A Writer's Adventures Backpacking in Yosemite: The Trek Begins

Yosemite National Park Hike: Day 1 Miles Hiked: 7.78 miles (includes scouting for fishing sites without our packs) Elevation: 894 ft up from Tuolomne Meadows (we started off 8600 feet above sea level when we entered the lower part of the Canyon)

We're on the John Muir Trail to Upper Lyell Canyon. Today we hiked through forested areas, suddenly emerging in vast meadows spotted with giant boulders. It feels like we're surrounded by a bowl of trees with mountains rising up on all sides. In some places, instead of meadows, the ground is just rock with boulders strewn about and the bleached bones of dead trees that make it seem like Mother Nature's graveyard. The river changes without warning from quiet and meandering through the open meadows to bubbling brooks to roaring rapids in the wooded areas. The trees all look so different, but upon inspection later in the day we realize that they are actually all Lodgepole Pine. Sadly, there are no giant Sequoia or Redwood in this area of the park. Many living trees are bent, growing parallel to the ground—perhaps caused by the weight of the snow as it melts and compacts. There are also lots of saplings in the open parts of the forest, showing how Mother Nature replaces what she destroys. The treed areas remind me of my summers in Minnesota when I was growing up. The open areas and mountains remind me of Alaska, but greener and more varied.

Our campsite is surrounded by Lodgepole Pine. The bark on the older trees is a golden honey color with darker reddish streaks where black bears have clawed to try and get at the sticky sap inside, which looks like a thick, gunky, cloudy yellow honey where it's clotted on the outer bark. The younger gray-bark trees have no claw marks, suggesting perhaps that the bears only like the sap of the older trees as looking at the needle structure has revealed that these are all the same type of tree (not my first guess). Lodgepole pines have a two-needle structure, produce short, stubby cones and the needles themselves taste of gin. My dad said all we needed was some vodka to make ourselves martinis. It is warmer in this campsite than it was in the backpackers' camp in Tuolomne Meadows where we spent our first night before hiking in, despite the fact that we are at a higher elevation, or perhaps the slightly higher elevation helps as cold air likes to sink and sit in the bottoms of the valleys.

The aspen glow turns the air reddish at sunset and makes for an amazing view of the rocky cliff directly above our campsite. While I tended the campsite fire, Dad went for a walk and found trout, deer and a Sierra White-Tailed Jack Rabbit out at dusk. We made our first fly fishing attempt that afternoon. Dad caught six fish (three brook trout, one baby rainbow trout and two brown trout), two trees and a rock. I caught lots of weeds and a grass island. On our way back to our campsite, we saw a deer feeding on a bush (which Dad later said was probably some sort of willow tree).

Spotted Today: yellow-bellied marmots (which look like beavers and make a strange chirping sound; also they seem to love posing for pictures); chipmunks (possibly alpine, Lodgepole or shadow, it's difficult to be sure as they run when spotted and like to hide in tree stumps); Belding's ground squirrels (sit up and dart around, freezing when they suspect danger. At first I thought they might be prairie dogs); Juncos (my dad's gotten quite good at spotting birds. I am much less so.); trout (they look like twigs floating in the river when they're feeding); mountain chickadees (these birds like to crawl on the trees); Clark's nutcrackers (another bird, this one likes the tops of the trees); lustrous copper and Boisduval's blue butterflies (they often actually remained still on flowers and rocks long enough to identify and photograph); and gold mantel ground squirrels (slightly smaller than the chipmunks).