[ Previous | Index | Next ]
|
- Denny's #6763
- Oakdale, California
- 26 November 2005
- 7:45pm PDT
- 1555 East F Street
- (209) 847-0242
|
- Attendees: P7A77, Josh (formerly "The Bear"), Kara, Chad
- Wait-person(s): Kelly
- What we ate: P7A77: Root Beer Float; Josh: Buffalo Chicken Strips w/ Ranch & Blue Cheese, Iced Tea; Kara: Buffalo Chicken Strips, Iced Tea; Chad: Mozzarella Sticks, Coffee
- Who has two thumbs and didn't get his face eaten by a bear? This guy.
- I had no definite Thanksgiving plans, so the weekend previous, Josh suggested we do a local overnight camping stint the following Saturday. Sounded good to me. The next I heard, Chad and Kara were coming along, and now we were spending a couple of days in the Santa Cruz mountains. Aces. That Tuesday, Josh picked me up to go shopping for supplies and said we were instead spending three or four days in Yosemite. I had only been camping a few times, and never long-haul backpacking, and never to Yosemite. Hell yeah, bitches!
- Early on as we were hiking I saw a bear. Not way off in the distance somewhere, but about fifty feet from the path. I looked at it. It looked at me. I hoped it didn't think my face looked like a tasty snack. I remembered I was strapped in to a heavy pack containing most of our food and had been hiking all day and wasn't much for running. Then I realized I didn't have to outrun the bear, I only had to outrun Josh. I relaxed a bit. The bear went on his merry way; no maulings for now. I figured such sightings were common, so I didn't notify the guy with the camera. I was wrong.
- Our path took us from the valley floor up along the Merced river, past a couple of waterfalls, constantly moving up up up, climbing over some rocks from time to time, that sort of thing. Here's a handy tip for you other first-time backpackers: big heavy steel-toed workboots are not the most comfortable thing to wear. The only prevention to my falling over dead was inertia and the pleasant thought that, eventually, I would be able to stop. Eventually. Six miles is a hell of a long walk with a pack on your back and two thousand feet of ascent.
- We made it to camp about an hour from dusk. An advantage to camping in winter is hardly anyone else is around: we had the place practically to ourselves. I volunteered to go find water. After a whole lot of wandering and going in the wrong direction, I made it to the stream, filled up the bottles, and promptly fell into the water. The extremely cold water. I figured they'd have a fire going by the time I got back, and I found a path that seemed more direct, so I took it. Bzzt, wrong, this path went some other crazy way, so I made up a short-cut through the woods to the clearing that I'm sure was where I started. Er, uh, no. Okay, back to the path. What path? Huh? Okay, now I'm wandering in the woods, aimless, getting dark, and nobody but the bears to keep me company. Finally made my way back to the path, walked along it a bit, decided for some asinine reason to try another "shortcut", got lost again, finally beat it into my head to stick to the path I recognized no matter how long of a way around it was, and got back to camp. Everyone was very glad to see me, as they needed water to cook dinner. Nobody seemed particularly concerned that I, a camping neophyte with no flashlight, had gone missing in the dark for an hour. It's nice to feel safe and loved.
- That night was Thanksgiving dinner, and oh what a feast! Freeze-dried turkey, freeze-dried potatoes, freeze-dried cobbler, freeze-dried cranberry cheesecake. I don't eat this good usually, and I have plumbing and electricity. Chad and Kara did most of the cooking, and a fine job they did of it.
- The next day was sunny, so we set off on a day hike to Half Dome. Most of it was nice and leisurely. Then it got cold. Okay, we're warm from walking, keep moving. Then the wind started. Hey, we're bundled up, no problem. Then the fog. Who wanted to see the canyon anyway? Then the rain. Hey, we're almost at the top, let's push through it. Snow. Well, it's cold, and it's pretty, so no problem. Hail. Okay, FINE, we'll turn back. We made it to the base of the part where you need to be very crafty to climb, so it was a worthwhile trip. That night, after scavenging for any dry wood we could find, we eventually made a furnace to challenge the pits of hell. It melted my socks, but I was too cold and dirty to notice. I also had our pal Jack D. to keep me warm.
- Saturday was time to head back, towards civilization and showers. We passed fairly close to the peak of Liberty Cap and decided, what the hell, let's see what it looks like up there. Chad and Kara do this sort of thing all the time, but it was my first. What kept me going was seeing the view and wanting to know what it looked like a little bit higher, which was an even better view, leading me to believe it'd keep on improving like that. Now that I've been to the top I understand what all the fuss is about. No definition of the word 'panoramic' conveys the true meaning, and photos don't do it justice. It was, simply put, sensational. I look forward to climbing again, this time with a bit of training and the proper equipment, as the "falling to my death" bit isn't quite as appealing.
- The walk back was fairly uneventful, until Josh (formerly "The Bear") got himself caught in a bear trap. Chad & Kara to the immediate rescue. They told Josh the proper way to chew off his foot at the ankle, bandaged up the bloody stump, gave him some morphine, everything. Josh, ever the trooper, hobbled the last couple of miles with nary a whimper, and we were homeward bound.
- Oh, yeah, I almost forgot... we stopped at Denny's. Kara, a bit of the culinary snob, commented, "I liked Denny's... when I was 17," but when she saw the photos of the buffalo chicken strips, her eyes went wide. The overall experience was surprisingly pleasant, right down to the Russian teenagers pretending to be mobsters, and Chad going to the restroom with Josh to help him pee. Kelly, our waitress, was nice and flirty. There was some confusion about Oakland and Oakdale and whether or not we were still in California, but we muddled through somehow.
- EAST BAY!
- WAY: No
- Free Stuff: joy and happiness, and a plastic cup
[ Previous | Index | Next ]
