Chainline: California Trip

"Bears are everywhere, but not all the time."

- Yosemite Park Ranger

So, the trip to California... The basic plan was this: me and one of my old roommates (Greg) that still lives in Michigan would fly to San Fransisco and hang out there on Thursday afternoon. We'd meet up with a third roommate (Jacob) who lives out there, and then drive to Yosemite National Park that night. Friday, we'd hang out at the park and do our "big" hike. Saturday morning, we'd hang out at the park, and then drive back to SF in the afternoon. Sunday, the Michigan guys would fly home.

San Fransisco was pretty cool. From the airport, Greg and I took the BART to Chinatown and had lunch there. Somehow, we managed to pick a Vietnamese restaraunt, but it was good. From there, we walked to Fisherman's Wharf. We saw Alcatraz (from a distance), the sea lions on the pier, and the different ships. We used a combination of mass transit and our feet to get to Fremont, where we got our food for the weekend and met up with Jacob.

The drive to Yosemite was pretty uneventful, although we did see a coyote on our way in. Unfortunately, we got a late enough start that it was dark by the time we got to the park. It's too bad, we could see that the views from the road were pretty awesome on our way out. That night, we got the bear lecture from the Curry Village staff. As if to emphasize the point, later that night, some people did see a bear in the camp area not too far from us. The park rangers set off a big noisemaker, and we saw them outside our cabin with radio equipment, big flashlights, etc.

The hike on Friday was awesome. We took the Mist Trail up to Vernal and Nevada Falls, and then we came back down on the John Muir trail. It took us about 6 hours at a pretty liesurely pace. The trails were a little more crowded than I would have preferred, but it wasn't bad.

Friday afternoon, we drove down to the south end of the park and saw the giant Sequoias. On our way back, we stopped at one of the picnic areas to cook some dinner; we were the only ones there. We'd been there about 15 minutes when we heard some crashing noises from across the road. We scanned the woods until we found the source, a bear had climbed a little way up a tree and was scoping us out. We could see his head peeking out around the tree trunk. We quickly packed up our stuff and got ready to leave. We must have made enough noise to discourage the bear, because he wandered off... but we did see him cross the road to our side. Needless to say, the rest of our meal was a little more tense.

On Saturday, we packed up and decided to drive around the valley and visit some of the points of interest that we couldn't see too well the day before. Because these areas were easily accessible, and it was now Saturday, the crowds got worse as the morning went on. We were happy to be leaving when we did. We did see one more bear, swimming in the river, on our way out of the park.