Picture: Spring snow in Cooks Meadow and clearing storm clouds over Half Dome at sunrise, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, California
Last night my family and I returned home from a week long camping trip in Yosemite Valley. Surprisingly, these family trips produce far fewer photos than you’d think. It seems I have a guilt complex about abandoning my family at camp, either being gone for make coffee & breakfast time, or being gone at dinner time. Don’t misunderstand; that guilt doesn’t always stop me. Sometimes I skip going out to take photo at all, preferring to lounge around camp. Other times I leave later (read: sleeping in during the morning) or get back to camp sooner. This trip I shot maybe about 40% of what I would have done if I was on my own, but then I wouldn’t have the family camping experience. It’s all about finding the right balance.
Highlights included waking up one morning to a fresh coating of snow on the valley floor. Even more amazing that this was the second year in a row camping in the valley that we got snow during April. Very rare, considering the total number of days in a year that the valley gets snow after winter is over.
Also, my best friend joined us for a day, driving up from Santa Barbara. The five of us climbed the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Falls. I was amazed and so proud of how my 5 & 8 year old kids did, making the whole trip with precious few complaints. This was a 5.5 mile hike w/ 2500+’ of elevation change, and 600 wet rock steps. Given the hiking guide called this trail “Strenous”, I was thinking we would just get to the bridge. Talk about exceeding expectations!
No Diapers this trip, but I did do my share of litter clean up.
Down points: well, it was Yosemite Valley. Even in April spring break season, it was a bit crowded. Easter Morning we’d been out cruising the valley, and returned to our Upper Pines Campsite to find a circle of 50+ hispanic Johovah’s Witnesses right next to our tailer, reading scripture & stories in Spanish. Fortunately the group dispersed to about 5 or six sites around us. Brandon got a bit tired of the Spanish Music that played occasionally from boom boxes and car stereos. Connie and I didn’t mind that too much despite it sometimes being a couple notches too loud. We told Brandon it could be a lot worse; for instance, this was very traditional and festive music, and at least it wasn’t a group of drunk college students blasting rap or death metal. Our good fortune was that right at 10pm, the whole group went nice and quite, and were quite respectful. Not like the group on our last night, a couple traditional american families, yelling at the tops of their lungs at 9:25pm “Marco” … “Polo” … “Marco” … “Polo”. That was soon followed by another camper yelling “Shut the H*ll up!” Noise patrol was pretty lacking. I found it quite amazing that the camp host volunteers had four nights of “this is one of our two nights off” out of six nights. I guess they call that ‘volunteer math’.
Incredible shot. The scene at camp you described is the type of memory that keeps me from going to Yosemite that often. Nothing quite like trying to go to bed with Napalm Death blasting in your ears. My friend and I encountered some red-neck wackos in an Eastern Sierra campground a few years ago who were even fighting with the police patrol at midnight. so we got revenge by leaving real early in the morning before sunrise and making no attempt to keep quiet. Perhaps even “accidentally” honked the horn a few times as well.