If we’ve learned anything from this trip, it’s that you need to allow more time than you think for the major National Parks. There is always more to see than you have time, but the other wrinkle is that it takes almost a solid day to get situated and find your bearings. In an effort to reduce humans’ effect on the natural environment, most of the National Parks are limiting private vehicle access to the most popular roads and sights, especially in high tourist season. Shuttle buses are comfortable and run frequently, but it’s not always fast and/or easy to get where you want to go.
Yosemite has yet another reason to require more time: bears. The Yosemite Black Bear is prevalent in the park, and they have learned that humans like to keep food in their cars and in their living quarters. If you leave food, or even scented items like toothpaste, in your car after dark, you run the risk of smashed windows or the roof being torn off by a hungry bear.
After three weeks on the road, we have a lot of assorted food and scented toiletries scattered around the car. Most people empty their cars and take everything into their hotel rooms. Trouble is: we weren’t staying in a hotel room. We were staying in a tent with canvas sides.
Thankfully, Yosemite provides metal ‘bear boxes’ to store your stuff — we needed three of them. It took almost 1 1/2 hours just to unload the car and tote everything to the bear boxes.
Despite all the bother, the park is a beautiful place. Granite walls tower above you as you walk in the valley. Eric woke up that morning feeling like he had been “hit by a bus”, but he wasn’t willing to let that stop him from enjoying the natural beauty. We set out on a hike called the Mist Trail that we believed was 1 1/2 miles. We didn’t realize that it was also straight uphill the entire way.
Many rest stops later, we got to the end of the trail … only to find that that was where the Mist Trail actually started. Ellie didn’t want to hike anymore, so she and I headed back to the car while Eric and Nora continued on.
I think it was a total of 6 or 7 miles round-trip, with an increase in elevation of over 2,000 feet. Nora out-hiked Eric easily. They went to the top of Vernal Falls and enjoyed the view before hurrying back down to meet us.
Unfortunately, I don’t think any of us enjoyed sleeping in the tent. It had cots, but they were uncomfortable. And they were so close to the other tents that you could hear it every time someone in the next cabin turned over in their sleep. Thank goodness it was only one night.
When we woke up and got going, Nora was also sick. She was very lightheaded and fell and cut her lip and scraped her knee. We had her checked out at the infirmary to make sure she wasn’t dehydrated, and she checked out fine, so we continued on with our plans to leave. Poor Nora was pretty miserable the first few hours we were driving, but by afternoon she was back to her normal, perky self.
I’d say that Yosemite was the first of adventures that didn’t turn out to be quite as perfect as planned. Someday we’ll return, get a “real” hotel room, and spend a few more days exploring. But for now, we say farewell to California, and head back east.
“it was also straight uphill the entire way”? Where were you, MC Escherland?
Also, that’s why we don’t camp, dahlings.