Woke Up, Fell Out Of Bed, Hiked Until I Was Half-Dead

[This post was begun on 8/5 and is becoming waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long, so here's what there is so far and the rest will be up shortly]

Hey, has anyone else noticed it's freakin' HOT?!??!???! JAY-sus!

Gabs and I went with the Vullos (and Kristi's mom - not a Vullo but an incredible simulation) last evening to see the Fab Four at the Kravis Center. It was better than I'd expected and we all had a good time. As Mike commented, these guys did their homework. They did a great job musically and with the onstage banter, and
(d)E(a)d Sullivan was quite entertaining during what would've been the intermission. As "Paul" said, he's very clean, that little old man.

borderLine had the night off, what with me at the Fab show and Casey in Delaware, but we will be playing again at Koffeeokee on Saturday 8/11 starting at 9pm. Be there or... be somewhere else?

The wife and I went to K-Mart (Where America Goes To Get Out Of The Trailer Park For A Couple Of Hours. While there, Gabs picked up a Gazillion-Pack of FlavorIces, her new summer staple. I swear, if she could find a way, she'd shoot this stuff into her veins, ice be damned!) this afternoon and then to Sweet Tomatoes for an early din. Good thing we went early, too, 'cos we no sooner sat down than every elderly person from within a six state radius descended on the place like a horde of gray-haired locusts. We huddled protectively over our plates like two kids in a Dickensian orphanage. I was ready to take a piece out of somebody's walker if I had to. I had a butterknife and was not afraid to use it, believe you me.

So, being at K-Mart and the SweeTomatoes brought me to a Yosemite state of mind, seeing as I did 60-80% of my hike outfitting at the K and the Tomato had pesto pasta on the buffet tonight, which Joe ate practically each night we were in the Park. Thus..........


The Yosemite Chronicles continue! *APPLAUSE*


Day 4: God Give Me Strength -

Wednesday June 13 - Joe and I woke up around 6am to prep for our assault on Half Dome.

Ugh. That sounds so violent.


Wednesday June 13 - 6am - Waking from a restful slumber, Joe and I began those few tasks that would allow us to peacefully meander the 16-or-so miles to and from that most magnificent of mountains, Half Dome, standing majestically some 4000 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor.

Ahhh, much better.




I decided to forgo showering (after all, what's the point? It'd pretty much be a waste of water. After all, I was about to WALK 16 miles up and down a mountain...) and instead lathered liberal amounts of sunblock and bug juice atop the previous day's grime-covered layer of the same. I believe in using the strongest sunblock I can find, especially since each step taken on this hike would take me one step closer to the surface of the sun. The one I use, Banana Boat's Baby Magic Sunblock (hey, if people trust this crap on their babies, that's all the recommendation I need), boasts an SPF of 50 and contains titanium dioxide. Basically, once this stuff is on, I have roughly the same sun protection Darth Vader had while on the Death Star, minus the cloak and mask. Although, since it goes on thick and white, I tend to more closely resemble a stormtrooper. My bug repellent-of-choice is an herbal concoction called Green Ban that I picked up one year in the Yosemite Mountain Shop. It does not contain DEET, which I believe eats your brain while chasing away insects. There's a trade-off I'm just not willing to make. Green Ban is supposedly "tested in the Australian rainforest" - which I didn't even know existed, but it sure sounds impressive - so on my skin it went.

I ate a couple of protein bars from my Vegan Survival Kit, made sure my pack had everything I'd need: more bars, sun n' bug stuff, bottled water, hat, gloves, ID in the unfortunate event that my body needed to be identified, digital voice recorder, trekking pole, and extra socks. One of the greatest hiking tips I've ever gotten - thanks, Wayne!!! - and continually pass along is to bring fresh socks and change them mid-hike. It's like putting on new feet. I went down to Curry Pavilion to fill my faux CamelBak (thanks, K-Mart, for saving me $30!) with H2O and to drop in a CamelBak Elixir electrolyte tablet. At this point, Joe was right behind me and we headed to catch the first shuttle of the day, the 7:00am to Happy Isles, the Half Dome trailhead. Joe realized he'd forgotten something and went back to base camp, and I caught the bus and started off without him, as I wasn't sure how long he'd be and I didn't want to risk not having enough time to complete the hike. I figgered, Joe's a big boy (he sure snores like one), and I was NOT to be denied.


[just had to take a short time-out to perform goldfish CPR, a skill I was not previously aware I possessed. Our li'l fishy has been acting strangely as of late, swimming upside-down and sideways, appearing listless and dull in color. Our guess is that he may be/may have been suffering oxygen deprivation from the water we haven't been very good about changing lately. He kinda looks like he's got some neurological impairments/brain damage/is retarded. Bad parents, we. A few minutes ago, I looked in on him and he wasn't breathing, or gilling, or whatever it is they do that denotes aliveness. Those things around his face that usually move weren't moving. I called a code blue ("Honey, I think he's gone..."), Gabby called the trauma team (ran out to get some bottled water) and I got the crash cart (opened the top of the bowl and reached in). I moved him around, talked to him, rubbed his sides and did everything I could think of short of actually performing mouth-to-fish on the little guy. Somehow, despite his best efforts to "move on to a better place" or "go to the light" or "die already", I managed to keep him alive till Gab returned. We moved him to ICU (put him in a bowl of CLEAN water) and Gab changed the water in his bowl. Once in the smaller bowl, he perked up considerably, prob'ly from the sheer terror of being manhandled and all. Hey, whatever works. The other option is in the bathroom and we shall not speak its name. *raises eyebrow*

I'm happy to report that Fishy is now in his own bowl and swimming comfortably, sometimes upright, sometimes not. Hell, even if he is brain damaged, at least he's become very entertaining to watch!]

I rode the bus to Happy Isles with the others who'd gotten up for an early start and stretched in the shade of the bus stop. Prior to a hike, I do the same stretching routine I use prior to tennis matches, which takes about 10-15 minutes and incorporates some faux-yoga movements. As I've said for a few years now, yoga is my next frontier. For now, I'm busy perfecting the "Sitting On My Ass & Talking About It" pose...

Having brought my digital voice recorder (DVR)/portable brain along, I have a fairly-detailed record of this hike.

7:30am - I took my first steps on the trail to Half Dome. This is the same trail the Boys and I hiked two days before which would take me again past Vernal and Nevada Falls. I should say that I opted not to bring my camera along on this hike, as I wanted to travel as weightlessly as possible. As much as I had wanted to make this trek for years and years and had visualized it over and over again, in my mind there still lived a nagging fear that I would not be able to do it, that it would be beyond my physical limits, that I would fail. Leaving pounds of camera equipment behind seemed like a good idea, a way to remove one more possible obstacle from my journey's path. Since I don't trust my digital camera to do what my film SLR can do, I didn't bring it either. Except for the teeny camera in my voice recorder, I was camera-less.

7:55am - I made the following entry in the DVR: "Standing at the footbridge, watching the sun come up over Vernal Falls... I don't know how my life could get better than this". It wasn't a sunrise per se, but to see the sun ease up over this beautiful waterfall was magnificent.

8:24am - DVR entry: [sounding winded but exhilarated] "Less than an hour, and I'm at the top of Vernal Falls..." In hindsight, my only regret is that I treated this hike in some ways as if it were a business trip, something requiring that I just put my head down, put one foot in front of the other and plow through. To this end, I prob'ly coulda packed my gear in a briefcase as opposed to a daypack.

I think I made a small error in following the next segment of the trail that leads up to and past Nevada Fall, as I should have been hiking with the fall to my right (as I remember doing in years past). After hiking for some distance with Nevada on my left, I realized I'd taken a wrong turn but knew that this trail would eventually wind back to the fall and that I'd get where I intended to go anyway. after all, I've found that even our wrong turns take us to where we're supposed to be... It seemed a waste of time and energy to backhike, so I continued on. The result was that I had the trail mostly to myself for about an hour, and the solitude was wonderful. I listened to nature's early-morning symphony of birdcalls and waterfalls, and added to it the crunch of my boots on the trail...

Oh, and I talked to myself. Incessantly. I find that I'm good company, and that I can be very encouraging. Giving myself encouraging self-talk helped me to dispel a lot of the fear that had somehow ended up on the hike with me ("You'll never make it, y'know... Much too tough of a hike... You're gonna fail... You can always turn back... This just isn't your year, kid..."), despite my having insisted that it stay at the cabin. I guess it jumped into my pack when I wasn't looking, and it weighed me down until I realized I was carrying it and made a conscious decision to let it go. So I did... and I picked it up again... so I let it go again... and picked it up again... and let it go again... and again.

[Sad news: despite a valiant effort lasting a couple of days, I must report that Fishy has gone on to the Big Ocean (via the toilet). I performed more lifesaving manuevers yesterday evening but it seems that Fishy had come to, in Stephen King parlance, the clearing at the end of the path. Gabby and I gathered around the toilet (can two people "gather", or is this verb reserved for three or more?), said a few words, pushed the small silver handle and bade Fishy a fond farewell. He/she was a good fish, kept to him/herself, never said much, never made trouble. We'll all miss him/her, especially Ginger who enjoyed pawing at him/her from outside the bowl...]

9:23am - DVR entry: "At the top of Nevada Fall... feelin' good!" I'd been to this spot before, but everything from this point forward would be uncharted territory for me. I stopped to use the outhouse above Nevada Fall and, when I came out to rejoin the trail, found that I had just been passed by a mule train carrying supplies. Holy 1800's, Batman! I muttered a few choice obscenities as I realized that passing these animals and the person leading them was not gonna be easy, and I was not at all thrilled to be breathing in the trail dust they were kicking up. Plus, they move slowly. Plus, they poop. A lot. And big. Like mules. Like several mules. At once.

I made my way slowly along the trail and was relieved that the mule train stopped to take a break and let me pass. Soon, I came across a Park Service crew who were busily doing trail maintenance work and I marveled at the idea that they had to hike all the way up here with heavy gear (picks, shovels, rakes, etc.), work for 8 hours and hike back down again. I thanked several of them (they were kinda spread out) for doing this work and said to one of 'em, "And I thought God was the one who took care of these trails..."

When I came to Little Yosemite Valley, which comes suddenly after a kind of monotonous uphill section (90% of this hike is uphill, and the other 10% is mostly uphill), I was taken in by its simple beauty. No one had ever told me about this stretch of the hike, the Merced River running though it, the beautiful trees and meadows, the views of Half Dome from behind, the variety of secluded places to go pee.

Merced River - Little Yosemite Valley (not my photo - thanks, Google!)

Another Googled pic of LYV

Googled again! Rear view of Half Dome (Half Ass?)

I stopped by the river to dip my hat in and cool off, then continued on through this relatively flat area. I tend to hike at a fairly quick pace (or so I'm told), and here's how one might get an idea of my average hiking speed (assuming one gives a crap): a Beatles song was playing in my head and I found myself hiking to the beat of "I'm Only Sleeping" and singing it aloud, presuming that bears are not Beatles fans.

I hiked on in 4/4 time...

More to follow...