Ahwahnee, Day 6

Day 6, August 3

            From our perfect campsite, sunrise is as spectacular as sunset was. Half Dome and Yosemite Valley are glistening in the early morning rays. The full moon is still visible above them. Shadows glide through Little Yosemite Valley, our route for this final Ahwahnee saunter. Again, sitting in silence for what seems like hours, I am unwilling to leave this place. Views from enormous hills and mountains and peaks have always drawn me into that “Wilderness Trance” I mentioned yesterday. Not surprising that my family names are “Duneman” = Man On a Dune, and “Lamontagne” = The Mountain. I guess we of these clans were supposed to view the world from above. It certainly feels like home to me. Often, as I am leaving a place that had such an impact on me, I stop to soak it in one final time, with a nostalgic deep breathe. I had to do that twice today. It is hard to leave these places.

            Our Wilderness Ranger training has paid dividends. We cruise down into Little Yosemite Valley, probably covering 4-5 miles in just over an hour. We fly past the day hikers making the standard trek towards Half Dome; past those unwilling to venture out past these most popular Yosemites. Soon it feels like we have entered a different realm from our previous evening’s wonderland of solitude. Dozens of tourists wander about us, most completely out of breath and struggling mightily. I guess I am in pretty good shape doing this all Summer. After again greeting the Mighty Merced and re-filling our water bottles, we decide to stash the backpacks and attempt to scramble up Liberty Cap to see what we might see. A very good idea.

            After a thirty-minute adventure finding a route through thick manzanita bushes and up huge boulders, we reach the top. Epic vistas. Soon we are peering over a 1,000+ foot cliff right into the heart of Yosemite Valley. Nevada Fall looks like a little water faucet below us. My stomach swoons. I am almost literally peering straight down off an enormous granite cliff. Unbelievable. I am want to crawl on my belly down the inclined ledge and hold my head out over it to really have a look. The disappointing reality that I do not, in fact, possess wings, prevents me from tempting fate, and gravity. If I could come back as another being, it would without a doubt be a mountain or canyon bird. I have to fight the urge to leap off these cliffs and just soar. I envy you, mighty brother eagle.

            Slowing wandering back down the east side of Liberty Cap, we are looking at the backside of Half Dome from quite a unique angle. It looks more like a sitting camel, than half of anything from here. “Camelback Dome”, anyone? Everywhere we look from this height there are more jaw dropping views. Merced Lake again visible in the east. All the mountain peaks to the east and south - Panorama Cliff, Mt, Clark, Mt. Starr King, Cascade Cliffs. Again, old grandpa Junipers surround us, clinging like magnets to otherwise barren granite boulders. It’s hard to argue that all of these High Sierra trees are not some of the most impressive living things anywhere on Earth. It feels like our Ahwahnee saunter has reached its climax and we’re about to just float down the valley, in a pure wilderness trance. But there is yet one more blessed moment before we finally exit Brother Muir’s Temple, this sacred land of the Ahwahneetchee.

            As we approach the Nevada Fall, the crowds are becoming… well, a bit annoying. We’ve been on this vision quest in backcountry isolation and suddenly it vanishes and we are reluctantly forced back into the world of “civilization.” A large group congregates in a swimming hole above the waterfall. There are just people everywhere. I won’t have any of it. Veering off the path, I cut back up the Merced and soon glimpse a little waterfall of my own, perhaps a mere ½ mile from the mob. The “Required Effort Quotient” to reach this spot evidently too great for everybody, there is nobody else there. Again, I’ll take the solitude. Soon, I am perched upon a rock gazing at a pristine, clear pool of water some 15 feet deep. A rushing cascade roars behind us, sending a strong current our way. Momentarily pausing to ponder the absolute rejuvenation I am about to feel when I splash into this mountain chilled liquid sanctuary, in I plunge.

            Best. Swim. Ever.

            It is hard to leave these places.

            Nevada Fall. Emerald Pool. Vernal Falls. All brought to such vivid life by the stories of John Muir, I contentedly amble by them as we quickly descend to the Valley floor. I can only imagine what this must have looked like in his time, and before - when only the Ahwahneetchee wandered this land. It must have seemed like paradise, in every sense of that word.

            Again in Ranger mode, we fly by crowds of people seemingly unable to walk as they cling to railings and measure each step as if they are about to jump a 10 foot chasm, or something. “Why don’t people trust their feet?!”, I wonder aloud to my hiking compadre. Though these trails are indeed so worn and so used that the rocks have become polished and slick, as if by a glacier of shoe soles. But soon enough, we are off the trail and hopping aboard the tourist bus taking us to Yosemite Village, where we will catch another bus returning us to Tuolumne Meadows and our vehicle. Impeccable timing, it seems, as we have just enough minutes before boarding the last bus of the day to purchase a chocolate milkshake, a bacon cheeseburger and a gatorade (yes… one of the secrets of going backcountry sauntering is the appreciation of such decadence upon its completion! Mashed potatoes and gravy is thee epic post-hike treat, FYI. Not to mention how much one should relish the privilege of a long, hot shower – not many in this world get them, you know). Passing the last views of Yosemite Valley, off we go on a bus full of hikers, tourists and other. Had we exited the trail a mere 15 minutes later, we might have been stranded in the Valley. But now finely tuned into Ahwahnee Standard Time after this epic almost six day journey, it couldn’t have ended any other way. Some 90 minutes later, we dump our packs in the trunk, quickly change sweaty shirts, and sunset finds us exiting this grand Sierra palace and heading back towards Giant Sequoia land to the south. Final glimpse and nostalgic deep breathe. Darkness.

Addendum:

            So what happened to the Ahwahneetchee, or Yosemite, Indians anyways, you ask? Thoughts for the day… in 1851, a white man named James Savage (tragically ironic who indeed is the ‘savage’, no?) led the so-called Mariposa Batallion into Yosemite Valley to capture or kill the “Yosemite” Indians and any who resisted the violent greed of the post-Gold Rush white invasion. Eventually Chief Tenaya and the final free people were captured and Ahwahnee was occupied. There is a ‘Big Lie’ in American history that states that all of this violence and greed was inevitable; a “manifest destiny”. But in a nation supposedly based upon this idea of personal responsibility and choice it is indeed remarkable how little responsibility is taken for the choices that were made - the choices that led directly to the Native American genocide that took place in these Americas. In a historical slight of hand, this Big Lie makes the continued assault on Native land and Native people invisible, because if it didn’t really happen then, how could it still be happening right now? (Check out across whose tribal lands the so-called ‘tar sands’ oil pipeline is being proposed. Check out the poverty and suicide rates on the Pine Ridge reservation. Check out what’s happening to the Native peoples of the Amazon, etc etc ad nauseum.) But the truth is and shall remain that none of it had to happen, and more importantly, today none of it has to happen. This stuff is present tense, amigos. It is a choice. About time to stop the pathetic hypocrisy we’ve all lived with for so many generations, isn’t it?

            Perhaps back in 1851, instead of murder and theft, those new visitors to these ancient lands might have acted and spoken differently to the humble people who called this divine place home. Perhaps it could have sounded something like, “Old Chief Tenaya, mil gracias, señor. Your land is indeed holy. There is a profound reason that such multitudes will be drawn to it. There is a voice calling people to search for visions in these places, something coming from the land, from the bones of your ancestors, though many of us may never recognize it for what it is. Please forgive some of us for our arrogance and disgraceful behavior. Perhaps someday we will learn to listen and understand. Perhaps someday your descendants will again roam these valleys, after this storm has passed and balance has returned to Turtle Island. Perhaps someday our descendants will ask their permission to visit, and enter as brothers and sisters. We can only humbly hope that we have shown ourselves worthy of another journey through your sublime valleys; another bath in your liquid sanctuaries.”

            One could act and speak in such an honorable way… yesterday, today, or tomorrow. So maybe the unofficial motto of our country is true, after all - it is indeed about personal responsibility and personal choices then, isn’t it?