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Yosemite, beauty, nature and PAIN!!
- Jun 22, 2008 at 2:28 AM
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I thought I was going to die. Okay. Not really DIE, but I almost wished it!!
We went to Yosemite today to the church camp that the Adventist church has there. After lunch a bunch of us decided to take a little three mile hike to Vernal falls.
I can hike three miles. Really, I can.
I just have a lot of trouble doing it on an incline so steep that I have to lean forward to walk on it!! It rose so rapidly that I thought my lungs would burst and my heart pop out of my chest, right there on the trail, next to the squirrels and bluejays.
It was really, really, REALLY hot. I was dizzy from thin air. I almost stopped and a guy told me that the hardest part was just ahead but about 2 minutes into it I would hit the bridge and it would be worth it.
He was right about that. Glorious flat terrain and ice cold Merced River spray!! However, we hadn't reached the falls yet...
We kept climbing (and climbing, and climbing...) and Alicia and my mom's boyfriend Dan came back to check on us. My mom was having a really hard time due to her bad knee - and the extra 50 pounds or so she's carrying right now. I looked ahead and saw stairs. Stairs!! I was so happy!!
Until I reached the stairs. They were uneven and cut directly into the granite. Mind you, these granite outcroppings were next to the stinking waterfall so they were also wet and worn with time from millions of tired feet climbing them. Many of them were about 12 inches in height! Good grief!! Who thought these things were stairs?
About half way up the stairs is a metal railing that is right by the falls. While standing at the railing, you get a pretty good soaking, along with rust stains on the white shirt that you decided to wear for the trip. Then there are more stairs, climbing at a ridiculously steep grade and getting wetter by the step. Alicia wanted to go on, but I thought they would have to medivac my cold body out of there if I tried.
Going down the stairs was harder than going up them. By then my legs were like Jell-o and I was shaky and tired and I HURT! I finally made it down them and then headed down the trail, where my poor mom was waiting for me.
This is when I discovered that my new hiking shoes were a tad too big and my foot would slide forward while going downhill until my toes jammed into the end.
My mom was almost in tears due to her knee. She has had so much trouble with that thing, but doesn't want it to slow her down. So it slowed us all down. Part way into it, I discovered that walking backward took a lot of stress off of the knees while going downhill. Dan held my mom's hand and guided her but I still had to walk forward or risk pitching off the cliff, bouncing off of boulders and landing in the ice-cold river and being whisked off downstream at a high rate of speed toward many, many more boulders.
We got back to the bridge where there are also bathrooms, as such. We stopped for a break (because it's a looooong way back down that hill!).
That's when the rain started.
At first it felt good. Then it rained harder. Then some wicked wind came up. My brother picked Alicia up and put her on his shoulders, thinking we'd get her down the mountain quicker, but I think the wind just caught her and made it more difficult for him. Nothing like icy bits of rain being blown sideways into your face and neck! Remember, it was just around 100 degrees before and now there is icy rain for which none of us are dressed.
Naturally, we were at the steepest part of the trail when the storm was at its worst, but we didn't want to wait because who knew what was in store?
I'll tell you what was in store....just a light sprinkling off and on from then on.
We finally made it down the hill and over the first bridge and to the shuttle stop where my sister and her friend were waiting for us. Once on the shuttle, we tried not to breathe as the standing room only bodies were packed in. I think we all smelled very ripe after our showers and following heat, which only served to make us all nice and steamy, as well as muddy.
For some reason, my family members had brain farts, each and every one of them, and decided that we needed to get off at a certain stop, one that I was sure was incorrect.
Of course, I was right.
After some wandering around Yosemite valley, we found a nice ranger who pointed us in the right direction toward camp, where the planners had helpfully removed all the signs pointing us in the direction of the camp. Maybe they didn't want them ruined by the rain, since they are temporary signs? I don't know, but I just figured that if we followed that stupid river (I thought it beautiful as we headed out on our hike) we would find the camp. We did, and Mike and Reece were happy to see us back in one piece.
We made it just in time for dinner and I have to tell you, I really enjoyed that veggie dog! Until it gave me heartburn half an hour later.
Mike said he would drive on the way home and I was so happy that I thought I could actually squeeze out a tear, you know, if I had had any water left in my body that I didn't sweat out of me. First, though, we gave the kids and him Dramamine since the ride in wasn't a very pretty one (or great smelling, either).
Did you know that Dramamine makes you drowsy? Says it right there on the package!
He was having trouble staying awake while leaving the park so finally my sister and I convinced him to pull over and let me drive. Just what I wanted.
I did drive, although I moaned and groaned the whole time I was walking to the driver's door. I felt like Indiana Jones in the first movie after he's been dragged behind big trucks and beat on by Nazis and she's trying to just find one place on him that doesn't hurt (although he finds about 5 and one was, oh so coincidentally, his lips)...only he got to fall asleep.
Mike is asleep. But I got a shower and bath in a detoxifying bath soak!! Go, me.
We went to Yosemite today to the church camp that the Adventist church has there. After lunch a bunch of us decided to take a little three mile hike to Vernal falls.
I can hike three miles. Really, I can.
I just have a lot of trouble doing it on an incline so steep that I have to lean forward to walk on it!! It rose so rapidly that I thought my lungs would burst and my heart pop out of my chest, right there on the trail, next to the squirrels and bluejays.
It was really, really, REALLY hot. I was dizzy from thin air. I almost stopped and a guy told me that the hardest part was just ahead but about 2 minutes into it I would hit the bridge and it would be worth it.
He was right about that. Glorious flat terrain and ice cold Merced River spray!! However, we hadn't reached the falls yet...
We kept climbing (and climbing, and climbing...) and Alicia and my mom's boyfriend Dan came back to check on us. My mom was having a really hard time due to her bad knee - and the extra 50 pounds or so she's carrying right now. I looked ahead and saw stairs. Stairs!! I was so happy!!
Until I reached the stairs. They were uneven and cut directly into the granite. Mind you, these granite outcroppings were next to the stinking waterfall so they were also wet and worn with time from millions of tired feet climbing them. Many of them were about 12 inches in height! Good grief!! Who thought these things were stairs?
About half way up the stairs is a metal railing that is right by the falls. While standing at the railing, you get a pretty good soaking, along with rust stains on the white shirt that you decided to wear for the trip. Then there are more stairs, climbing at a ridiculously steep grade and getting wetter by the step. Alicia wanted to go on, but I thought they would have to medivac my cold body out of there if I tried.
Going down the stairs was harder than going up them. By then my legs were like Jell-o and I was shaky and tired and I HURT! I finally made it down them and then headed down the trail, where my poor mom was waiting for me.
This is when I discovered that my new hiking shoes were a tad too big and my foot would slide forward while going downhill until my toes jammed into the end.
My mom was almost in tears due to her knee. She has had so much trouble with that thing, but doesn't want it to slow her down. So it slowed us all down. Part way into it, I discovered that walking backward took a lot of stress off of the knees while going downhill. Dan held my mom's hand and guided her but I still had to walk forward or risk pitching off the cliff, bouncing off of boulders and landing in the ice-cold river and being whisked off downstream at a high rate of speed toward many, many more boulders.
We got back to the bridge where there are also bathrooms, as such. We stopped for a break (because it's a looooong way back down that hill!).
That's when the rain started.
At first it felt good. Then it rained harder. Then some wicked wind came up. My brother picked Alicia up and put her on his shoulders, thinking we'd get her down the mountain quicker, but I think the wind just caught her and made it more difficult for him. Nothing like icy bits of rain being blown sideways into your face and neck! Remember, it was just around 100 degrees before and now there is icy rain for which none of us are dressed.
Naturally, we were at the steepest part of the trail when the storm was at its worst, but we didn't want to wait because who knew what was in store?
I'll tell you what was in store....just a light sprinkling off and on from then on.
We finally made it down the hill and over the first bridge and to the shuttle stop where my sister and her friend were waiting for us. Once on the shuttle, we tried not to breathe as the standing room only bodies were packed in. I think we all smelled very ripe after our showers and following heat, which only served to make us all nice and steamy, as well as muddy.
For some reason, my family members had brain farts, each and every one of them, and decided that we needed to get off at a certain stop, one that I was sure was incorrect.
Of course, I was right.
After some wandering around Yosemite valley, we found a nice ranger who pointed us in the right direction toward camp, where the planners had helpfully removed all the signs pointing us in the direction of the camp. Maybe they didn't want them ruined by the rain, since they are temporary signs? I don't know, but I just figured that if we followed that stupid river (I thought it beautiful as we headed out on our hike) we would find the camp. We did, and Mike and Reece were happy to see us back in one piece.
We made it just in time for dinner and I have to tell you, I really enjoyed that veggie dog! Until it gave me heartburn half an hour later.
Mike said he would drive on the way home and I was so happy that I thought I could actually squeeze out a tear, you know, if I had had any water left in my body that I didn't sweat out of me. First, though, we gave the kids and him Dramamine since the ride in wasn't a very pretty one (or great smelling, either).
Did you know that Dramamine makes you drowsy? Says it right there on the package!
He was having trouble staying awake while leaving the park so finally my sister and I convinced him to pull over and let me drive. Just what I wanted.
I did drive, although I moaned and groaned the whole time I was walking to the driver's door. I felt like Indiana Jones in the first movie after he's been dragged behind big trucks and beat on by Nazis and she's trying to just find one place on him that doesn't hurt (although he finds about 5 and one was, oh so coincidentally, his lips)...only he got to fall asleep.
Mike is asleep. But I got a shower and bath in a detoxifying bath soak!! Go, me.
Comments:
1-3 of 3 comments
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Oct. 2, 2008 at 7:54 AM
Your story-telling abilities are very good! I enjoyed it all and remember Yosemite with great love as one of the last places My Children and I were together was at Yosemite. Although it is nothing like up further north, it is a concise wilderness of all Creation.///
May. 11, 2009 at 3:55 PM
I know the Jell-O feeling. I hiked the same hike (under somewhat less taxing conditions) with my daughter a while back.
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You are to funny. Wow what a mess. I am glad you had fun tho. It is great to be in the great outdoors where God is all around.
- ktykat77
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