'd need to be rescued via helicopter. That's effing scary.

The rest of Ranger Dick's lecture was lost in the rapidly approaching sunset. Standing on that mountain, with 8,000 feet of nothingness separating me and the ground and the dusty rose sky in front of me, I felt both completely out of control of my life but at the same time positive that at that moment, for that period of time, there was no other place in the world that I was supposed to be. I'm not sure if I've ever had that feeling before. It was surreal. I was but a speck on the Earth's enormous surface. While physically I was occupying a tiny speck of the park, I felt like my soul (I guess? I really don't want to use the word soul, too cliche, but we're going to have to go with it) had filled up the entire canyon. At that moment I had fully taken in the aura of the mountain and allowed myself to become part of it. The damn spirit of Yosemite had gotten to me.

There is a line that has often been quoted to me from a The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a book that I have not read so I have no idea what the context of the line is. But apparently at one point a character says "and in that moment I swear we were infinite". Again, I've never read this book but as I stood there, connecting with nature in a way my Quaker education would really be proud of me for, that line ran through my head and it is truly the best way to describe that moment. I felt infinite.

All spiritual awakenings must end, however, especially when you realize that the sun setting means it's now dark. This wouldn't be an issue, except we were on top of a mountain and the only way to get down was to drive through hairpin turns and down steep declines all while avoiding bears. If you thought it was a blast going up the mountain in daylight, going down in darkness was even better.

We made it back to the Shilo in one piece, although my nerves were figuratively torn to shreds. Luckily, the Shilo is a little piece of heaven and offered a heated pool and a hot tub. And so a day of inner reflection ended with a relaxing moonlit swim and soak. Have I recommended the Shilo Inns enough? Because I am considering just moving into one.