When things get hard … they fall face

I had everything planned for a relatively easy backpacking trip in Yosemite with my boyfriend, Eric and her 7 -year -old daughter. Like a frequent solo backpack, it is a joy to have my family for a trip where I can waste and enjoy more than my usual trips of «fun type 2». We packed our great Copper Person Agnes of Agnes very spacious, my largest cook pot and a mini silicone spatula to make strawberry pancakes in the field. These were great waste for me. I was going to be great, and I was really looking forward to it.

I have been in Yosemite innumerable times since I was a child. I have fired by all the beautiful granite peaks and the lush forests of this sacred place. I have become familiar with Yosemite (winter, spring, summer and autumn, which seems to me a second home in many ways. Even so, there are always more places to explore in this vast bit of sky.

I always wanted to walk along the Pohono path, a short but very picturesque path of 13 miles on the southern edge, well above «The Valley». It was a perfect short backpacking trip for my family. Infamous, the most difficult part of this walk is logistics due to transport between paths. To precisely locate my story, I must first describe this logistics …

The Pohono Trail Exists Between The Ever-Popular Glacier Point (About 3,200 Feet Above The Valley) and Wawona Tunnel (The Famous “Tunnel View.” The Trail Can Be Hiked From East To West (Hiking Downhill To Wawona Tunnel), West to East Ascent to the rim), or via mcgurk meadow, All of which required difficult-to-obtain permits, entry point options, and careful planning for transport.

I investigated all the options and decided:

• Day 1: Make the camp in the valley and drive our car in view of the tunnel. Walk 3.5 miles for Wawona Road to the first transport available and take it back to the camp in Upper Pins (distant at the end of the valley).






• Day 2: He had made an advanced reserve for an Uber at 8:30 am (which was confirmed the day before) to pick us up and take us by glacier Point Road towards the beginning of the path. Start walking and campe in the field.






• Day 3: Finish the walk, ending in the car, which was parked in Tunnel View. Stay the night at a hotel in Oakhurst. Conduct home to Los Angeles the next day.

The Uber was not a show.

Foolishness. Now what? We had to find a plan B (although I In fact I still wanted plan a). After entering Curry Village to get a little cellular coverage, we desperately try to ensure transport or share a trip, without success. We try to get hooked, and even with our cute 7 -year -old son smiling and trying so hard to stand out his thumb and help us take a walk, nobody stopped.

With firm input dates in our permission, there was not much maneuvering room. If we could not arrive at Glacier Point that afternoon, the backpacker was a bust.

We grab vegetarian hamburgers in Basecamp Eatery in Yosemite Lodge and decided to think of options with clear heads and full stomachs. We decided that it was too late to backpack the Pohono path. Instead, we would try to get a camp in the valley and enjoy walking walks and see. Although I knew we would have fun, we were among us in the beautiful Yosemite after all, it was still quite crushed. Eric was so supportive, positive and quiet. Cora was a champion. She is well traveled by a 7 -year -old girl and relatively easy to pivot. I was doing my best.

I walked to Camp 4, a camp only for infamous tents because it was the ground for the best rock climbers, walkers’ garbage and ground bags. No availability. Being the high season in July, there were no camps available in any of the camps in the Yosemite Valley or its surroundings.

After realizing that we couldn’t even get a tent site, I called my boyfriend and told him that I would climb my car in the Wawona tunnel and solve it from there. I am a fast hiker and the 6 -mile walk did not care.

The turning point

It was hot. Around 90 degrees. The heat radiated the black asphalt. I had my backpack with me, weighing around 25 pounds. The luxurious 4 people suddenly became a load. One of my nails of my feet was falling from an anterior walk, my internal thighs begged, and I really didn’t want to be on a walk on the road when I could have been backing. Stay positive, Kelly. Stay positive. It was not the walk that was difficult, it was my mental state.

Wawona Road is not intended for pedestrian traffic. I was walking along a very narrow shoulder, the crunchy brush scratched my legs, and I had to take into account the cars that approached me with only inches of free space sometimes.

I didn’t want to blame anyone. I am the type that assumes the responsibility of my own actions, and I also know that some things are out of the control of any person. Even so, it was difficult to shake the feeling that someone else disappointed us.

As a person who used to suffer severe anxiety and palpitations of the heart, some of these family feelings began to reach my head and body. My hands began to tremble. My heart began to beat faster. I could not stop negative thoughts. He had walked about 7 miles where we had started that morning. In any other situation, this would have been a cake walk for me. But I had overcome it. I extended my thumb and tried to rest one again. Car after car approached. I had to keep my arm low or folded, so it did not stand out along the way. The strong hurry of each car and bus that happened to me tribute to my ears and reminded me that I ought I have been on the edge, far from any signal from a car. I became even more frustrated.

I looked behind me and saw a Yosemite Open Tour tourist bus. He wanted to be sure that he was out of his way in the scarce shoulder of two feet. I was walking forward but looking back on the bus. I threw on a branch and before realizing …

I fell out of my face

With the weight of the package that did not give me another option, I fell directly like a fallen tree. There was only no warning of «Timber!» Lying in my belly I raised my head right in time to see all tourists looking at me. He could listen to the guide to say something in his intercom, but I could not leave before they got hit. Two cars immediately stopped and asked me if I was fine. I was picking myself, my hat and my water bottle from the ground when I only shook my head and muttered: «No.» I was embarrassed, frustrated, trembling, and I started sobbing without control.

A very pleasant middle -aged couple in the first car went out to help me. At this time, there was a line of cars backed in the single file lane. The woman in the front passenger seat asked me if I needed something. Through my tears, I managed to say: «I just need a trip to the view of the tunnel.» The man in the driver’s seat came out immediately, helped me with my backpack and took me to my car parked in Tunnel View. During the very short trip (I only had a half mile to go), I expressed my gratitude to them. The man told me that he was a former Apalaches hiker. Looking back now, I would like to have asked their names. They left me in my car and made sure I had everything I needed. The man beat his arms and hugged.

I sat in my car, sobbing for several minutes. I looked at my leg and hand, bleeding a little. It really didn’t hurt, they just shook me. I called Eric and briefly explained what had happened. He assured me that everything was going to be fine, that we were going to have a good time during our next two days in Yosemite. Once I recovered a level head, I returned to the valley to meet Eric and Cora and discover our next steps.

Plan B was incredible

As there were no available camps, we reserved a hotel room in Oakhurst. We spend the next and a half day doing things that I never have time to visit Yosemite. These are some of our outstanding aspects of Plan B:

• He drove to Glacier Point. Eric had never been, and Cora had only been once as a little boy and did not remember.






• Grove Sequoias






• He visited the old Oakhill cemetery. So much story here! It was Cora’s first experience in a cemetery.






• I swam in the hotel pool and cooked our backpack meals in the room!






• He visited «Fresno Flats», a historical village that has been maintained by a preservation society. It includes many buildings and antiques of Oakhurst from the end of 1800 to the beginning of 1900. We received a tour with a girl outfit and we learned a lot! We especially loved jail, kitchen items, the old piano, the rotating wheel and the latrine.

Lesson:

Hug Plan B!

… Ah, and don’t program an uber to/from a path.

At the glacier point

Fresno Flats

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