Day 16, August 3: Group Hiking in the “Backcountry” (written August 5 from notes)

Day 16, August 3: Group Hiking in the “Backcountry” (written August 5 from notes)

Fully loaded backpack

The issues one encounters when taking a group backpacking/ camping experience became clear immediately as we began our excursion. My campmate, Henry, is apparently OCD. We were to meet at the designated spot by 8 a.m., only a few campsites away, and he was late. I woke 30 minutes later than he and he took so long to get everything just right, I had to wait for him. I finally said I would meet him over there and took off. Waiting for others became a regular occurrence, but more on that later.

Besides having to wait for him, I had an interesting morning packing my backpack and preparing to go. I was working to get everything put in it, and both Dennis from across the way (who was not going on the trip) and Rick (who was going on the trip) came over to advise me on how to pack. It was great to have the help and it made me smile. When we left, Rick said something about how funny it was to watch Dennis flirt with me. I didn’t notice.  Their attention did make me a little uncomfortable, but at the same time, it made packing the pack more enjoyable.

Making choices about what I would need for the next three days was difficult, especially because a person doesn’t want to take more than she needs. All my food had to fit in a bear-proof container, and none can be refrigerated. And you want to be prepared for everything, but you don’t want to take any extraneous items. In retrospect, I think I did pretty well. But once I was finished, I imagine my pack weighed around 40 pounds. Too heavy, but it was the best I could do. Maybe next time I can reduce it by a few pounds.

One of the other major preparations we had to do was to protect all our food from bears. Every campsite, and at the parking lot by the trailhead, there are metal cabinets to put all food and scented items in. You can’t leave your food in the car, you can’t leave an empty cooler in the car, and you can’t leave any scented toiletries in the car. It’s a real pain, and that took quite a bit of time sorting and arranging and then storing it all in the bear cabinets. All that, and I never saw a bear.

A little farther along the trail

The hiking was beautiful, right from the beginning. It began as a fairly level trek through some Lodgepole Pines, and then it moved downhill. The last two miles were at a pretty severe downhill slope, and each step had to be picked carefully to keep from slipping. But my what beautiful land this Yosemite is. The rocks are granite, so everything is pretty gray, except of course the brilliant blue with the green pines piercing it.

 The group of us was an interesting bunch; the Chinese couples stayed together all the time, and the rest of us kind of rotated. I spent most of my time talking with Rick, Kim, or the leader, Suzanne. They were all very different and interesting people.

Suzanne, our leader, at the bridge where she was knocked off by a pack mule and broke her back.

I found my natural spot was near the beginning – Suzanne’s pace was just right for me most the time. She is a 67-year-old woman and has been hiking and leading hikes all over the world for more than 30 years. She’s written a number of books on hiking, and I have one in my library. She was an interesting character and her stories were amazing. She’s had many injuries in all her years, the worst of which was when she broke her back. But nothing seems to slow her down. And she was no slow hiker.

Resting that load...

I also seemed to bond well with Rick. He’s a 50-year-old firefighter from near Fresno, and we hit it off immediately. His wife doesn’t like “sleeping on the ground,” so he takes these trips without her. They’ve been happily married for 30 years, and she’s 12 years older than he is. We talked a lot, both while hiking and in camp, and we both appreciated each other on the trip.

Kim is an interesting woman. She’s in her late 60s and lost the man she’d been with for the last seven years just six months ago. They had planned this trip together, and it was an emotional trip for her. We occasionally visited hiking and spent some time in camp together.

I enjoyed the hiking and most of the time in camp. I did realize, once we had set up camp and settled in for the night, how much I suffer emotionally when I can’t contact my kids and my friends. I went to bed early, simply because I didn’t want to stay conscious and miss them. I was also exhausted – we hiked six miles in carrying the backpacks, and the trips back and forth to the bathroom or the little store there were about ¼ mile each way, down and up a steep incline.  Having no cell phone reception and realizing I wouldn’t for the next three days took quite the toll on me.

But I knew keeping busy hiking and the physical exertion and the beauty of my surroundings would carry me through the next few days.