the un-packaged vegan: January 2014

I arrived back at Red's Meadow with something like 73 miles under my feet so far. I still needed to get back to Yosemite Valley to catch a bus out to Merced at some point. My original thought was to hike back using side trails that I hadn't used yet. But I was having some feelings about this. The shadows had shifted and fall was on its way. People were reporting smoke and frost in some of the valleys I would be going through. To do all the things I wanted to do, I would have to rush, and that is ultimately what led me to decided to shuttle around from Mammoth to Tuolumne Meadows, and then hike down to the valley. I was a little nervous because it was heading into Labor day, and even though some of the roads were closed due to the fire, I was still expecting some big crowds, so I started early.

I had a quick breakfast at the grille. Said good-bye to all the amazing people that had been so helpful to me there, and took off on the great shuttle adventures. I was the only one on the bus when we left Red's, but we picked up a couple guys who had been climbing in the area. They were really ready for breakfast! One of them was from France and compared French and American approaches to levels of access to "national park" type areas. I would expand on his thoughts, but I couldn't really follow because he would contradict himself often, or maybe it was a language thing... either way, it was fun to listen.

The bus driver was super interesting. He was retired (from what, I don't know), but grew up coming to the area with his grandparents, and now spends his summers as a bus driver for one of the oldest shuttle services for getting people out to this magnificent area. The next bus driver worked for YART on the east-side. He is a retired sheriff for a small town in Washington state. I was the only rider, again, until we got into a couple stops in Mammoth village. He was super nice and helpful in navigating where to stay when I arrived in Merced (he and his wife now live there).

One of the great things of riding these buses is meeting people finishing or starting their adventures. Most of them where male/female couples. There were a couple of 2 guy crews, and a few single guys out. I was the only woman traveling alone. This was starting to click more and more in my brain. I think I've mentioned before about being mistaken as a "bro" or "dude".... I was called "bro" so firkin much, and it was about to get worse and I didn't even know it yet. No, I was enjoying a beautiful bus ride through the dry desert of the Eastern Sierras. We got into the east entrance of Tuolumne Meadows, with no line! The bus driver was expecting something. Usually its super long, but with so many roads closed, and false reports of the fire actually being in the park, there was no line.

So I got off the bus and headed to the backpacker camp-ground once again. It was early in the day and not really anyone in it yet, so I headed off to explore some of the things I had been dreaming of... like Soda Springs

where the springs bubble up

It is said that this is where John Muir came up with the idea for creating a national park system. There are many tales of this being where he brought people to fall in love with the area, and want to protect it. Much of it is written in such beautifully and poetic ways, that it could be forgotten that people were living here and already caring for the land and all that moves through it. It can be difficult for me to remember that these protective parks that I so love to go to in order to get away from the over-consumptive nature of city living, is steep in a form of racism that removed people to land that could not support them. To land with out access to their ancestral ways of living, loving, connecting... well things I don't even know.

As I moved through this area, I also came to the first lodge of the Sierra Club, but really my brain was stuck, and it still kinda is.... How easy is it for people who's views/politics/personal ethics to get watered down as they assimilated or get acculturated? When radical becomes cool. Or when something/someone becomes popular and gets assimilated and then it gets easier to give in a little, and then a little more, until those original calls to action are no longer there? Take the Sierra Club and its one time strong activism to protect land and water and animals. Then it got more popular in the mainstream culture to the point of working hand and hand with energy companies and their concessions to government regulations and big corporations make you wonder why you contributed anything ever, just so someone could get paid big bucks to hang out with the "enemy"....

With these thoughts in my brain, the visions of so much beauty around me took over, and I was able to be present in what I was experiencing... these many days of daily meditations was demonstrating its benefits.

I found myself headed to the visitors center, and of course, the bookstore! So many good books on the history of the area, but ya know, I'm backpacking and still have 3 or 4 days to go... so I settled on an anthology of women writing on nature! A true antidote to what I had been thinking! Its great! Sisters of the Earth: Women's Prose and Poetry about Nature, helped inspire me to not fall into the void of misogynistic and racist versions of nature I had been getting since I started planning this trip.

I took my little treasure, stopped my the little camp supply store near the campgrounds and got some veggies and made my way to my little campsite where I read, ate, and watched the smoke roll in with other campers.

That night the camp fire talk was on climate change and its effect on Yosemite. I decided I was going to go, not only would a fire be nice, but I wanted to hear how the talk might be framed in this context. Besides, even Muir mentions climate change in his book "Yosemite". And a plus, it was going to be given by a female ranger! She was amazing! Not only did she talk about how climate change and the cyclical nature of changing weather patterns, but what that would mean for the surrounding cities... like San Francisco. For example: less snow = more rain. less snow = less catchment for water supply = more flooding = displacement of wildlife and people. She also taught me that my favorite little mountain rodent (the pika) is actually a member of the rabbit family! WHAT! We lingered and chatted more long into the night about her love affair with Tuolumne specifically and the Sierras in general. I look forward to many return trips to the area my self.

The smoke had really settled in. My black jacket was covered in ash, and it was time to get moving. I awoke early, packed up and went down to the grille to get some coffee and breakfast before starting the final uphill before the major descent into the valley. Somewhere along the way, I did leave a solid piece of myself in Toulumne, and I can't wait to return and continue the exploraton of the magnificent nooks with in this landscape.

places I explored

just another walk

soda springs, the white residue is made up of the minerals, the red is the only place place I saw red soil, the water... amazing and bubbly!

the meadow

smoke rolls in (from prescibed burns, not the wildfire its self)

fresh avocado!

oh yea

peaks and spires I hope to explore soon

places to return to

When I was planning the alt-adventure, all I really knew was that I was heading to the Sierras and some hot springs that I had randomly been told about. As I was meeting both of those "goals", now what?

I was finally in the middle of no where, and I was finally alone. It was here that I would finally find 3 days of not talking to anyone but myself. There were a couple of times that I would hear people come near, and I was in a camping spot that could have allowed for others to stop, but no one did. Close one night. It was late, and I heard 2 guys talking, their headlamps scanned the area, but when they saw my tent they said someone was here and they should move on. That was it.

So what did I do here? I really did meditate 3 times a day. I adventured off trail where I apologized to snakes I had disturbed. I soaked in hot and cold springs. Mostly, I sat on boulders and watched amazing clouds move around.... and some of the bluest skies filled my sights. There were days I thought my chest would burst from the beauty of the peacefulness that I had found myself in.

I laid out some ideas of what I wanted to return to Portland with. Where I wanted to go when I left this little spot. Mostly I just cleared my mind, and my heart. It is funny what comes in when you clear out parts of yourself.

My grandpa's death the previous year was still really sitting with me (and still does, thankfully), and I was wondering what to do with it. There is this notion in the white capitalist culture of what to do with death, but if one sees death and life as something you can't separate....

So we had some chats... several chats with folks who's spirits I feel as continues companions. It is in these environments that I feel I can truly open up to them and we can all expand and take up some space... so we did.... so I did. And I allowed myself to be comforted there. I would like to mention the sage that is in this valley. I have had some sweats with an amazing person who would bring this high altitude sage to ceremony, and here I found it again. Each time I brushed up against it, a flood of feelings would wash over me and I would slow down to take things in even deeper. That sage is so strong and so soft....

One of my favorite things about the solitary nature of this spot, was soaking and then laying out on a big rock face naked to dry off and warm up. Then returning myself to an upright position and meditation for a spell...

After a few days of this, I packed up for the long hike back to Red's. I wasn't ready to leave, not by a long way. But it was more that I was ready to start. Also, I needed to be back to catch the shuttle around to Tuolumne Meadows. The fires still had roads closed, and it was now almost Labor day, the day many things start to close down.

I was prepared for a seriously difficult hike out. It was going to be all uphill, out of the valley. And there was just not that much water once I left here. So I filled myself and all my water bottles with every beverage I could imagine, and headed out.

But everything happened so fast! A couple hours ahead of what I expected, I started to run into hikers from Rainbow Falls going in the wrong direction. It wasn't much longer that I had a train of folks following me out of the burned up forest and into Red's. I did feel a little smug as I landed, grabbed a beer and bag a chips, and watched them wonder up to catch their shuttle back to Mammoth.

I did cheat and get a cabin to myself. Sat on the porch and watched the sunset. I was worn out. I had pushed myself hard and was feeling so amazed at what I was able to do! Not that I didn't have limits to my ability, but that I had a new level of confidence. I was no longer so nervous crossing a stream on a fallen log with a pack on my back; I was cautious, but not so afraid. I was bounding over obstacles, not like a 19 year old, but also not like, well others my age. I had sharpened old skills and cultivated new ones. So when at breakfast in the grill the next day, I was not surprised when the woman who worked there and myself both turned at the same time to see the shifting shadows and new that fall had arrived in the woods.