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Published: August 28th 2008
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big trees
bet you could make a few toothpicks outa that tree
Overnighted in a hostel run by Yuri and his bevy of ravaceous russians and somehow manage to haul myself out of bed for the 6.30 pick up. There on the corner are a bunch of other bleary eyed travellers, we each eye each other up in that awkward way strangers that know they are going to be spending time in close proximity to each other do. Mike our guide arrives in the minbus to face his first problem of the day. The bus takes 14 but theres 17 of us...turns out this french couple had their trip cancelled, just no one told them. Lots of grovelling later and they are dispatched to a foggy san fran morning.. still leaves 1 person to take the bullet... thing is we all have confirmation emails and mike doesn't like being the bad guy. So we all agree to budge up and suffer being cramped in the bus so we all can go... and of we go. the group is 4 maori teammates from a canoeing comp circuit, a few australians some english students a couple of nederlanders and some danish.
4 very cramped hours and some junk food stops later and we arrive
in Yosemite Park, stopping to visit some huge Sequoias. Boy are these trees big. These ones are young'uns, only 1700 years old. Still old enough to have been around before the main religions fucked things up too badly. After we have puffed and sweated our way back to the bus Mike tels us that we are now at about 10'000ft so strenuous activity might start getting a bit harder... and i thought it was all the burgers making me find the walk so hard. On the way to the campsite we stop at a decent swimming hole in the valley. And 15 strangers do the beach towel shuffle into their swimwear...well 14.. i never really got the whole beach towel shuffle thing.. 😊 and i've not got enough to cause any serious offence anyway... The water is freezing... but i think this is just a taster of colder swims to come. Amazing place to swim tho and the river cooled beers were good too.
The company has permanent pitches at this campsite it seems and the tents were already up and waiting when we arrived. Just supper to sort. Those that know me know that i always end up
in the kitchen cooking, this was no exception. Sausage casserole with mash potatoes for 16 all off two gas rings? no worries mate... Next day we grab breakie and make sarnies for the trek later, and get mugged by a load of wasps. I hate those things and they where everywhere getting into the sarnies crawling all over the meat and spreads, but we survive and head into the centre of Yosemite to hike up Mount Hoffman. The scenery is pure magic and even some flowery old ponce like Byron would have difficulty putting adequate words to paper, so not even going to bother.. look at the pics instead.
The summit is only 14'000ft..so just a gentle 4'000ft climb...piece of piss really... not. Soon I am gasping like asthmatic with emphacaema . We wander through alpine meadows , shaded pine groves and nice rocky escarpments. Everything looks warm and inviting.. which it is for about 3 months of the year. the rest of the times its witches' tits territory. And then we go through the tree line... and it really is a line, one minute trees the next nothing but rocks and shrubby things. The climb gets steeper and
swimming in style
worse places to swim... the breaks get longer but eventually we get to the plateau at the top and try and gather enough breath so we can lose it to the view... There is even a mini snowfield which we all leap around on, until one of us notices its stradling a 500ft drop and its only 4ft thick.. oops. These rodent things called marmites or something were all over the place, so was their shit.. nice. Everytime someone pulled out a camera they would strike a pose. They worked those cameras better than a porn star on a photoshoot, except with more nipples and fur.
The last 200ft is a rock climb to the summit and only 8 of us make it up there, but it was so worth it. The climb down however was a killer, slipping and sliding all the way down to the glacial lakes . The swim in the water was electrifying , again only a few of us went in, but damn was it good. only problem was i ended up with an extra set of tonsils. Exhuasted we pile into the bus and Mike put on his ipod through the speakers and we rockout to deep
purple and Led Zep... Its in the bus he asks if i will do the honours and go al jamie oliver again tonight with the cooking. Burritos this time.. never cooked burritos before, so in a dusty campsite in the dark seems a great time to learn, and i did a pukka job if i say so myself.
Last day and we get to choose what we do. One of the Kiwis, the Ausies and myself elect to go hike up a few waterfalls. The first part is daytripper hell, trying not to skewer babies in buggies with my walking poles, but the 300 hewn granite steps sorts them out now its just the heart attack waiting to happen, with arses so big the block the views.. but at last we are out free and head off trail to boulder hop our way up the river bed to the base of Nevada Falls, avoiding slips to a crunchy end and dozing rattlers to reach what was one of the best places i had got to so far on this trip. A pool this remote has to be swum really and it defined a whole new meaning for cold. After
I feel the urge to do a bit of tai chi and do some form stood on a flat rock right at the base of the falls with ice cold water spraying all over me. But as with everything it was time to head back to San Fran for the final furlong of my trip...ya boo and verily hiss...
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