Road to California classes available: http://www.road2ca.com/class-schedule.html
Not a challenge I could even attempt, but interesting to browse through the winning quilts for the past 32 years:
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Showing posts with label Yosemite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yosemite. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Saturday Stories - Yosemite 05-21-16
I imagine it has been fifty years since this happened, but
it doesn’t seem that long. My first
husband and I went to Yosemite on a camping trip and camped at the Yosemite
Falls campground off the Tioga road. We
had our little pup tent and a free standing awning and it was a nice wilderness
sort of campground. One day we started
out to walk to the top of the falls – I don’t remember how far it was, but we
planned on only a couple hours. It was a
beautiful trail with lots of spring flowers (even Indian Pipes which I had
never seen before) so we stopped a lot to take pictures and we had a picnic
lunch of sorts and found a lovely spot by the stream to relax and enjoy. The trouble was we were not equipped to be
gone overnight and the day sort of drifted away. After enjoying the view from the top of the
falls, we realized we could not get back to our campsite before the sun went
down. We decided to hike down to the valley
floor where surely we could find a ride back up the Tioga to our campsite.
At the bottom of the trail out came our thumbs, but nobody would stop to
give us a ride. We inquired at the ranger station about
transportation, but they were no help. We waylaid people getting into their cars –
no luck. Finally it was dark and we went
back to the ranger station thinking we could spend the night on the floor. Finally someone took pity on these two stupid
people who had gotten themselves stranded.
He smuggled us into the ranger’s dormitory (I’m not sure they had female
rangers then) and showed us a couple cots at the far end of the room. We slept on top of the bedding with just a
wool blanket to keep warm, but it was the middle of the summer so not freezing
cold. In the morning, just before the
sun came over the mountains, we slipped down the stairs and headed for the
road. Who should be out for her morning
constitutional but the lady in charge of the dormitories. We obviously had come from one of them and we
admitted our transgression, not knowing the name of the ranger who smuggled us
in might have kept him out of trouble.
The gorgon was not very nice about the whole thing and had no suggestion
on how we could get back to our campsite.
We walked to the concession
area and bought coffee and something to eat, and started making plans to hike
the trail back to the top of the falls and on to our campsite. As we paid the check my husband casually said
to the lady at the register, “You wouldn’t know how we could get back to our
campsite on the Tioga Road, would you?”
The girl looked thoughtful and said, “Well, you could take the bus.”
Yes, there was a bus
route that would take us right past our campground. Why nobody else had thought of it is a
mystery. We found out where to catch the
bus and were soon on our way. The driver
let us off at the campground turnoff and we walked into our campsite. That was the last time we ever went for a
hike without advanced planning and a day pack in case of emergencies. I still wonder if the ranger was punished for
his good deed.
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Tuesday, December 28, 2010
No snow, but bare trees! 12-27-10
Watching the TV news about the terrible snows in the eastern states gives me a feeling of great anxiety! I have never been fond of snow, which is one reason I live in SCalifornia, and I do remember some snowy winters near Portland, OR. when I was a child. My best snow memory was the year my husband and I spent Christmas at the Ahwahnee Lodge in Yosemite Valley. It snowed a few inches Christmas Eve day and a few more during the night. It was an awesome sight to look out at the snow covered valley floor just after dawn - there were only deer tracks and crow tracks. We did go out walking, but not far because we couldn't bear to put footprints in that pure white snow. I think I will let that be my lifelong memory of new fallen snow.
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