A Preface: Historical and Geological Tidbits and the Journey There

Yosemite National Park Hike: Day 0
In 1890, it took five days to get to Yosemite from San Francisco and the average stay was two weeks. Most visitors were wealthy; they had to be to have that much time off from work. Now, it takes five hours to travel from San Francisco and the average stay is only four hours. My dad and I went backpacking in Yosemite for five days. We hiked part of the John Muir Trail through Upper Lyell Canyon, but first, we had to get there. Which meant five hours of driving through the Sierra Nevadas.

The Sierra Nevada mountains are different from the Rockies, which I grew up visiting. They’re mostly rounded-tops and are covered with brush and trees instead of the barren, pebbled peaks of the Rockies. Many of the valleys have vast lakes, creating a beautiful, awe-inspiring view as we make our way to Yosemite. The road winds and twists so much that even at 30 mph, I am tossed around in the backseat like a rag-doll and reduced to clinging to the “Oh Shit!” handle in an attempt to keep myself in one place. Closer to San Francisco, there are a series of hills that have windmills lined up like sentinels on the crests of the mountains. There’s something about these windmills standing tall in perfect lines along the ridges that I can’t quite explain. Almost as if they’re standing guard or patrolling.

The night before we begin our hike, we camp in the backpacker’s camp in Tuolomne Meadows. Luckily, it wasn’t nearly as crowded as the campground my dad stayed at before his trip a few weeks earlier, so we were able to find a great spot that wasn’t surrounded by other people. Everyone is friendly (especially the guy with a Mohawk who had his tent pitched at the campsite next to ours and this guy who asked my dad about his tent and reminded me of a friend I used to work with), though I notice that very few people are carrying lightweight gear and packs like we are. I did not appreciate this when I was packing and Dad told me I had to leave three-fourths of the stuff I had planned on taking behind. I was GREATLY appreciative of the fact that my pack only weighed 19 pounds by day 4.

There was a Ranger Campfire Talk that night about the history and meaning behind Yosemite. The ranger started by telling us three stories about the meaning of Yosemite (obviously of varying degrees of historical accuracy). The first story is that the Mariposa Battalion, which was not actually part of the official army but rather a group of miners from the area, goes after the Miwok Indians in the valley for stealing horses and eating them (which they were doing because the miners were cutting down the black acorn trees that were a major part of their diet). The first group they round up is all from a smaller tribe of the Miwoks, Yos.s.e'meti, meaning we are called grizzly bear.

The second story goes like this: A miner calls to the cook across the mining camp, "Yo! Send me tea!" because he doesn't want coffee. It echoes through the valley and catches on.
The third story is most widely accepted as the true origin of the name. Members of the Mariposa Battalion confuse the Native American words for grizzly bear and black bear—ïhümat.i and ïsümat.i—to get Yosemite (I’m not sure of these spellings; I haven’t found this particular version of the story anywhere, so this is all from memory and online guesswork.). So it actually means Valley of the Two Bears, except that now the California Grizzly is extinct (except for its appearance on the state flag) and only black bears are found in the park. The ranger also told us that Tuolomne means land of the cave-dwelling mud people.


The ranger also mentioned Lembert (and some of the other settlers and business men who first came to the valley), who saw his face (past, present and future) in a cliff face that is now called Lembert's Dome (see above).

After telling us the stories of the meaning of Yosemite, he talked about what the park has meant to people, especially talking about the Wawona Tunnel Tree in the Mariposa Grove (it collapsed under the pressure of snowmelt in the 1960s) and the Fire Fall, which lasted from 1872-1968 when it was stopped because it went against the message of conservation the park was established to promote and the popularity of it was destroying the park land. Fire Fall (if you’re like me and weren’t alive when it was popular) was created by pushing a bonfire off Glacier Point (I think…it was definitely in the main valley near Half Dome) after dark and people would park and set up camp in the valley below to watch the smoldering wood tumble down. If you’re interested, you can see a real Yosemite Fire Fall in Humphrey Bogart's 1954 film, The Caine Mutiny.