Backpacking In California - June 2006, Part 1

Vince and I flew to L.A. to visit with Scott and Noel for a few days. We met Noel's friend, Thomas who was passing through L.A. on his way to Thailand and points beyond. After a few days of relaxing L.A. sytle, we took Scott (in his car) to Yosemite to go backpacking. Scott had never been backpacking before so I told him I would go easy on him. I only had a 30-mile trip planned but I figured we'd take it slow over about 4 days. Slow, as in...make sure we covered the necessary miles per day, but take plenty of breaks along the way - just make sure we made it to our camping area before dark.

We spent our first night at Wawona in Yosemite. We hiked to the Mariposa Grove to visit the Grizzly Giant. This is a Giant Sequoia tree, the largest tree by volume in the world. The Grizzly Giant is thought to be 2,700 years old! In addition to Giant Sequoias growing so old, they only grow in about 75 isolated groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas between the elevations of 3,500 to 5,000 feet. They rely on low intensity fires to germinate their cones. The bark is so thick (up to 2 feet!) that fire rarely ever severely damages a Sequoia. Amazingly, these giants have shallow roots - which is a good reason to stay away from the trees so that you don't compact the soil and damage the roots! Imagine, shallow roots anchoring something so tall and massive!

Scott brought along his water color/sketch pad and chronicled our entire trip. He's a very good watercolorist. As he would sketch or paint, people would stop by and look over his shoulder; offering him compliments. Vince and I joked about starting a scam where we would act like we didn't know Scott, then we'd walk up once a crowd amassed, and then offer him money for his art. Then maybe other people would pay him...and that would pay for the gas to go on this vacation (at $3.80 to $4.09 a gallon, we needed help)!
In preparation for our backpacking excursion, we rented bear canisters. These are required in most of Yosemite and recommended in all of Yosemite. The black bears have become wise to the follies of humans and our processed, easily accessible food. Warnings are posted all over Yosemite telling people to place food and other scented items in the bear boxes located at all campsites and parking areas. When backpacking, a bear canister is required. It's big, bulky and adds plenty of weight to your pack. But in my opinion, it is well worth the $5 rental fee. We transferred all our freeze-dried food into ziplock bags, eliminated any trash beforehand, and we were able to fit all our stuff into the canister. It actually helped us become more organized.

As we were travelling to our trailhead for the 30-mile killer hike (loop), Scott came up with a better route that cut some distance and heartache off the trip. Instead of starting our hike in the Valley at the 4-mile trail (which sounds brutal), he decided we should start at Glacier Point. This still meant that once we reached the end of our trip, we would have to hike into the Valley to catch a shuttle and ride it back to Glacier Point, or take the 4-mile trail back to the car. But it at least gave us some options.

Even before we could start hiking, Scott pulled his sketch pad out and documented the fabulous view from Glacier Point. It was breath-taking I do admit. So I rested, even before we put forth any exertion on our hike, while Scott documented. Once we finally started hiking we saw even more beautiful vistas. In fact, that is the reason I chose the Pohono Trail. I figured if we were in Yosemite, we should see all the highlights we could from the trail. We were not disappointed. The views made the physical suffering worth it (although the hiking wasn't terrible-strenuous).

(continued on "Backpacking in California - June 2006, Part 2")