is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Wild Animals.
Just got back from being off the grid for a few days. Caroleen, Halliday, and I went up to White Wolf, in the High Sierra portion of Yosemite, and had a lovely time. We took two long, challenging and beautiful hikes, and one short, unchallenging and beautiful hike. In particular we climbed Mount Hoffman. Mount Hoffman is in the center of Yosemite and is also its highest peak (10,850 feet). Of course we weren�t starting at sea level or anything, but still, that is very high. Caroleen and I were keenly aware of how high it was as we neared the top, because we kept having to stop and rest every 20 steps or so, because invisible high altitude low oxygen atmosphere was kicking our asses.
Here are Hal and Caroleen climbing up to the sky.
We were way high! Yes, that tiny thing you see about 3/4 across the photo way down in the distance is Half Dome!
The climb was breathtaking in more ways than one, you might say. The views were spectacular, and we were winded by the altitude. And we saw lots of cute creatures like large birds and small birds and chipmunks and marmots.
Marmots are so cute you really want to hug them! (Do not attempt.) But all they want from you is your sandwich. Don�t be fooled. They are wild animals and should be left that way. I kept having to make threatening moves with my backpack to keep a trio of them from bum-rushing my lunch. It�s OK because they are cute and entertaining and not very aggressive. Halliday said he thought they looked cute until they got up close, then he thought they looked mangey. I pointed out that if a nice marmot lived with you you could shampoo it and keep it fresh with Gee Your Marmot Smells Terrific brand Marmot Wash. He was sold.
Here is my marmot, and yes, he does smell terrific.
This year we had no debates over whether what we were seeing were marmots or badgers, because I had my laminated wildlife identification cards with me. And so now I know also that last year we saw marmots at White Wolf and badgers at Twenty Lakes Basin (last year we gave up trying to figure out what was what and just called them all Marmadgers). Badgers are larger and they don't really look like something you'd want to hug, what with their long, long claws and underground-dweller eyeballs. However, they are still mid-sized furry animals, and I would gladly hug a nice, newly shampooed, friendly Badger, were I ever to meet one.
In other animal news, White Wolf is currently under attack by a family of bears. Every night at about 9:30 they start trying to break into the storage shed that holds the people-food. It�s an amazing sound, much like the sound of some huge really powerful animal laughing at human hubris while easily tearing away sections of wood from a lightweight shed full of food. The bears also stole food out of bear boxes every night we were there, often with people standing right there near them. One bear in particular could not be persuaded by yelling and clanging pots and honking horns to go away, and a ranger (a ranger named Flint?!) had to shoot rubber bullets at her. (We heard this story at dinner our second night there. Our first night there we heard a bunch of screaming and clanging and honking, and then nothing, so we figured the tent-campers had scared the bear away. And then we heard screaming and clanging and honking, and then nothing. And then we heard the screaming and clanging and honking, and it kept going, and then we heard two shots, and that was very alarming indeed! We felt sad and hoped it was a tranquilizer gun.)
And it is sad, because the next stop for this bear is probably death if she already has such a taste for human food. Usually the rangers try catching and tranquilizing a food-stealing bear, and relocating him or her to a more remote section of the park. If that doesn�t work, the bears just get more and more aggressive, and then they are killed to protect the humans who have been dumb enough to feed them in the first place (or dumb enough to leave food in non-secured areas, etc.). Anyway, it�s sad, because this bear is a mom-bear, who has two yearlings and two cubs to take care of. And so far the rangers haven�t been able to catch her because she doesn�t do the normal bear things and always escapes away into the rocks where the rangers apparently can�t get her.
Nonetheless, here�s a good image for you to picture: Apparently some people were held hostage in their tent cabin for a number of hours watching a bear eat an industrial-sized tub of sour cream late into Friday evening.
My only sighting of the Very Determined Mom Bear was from about 200 feet away, as she slowly strode across the road near the camp�s restaurant at about 6pm, plotting her next 9:30 food-attack.
The main bummer for me, personally (as opposed to the more universal bummer of the fact that the Very Determined Mom Bear will probably have to be killed), was that I had to hold my bladder all night every night because there is no way I�m going to walk by myself in the dark across a camp to use the facilities when there is a Very Determined Mom Bear who is also Bold And Hungry!
That�s OK. I consider myself to be in her territory, so a bit of bladder discomfort is fine for a few days.
I saw lots of fox poop but no foxes (save for Halliday and Caroleen, of course).
We also hiked to Glen Aulin, which takes you past an amazingly beautiful series of waterfalls and rapids. That hike had less elevation gain but was longer, about twelve miles, and much of the uphill climb is on the way home, so we three were crazy worn-out tired after both of our full-day long hikes. On the way out of Glen Aulin we got rained on, by these HUGE raindrops that at first felt like hail they were so large. And we saw spectacular lightning strikes in the distance (which thankfully never got near us as we hiked).
One of the many beautiful falls on the way to Glen Aulin.
White Wolf has changed its restaurant to be �family style.� Oh, how I hate that! �Family style!� I don�t know how your family works it, but mine isn�t so keen on having to make forced polite conversation with a bunch of strangers, especially after a day of exhausting hiking! On our first night, family-style, I quickly insisted that Halliday disobey the host and gather around the end of the table with Caroleen and I instead of us sitting three in a row next to each other. That way we got to pretend like we had our own table, and we got to laugh at our own jokes and talk about our day. (It was a long conversation during which much high altitude wine-drinking laughter was spent on a certain drawing of a cougar on the restaurant white board. Let's just say that the phrase "Enjoy your Meal" accompanied by a certain hand/claw signal is now part of our sign language.)The second night we had no choice and had to sit three in a row facing a bunch of people we were too tired to get to know. Some of them liked the Red Sox. Others were from Belchertown Mass and/or worked for Friendly�s. One was from Marin and was mad that a bear ate her avocados and bread. They were perfectly nice but we were tired and just wanted to be able to talk to each other and laugh at the things that we think are funny and talk about our day in a way that doesn�t have to cater to being universally understood.
In addition to the heinous �family style� seating, the restaurant now only serves one food selection per night. Last year there was a normal menu with various choices you could have for yourself every night. And the food was pretty good, too. I don�t know about your family, but when my family is on vacation, we want to eat a range of foods of our own choosing rather than being told what to eat by some mom substitute who can�t even add up a bill correctly. And if you do force my family to eat a bunch of mediocre food in the company of strangers, we at least insist that you do not make us pay for it as if it were fine restaurant food, OK?
We left the shit out of some feedback on our �how was your stay?� form. Caroleen was the most concise: �Kill the family style meal.�
In short, I love White Wolf, but I really hope that this experiment in streamlining the restaurant is a bad dream that all the White Wolvians will wake up from soon, because EVERYTHING about it is worse than last year, including the service and the efficiency of seating people. (This could be because no adults seem to work in the camp at all? We decided maybe they should rename the restaurant Lord of the Flies and Mosquitoes?)
Still, we had a great time. It�s so lovely up there, and a day spent out in the wilderness so far away from everything, and in the sight of such beauty, none of that can really be spoiled by Lord of the Flies and Mosquitoes Restaurant.
Just look!
All that, and then you have your own tent cabin, wood stove, and pile of wood ready to turn the brisk evening into a toasty warm sleeping machine.
12:02 a.m. - August 07, 2006
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