Flashback Friday – Hiking El Capitan

Here is a blurry photo of me taken in 1984, from the top of El Capitan in Yosemite Park. I have a perm, so likely it’s a good thing it’s blurry. We didn’t have digital photos back then, and this is from Rosemary’s point and shoot.

You may have seen pictures of people scaling up the face of El Capitan with ropes, but there is a trail that gets you to the peak that you can do in a few hours, without ropes and so on, and this site has great pictures and a description of the hike.

This is El Capitan. If you climb up the face, the ‘nose route’, you’re looking right at it. The path we took is off to the right, and takes you gradually up the rock.

Yosemite is spectacularly beautiful, especially in the spring when the waterfalls are gushing (unless it’s a drought year). I’ve been 3 or 4 times…the first time we didn’t stop, I was taking a vacation with my Great Aunt Flo up to Tahoe with her daughter, and I was probably 10 or 11 years old. We were in no hurry, so we drove up so I could see Yosemite. It was pretty, but a drought year and I think full on summer, so no waterfalls that I could see. I do remember Aunt Flo saying how beautiful it is when they are flowing full force. The second time was the trip pictured. Rosemary and I went with our boyfriends, Dan and Jon, soon after we graduated from High School. Actually, now that I think about it, the second time was just a month or so earlier, a day trip for students who were CSF (California Scholarship Federation or something like that, which I was for maybe one semester…I was not the best student). The fourth time was with Maya’s Girl Scout troop, which I wrote about at the time, here.

So we packed Rosemary’s father’s station wagon with tents and sleeping bags and food, drove to Yosemite, and found a camping spot. It’s so long ago now, I don’t remember if we rented the equipment or someone had it, or if we had a reservation for the camping spot or just happened to get one.

What I do remember is: Hiking up to Vernal Falls, and then I think to Nevada falls above it, but perhaps not. It’s beautiful, though slippery and misty in some spots as you near the waterfall.

The next day, we hiked up to Yosemite Falls, and then continued on to El Capitan. It was a lot of hiking, first up, and then down again. It was beautiful the entire way, and we were young and had a lot of laughs. We spent a decent amount of time at the top, so we could rest and enjoy the view. It was stunning.

When we got back to our camp ground, there was a baby black bear in the car. It had gotten in through an open window. We made a lot of noise and chased it away. Closed the window. Cleaned up, made ourselves some dinner, had a campfire, all of that. Eventually we went to bed, and were awoken by the terrifying sound of the mama bear, who was rocking the car back and forth to get to the food that the baby had apparently reported. She got frustrated when that didn’t work, so she smashed one of the windows, climbed in, and started chowing down on our food. We were terrified (those of us who were awake, my boyfriend somehow slept through it) and did not dare go out of our tent to chase her away. After she finished making a huge mess, it went looking for water. We were camping next to a creek, and I remember her big wet nose snuffing past our tent, and worrying that perhaps we might have some food in with it. Luckily she got her water and left. Somehow, being young and stupid, we were able to go back to sleep.

The next day, we had to go to the little country store, buy more food, and find a phone to tell Rosemary’s father what had happened. Somehow we managed to convince him that it was OK for us to stay another day and night, if you can believe that. Driving home was chilly with one window missing, but that was a great trip.

Looking back at the two times I spent the night there, and how harassed we were by bears, I know that I will never camp there again. I would totally glamp though, or stay in their beautiful hotel…