Yo-Ho, part 2

"Travel is broadening," the bright bulbs used to say. Those of us who have worked in or around tourism know the opposite is true. Tourism makes smart people simple, simple people idiots, and idiots? Idiots become protozoa. We are about to see this in action.

The plan for the first full day was to hike the flat valley floor to become accustomed to the 4400 foot altitude. As we start off, it's time for a couple of digressions. The first has to do with the chest-thumping that Westerners are inclined to do on the theme of "my mountains are taller than your mountains."

This is true in terms of height from sea level. However, western mountains rise from a higher base altitude. At Yosemite, for instance, Glacier Point is around 7600 feet above sea level, but 3200 feet above the valley. That's respectable, but places such as Franconia Notch in New Hampshire, and the passes of the Great Smokies in Tennessee and northern Georgia can boast as much. A big difference that accounts for the startling magnificence of Yosemite is that these are new mountains--geologically speaking. They are not as worn down by natural processes as eastern mountains. As a matter of fact, they are still growing.

The other digression is a point we'll touch on again in these musings. In Yosemite, "flat" is a relative term. Except in the genuine flat of the meadows, below, take it to mean "not vertical."


Westward, then: we decided to try out the five miles toward the Pohono Bridge along the base of the south escarpment. This would take us past Bridalveil Fall and photo opportunities for my daughter. Fools disparage arts in the schools. Em had photography courses in high school, and something took. It's become her main non-athletic hobby. This was a good thing for a pair of older parents, because there were frequent pauses for landscape photos.

Starting early was a good thing, because the first part of the hike went through restored meadows (background, above pic) which feature two things: the first really spectacular views as one arrives in the valley, and consequently lots of tourists. The first Caucasian village in Yosemite was here, most of it destroyed by successive floods, and the Park Service has carefully restored the alpine meadow. There are numerous signs along the road that ask visitors to stay off the meadow and stick to established paths. Visitors ignore them.

We must be fair, though. California may be the most multi-cultural state in the Union. Yosemite is a World Heritage site that attracts thousands of visitors from every country imaginable. Yet the Park Service stubbornly offers most of its signage in English only. The only place I saw a sign even in Spanish--the original Caucasian language of the state--was in a Yosemite Village rest room.

From the Meadow to Bridalveil Fall, the southerly trail begins to demonstrate the relative nature of "flat." Here, one is right under the escarpment. Nothing of the sort, in most places, stays vertical to flat ground below it, and this was no exception.


The trail winds over talus slopes and the remains of old and new rockslides. There are a number of designated rock climbing trails leading off the main one. We kept looking across the valley toward El Capitan to see whether anyone was climbing it, with no luck. Perhaps it was too hot.


For hot it was. The Sierras have hot, dry summers and, after a late winter and wet spring, this one has been hotter and dryer than most. That day it was pushing 80 F by 10 a.m., which would make the south-facing surface of El Capitan about as hot as a pizza stone for much of the day. Em now includes rock climbing in her list of athletic activities. She and her friends recognise El Cap as a bit beyond their present skill, but that didn't mean she wasn't interested in seeing someone do it.

For prepared hikers, hydration goes along with heat. We knew that in theory, but we'd see the effects of dry heat up close through the week. If one washed a garment, or got it wet by accident, it was dry within minutes. Toweling off after a shower was almost redundant. In addition, while Yosemite is abundantly supplied with water, not much of it is potable. So even on a flat valley day hike, we carried among us about 15 litres of water. Much of it was gone by the end of the day. As in the White Mountains, some visitors get into denial about hydration and about the safety of those clear mountain springs. Again, prepared hikers carry enough water to share. There's not much that one can do for the tourist who has sucked up giardia lamblia or one of several other cooties with their drink of spring water. Most have an incubation period, so the unfortunates who ignored those "don't drink" signs may not regret it until weeks after their visit.

For the most part, the good thing about trails with some challenge is that one has little company. When we reached Bridalveil Fall, we also got in touch with some of those four million Yosemite visitors. August is a lousy time for waterfall buffs to visit Yosemite, but Bridalveil rarely dries up. It had not during our visit, so it drew everyone whose idea of a hike is to drive up, walk a half-mile round trip, and drive back. Not to mention tour buses.

We stopped for the photo ops and for the rest room. There is something in human nature that refuses to take reasonable care of shared facilities for elimination. NPS in its wisdom provided only a four-hole chemical toilet facility at one of Yosemite's busiest destinations. The combination of inadequate facilities and dimwitted humanity produced the inevitable, foul, despicable johns. Regular readers know that I grew up in close contact with outhouses, so I have certain standards. Only utmost desperation would drive anyone into these pits.

The Bridalveil site is one of the few where paved trails remain in Yosemite. This is just the thing for drive-in hikers, especially when they walk up in herds.


I suppose a good many of these folk supposed they had been on a hike. As for us, we detached from the mob as soon as possible, grabbed some lunch, and crossed the road to continue the loop.

Oddly enough, the legendary NPS trail management failed at this point. After 20 or so minutes of blundering about, we finally hit the southward trail...or not. As my vertically challenged wife and daughter forged ahead, I noticed a frantic message carved in an overhanging branch:

"Turn Back"

It was too late for that, because by then my associates had found the trail ending in a rapidly running creek. What the hell, we all figured: our boots are waterproof! We crossed the first creek, plunged on, and found a second brook. This was not so big and we got over it easily. At length--some length--the Pohono Bridge appeared. We crossed it and followed the trail into the woods on the north side of the valley.

Concerning Bears etc.

It seems I have already piqued some interest about bears and bear lockers, so here's some back story. When I was a rural kid, black bears were a rarity, chiefly because most had not yet become accustomed to humans. Even then, it was noticed that some bears made a good living off town dumps. In the process they became bigger, stronger, lost their fear of humans, and produced similar offspring. Human generations run about 20 years, but bear generations run about two years. While two generations of humans have plodded along, there have been 40 to 50 generations of black bears. The new bear doesn't especially fear humans. They were already among the most intelligent of mammals. They've applied that intelligence to their chief objective in life, which is getting the 10,000-20,000 calories a day they need to pack in to survive the winter. Bears have learnt that where humans camp or picnic, there are calories, and they have passed this information on to their offspring. They know what a cooler looks like. Their sense of smell is 2100 times more acute than a human's, many times sharper than a bloodhound's. They do not understand the word "no," and they are powerfully equipped to get those calories. Bears can tear a car to pieces in minutes to get a single stick of chewing gum or a Tootsie roll. And if the bears trash your car because you left food in it, NPS will fine you for careless conduct (up to $5000) and your insurance may not cover you.

Thus, one hikes Yosemite with a degree of caution; making noise and keeping alert. This northerly trail had few, if any, people on it. It heads East from the Pohono Bridge through a regrowing, burnt-out forest. My hick kid senses went past the red line almost at once: this didn't seem like an area that would appeal to tourists, but it sure as hell looked like it would interest bears.

We hadn't been on the trail 15 minutes before I spotted the first bear shit. It was certainly a day or two old and full of berry remains. By me, both were good signs. Somewhat later, I spotted a second pile. This was fresh, no more than half a day old. The good news was that it too was full of berry husks, and not scraps of potato chip bags or blue jeans. We were getting tired, but this find rather put wings to our feet.

About an hour later, the parental units were wearing out and decided to alter course for the nearest shuttle stop. The offspring opted to press on. It was about this time that we ran into the commonest magnet (in Yosemite) for touristic stupidity: deer.

People exposed to Bambi at a formative stage become incapable of reason when they find themselves less than 50 yards from deer. They begin a behaviour which any reasonable prey animal will interpret as stalking, if it goes beyond a certain point. Please note that deer aren't helpless, and their antlers aren't their weapons. The inner surface of a deer's hoof is as sharp as a razor. They can, and do, cut small predators (like snakes) to bits. They can inflict a considerable amount of bloody damage upon stupid tourists who invade the deer's personal space. When the equation includes the deer's offspring, the situation becomes explosive. If a visitor manages to get hurt in this way, they have no redress from NPS. The rules (again, regrettably, in English only) say to stay 50 yards from deer. You can be mutilated by the deer and then fined (there it is again) by NPS for recklessness.

We found, of course, a wide-eyed tourist snapping pictures of a doe and getting between her and her fawns. As I went past, I muttered comments much like those above. It's impossible to say whether the tourist in question spoke English, but I made enough noise to encourage the doe to get away and take her little ones with her. Someone had sense: too bad it wasn't the biped.

All three of us made it back to Housekeeping Camp and our bear locker. The image below shows just the lower portion. In Housekeeping Camp there's a top level as well, to which one can add a padlock. This offers a space secure against human as well as animal predators.

Bear lockers can only be opened by beings with opposable thumbs (so far). They are made of very heavy gauge steel that could probably withstand an elephant. There are somewhat less secure, but portable, safety canisters available to back-country hikers. The story was being told at Yosemite that a bear in New Hampshire has figured out how to open back-country bear canisters. This bear was being earnestly sought in order to take it out of the gene pool before it passes on this discovery.

What goes in here? Pretty much every organic item you bring to the park, except your person and your clothing. So with the cheering note that we had only encountered bear shit to this point, not bears, we close this installment. Next time, we do battle with the altitude, as well as the wildlife.