The All-consuming Road (4 Dec 06)

We left very early in the afternoon, after a morning of camp clearing, food sorting, packing and general moseying of the loins, groins and coins. Our plan was to drive south to Kings/Sequoia National Parks and camp for the night, and our late departure meant we probably wouldn't see much of the Parks before nightfall.

But we couldn't leave without a shot of 'El Capitan and El Capitan, Bunglers in Crime'.

On the drive out we able to admire a new part of the park, and some nice views. We also drove past a bunch of blokes burning neatly piled logs of premium firewood, filling the air with a misty smoke that was less than conducive to driving. We stopped and asked one the pyro's if we could rescue some sweet, sweet free firewood from their fiery clutches, and save them some work.


"Sorry mate, since it's a national park, it's illegal to take wood out."
Even if you're just going to burn it?
"Even if we're just going to burn it. Last year a guy asked the same question while we had a Parks officer and the answer was clear: It's illegal."
Spewing.
"Personally, I don't care. I don't work for the Parks, we just get contracted out to do the burn job. If you drove past an unsupervised pile and picked off a bit, nobody would even notice."
I... see.
"Just don't get seen by anyone."
No... of course not.

Unfortunately, all the piles from that point on had either someone standing over them, or were in some way ablaze. DAMN YOU MURPHY !! YOU KILLED MY SON !!!

On the highway, we saw a lot of support for the United States, whether it was US or Confederate flags flying from flagpoles, houses, businesses, out of car windows, or mounted on the roofs, or bonnets of cars, trucks and campervans, or various different stickers or signs that gave the general idea that the person or persons who had erected the aforementioned stickers or signs was or were actively engaged in some kind of degree or method of support for the men and women soldiers of their country's military.

One thing of note is the drastic change of scenery and temperature on the US road. Our trusty Pontiac had an outside temperature gauge that we watched with keen interest, as the temp would jump or drop 10 to 20 degrees (F) just like that, only to change again a few miles later.

We made it to King/Sequoia NPs after nightfall, to find the gift shop and the restaurant open and serving. The restaurant served us Kids Meals and beers, a winning combination on all accounts. Kings/Sequoia is often overlooked by people who consider a small and less impressive version of Yosemite; although it does get steady visits from people who want to see big trees - Sequoias are the largest trees in the world (by volume), with General Sherman the largest tree in the world. We were here to see big trees, and our options lay in pitching a tent in the dark, staying the night and seeing General Sherman, and a hike if time permits, and have a long drive the next day; or, telling Kings/Sequoia to have intimate relations with themselves with their big trees, taking on the road in a mad drive tonight, and getting a jump start on each subsequent day.

Naturally, madness won out in the end. After all - big trees? Pah! Also, there were Mountain Lions in the area. While B was convinced that they were small enough to "fight" if they attacked, P was a tad more cautious. After all, she'd seen them and hadn't confused them with Bobcats.

The drive out of K/S was long, windy and slow, and forged the beginning of what was a long night of driving. And since the road was lined with the Sequoias, we got to see those big trees after all.

Once we hit the highway, the night becomes one long blur of high speeds, brief stops and too much talk back radio. Places and palatial mansions passing for cars were passed in a frenzy of curses and lane changes as we left great chunks of the night in our wake. People on the radio kept talking and talking and talking shit and some chick can't get off and some guy's gone septic and we don't think this guy's a doctor but he has a great voice and what's with their obsession with fucking (not the verb) burritos (though fucking burritos would be pretty funny). All we can do is shake our fists and demand that these voices return us to the music but to no avail. Shit shit shit. More trucks, more lanes, more roads, more towns. It's midnight and we're passing through some built up shit hole by the name of Bakersfield as though we're passing kidney stones. We pick up another cup of coffee and asked the drive-through staff if they knew of a hostel. All we can hear is the murmuring and gurgling of a group of three to four class-A fuckholes who direct us to hospitals and hotels and keep asking what a hostel is.
Newsflash dipshits: Motel 6 is not a hostel.
The night is taking its toll and we are as angry and delirious as we are tired and tenacious. The need for a cheap hostel is replaced by the need for a cheapish motel, but we have neither. We do have the road and music and the night and the combination keeps us strong with momentum. Gas stops are a relief for tired limbs and a chance to moisturise tired eyes. Our eyes are on the full-watch and a sign for Boron does not pass by unnoticed. It's a sign, a clear signal of our destiny. How could we find no respite in Boron. Nobody doesn't like Molten Boron! We're saved.
Boron, Boron, you magnificent bastard, Boron we love you, Boron I love you, make love to me Boron and bear me twenty beautiful, demented children. Oh Boron, what madness is this, where is your magnificence? Where is your golden tresses and bosomy embrace; how can there be nothing but dust and inbreeding and rabbits...

We held out as far as San Bernadino - where the madness truly took over and we could do nothing but sing and shout and get lost on the twisting highway system that sits over the city like an alien spider-demon. P found us a mission house on our map and we made a bee-line for it, though not necessarily walking the line. When the mission house started appearing on road signs in the shade of brown the denotes a historical landmark, we became suspicious that P had inadvertently lead us astray and into a strange part of town. Our brains were not functioning as they should have been and the world had become a cold and harsh place to live. B was rambling bad at this time, and his knee and buttocks were searing but this wasn't the part of town to stop and stretch for more than twenty seconds.

Cursing the name of S Bo we headed east, our alertness for motel signs on an extreme high. By 4:30am, and with more than fifteen hours of driving under our belt, we collapsed into a moderately-priced motel bed for a brief 5 hour sleep.

We weren't too tired to spot this in the carpark though...

Over the Falls

With a newly acquired alarm clock in our possession, the fresh air in our lungs and P's health on the up and up, we set the alarm for too-dark-to-see-shit o'clock and prepared for our hike. We had a good assortment of hiking food (Doritos, bananas, trail mix, sandwiches, juice), a good amount of equipment (torch, jackets, med kit, water, map) and enough warm clothes to fight off the early mornings chills. We were ready, we were pumped, and we were off.

The trail started from our campsite, which was a bonus, and it took us approximately one minute to lose the trail. Fortunately we knew roughly where we were going and there was only fragile bush in our way, which we quickly bashed into submission. We re-found a trail, but not necessarily the trail, but it kind of ran close enough to our trail for us to jump ship and begin the ascent.

Walking uphill meant two things: A) our body heat was increasing, and B) we met up with our friend the Sun. And so began a game of cat and mouse with a Japanese couple and two dudes (Scottish guy and San Franciscan) for the glory and domination of the mountain. They would pass us as we shed a layer of clothes, and then, a couple of switchbacks further up, we would pass one, and then the other - all a bit embarrassed that we had worn these superfluous layers on a big, fuck-off hike, but then, as the SF guy said, "It was fucking freezing this morning." We ended up all meeting up at the ~half-way lookout, and having a chat. Then they all forgot about glory and domination and turned back.

Not long after, the path spent a long time going downhill, which was fine except for the fact that it meant undoing a lot of the uphill progress we had recently completed. It was about this time that we run into some trouble. You see, we had the right equipment - the right equipment being that, if we had an accident or got stuck in some bad weather, we would have been ok - but it also meant we had too much equipment. And P was too weak to carry the pack uphill, and B's knee didn't like taking it downhill. There was an obvious compromise, but it still meant we had no water. Yes, somehow we left camp with only one litre of water and 1 litre of juice between us. And all of our food was specifically salty. Nice work team. It was in this state that we arrived at the final leg of the ascent.

The Yosemite Falls trail was carved out and built by dudes contracted out by a mining company, so that the area could be mined. The head of the mining company, Frederick Stonesworth, was a man of few scruples, and would often deliberately mislead the crew into dangerous areas of the cliffs. On one occasion he sent a two-man team into a cave, only to blow the entrance with dynamite. Amazingly, one of the men, Aaron Acksworth, survived - and it's a tale of the strength of man against the odds and the elements, starring a star-studded cast of beavers, bears, skeletons, pirate gold, ghosts, and a sunken ship called 'The Jubilee'. Meanwhile, Frederick Stonesworth was still bankrolling what we now know as 'Upper Yosemite Trail', sending men to their doom and then scoring with their hot, miner wives (and sometimes minor wives... miners were of course unscrupulous men themselves, and this was an unscrupulous time). Legend has it that the original trail was crafted of the bones of the many workers sent and worked to death on the cliff; however, recent archaeological evidence has shown that this is in fact an urban legend - even though it's far from any urbania...except Yosemite village I suppose. Instead, the archaeological evidence has led to a new theory: that Frederick Stonesworth believed himself to be such an evil man, and delighted in his many devious lifestyles, that he called upon the Devil and challenged him to a fiddle-playing contest. If Stonesworth won, then the Devil had to carve the road himself, but if the Devil won, then Stonesworth would have to wear a dress and makeup for an entire weekend. During the contest, Acksworth, having been nursed to health by marauding banditos, emerged from the peak of the cliffs and struck Stonesworth down with a match. Stonesworth laughed at what appeared to be a pitiful attempt at revenge until he exploded, and his flaming remains spread out and floated down the cliff like fiery butterflies. The Devil was so surprised that he turned into a cucumber and the audience demanded their money back. And so goes the story of Upper Yosemite Falls... or at least that's how I remember it - since the official information is still with our stuff in Edmonton.

All you really need to know is that the pictures to our left are of the final leg - a real shithole. The stairs are only about an inch high, and quite short, but since they slope downwards they're quite slippery. So you really have to take them one at a motherfucking time. They are the work of evil men, mark my words, evil sadistic, fiddle-playing men. And about halfway through they started getting icy, which was the icing on the cake. Kudos to their creators though, those magnificent, diabolical bastards, because they're just as shit going down, thanks to their size and slope. But we made it. And here's a little collage of our excitement.

























The day was getting on and we were tired and thirsty. But we made it, and the view was nothing short of impressive. We'd been told by some random guy we passed (speaking of random: while we were on the devil's switchbacks we were overtaken by some guy who was jogging up, listening to an ipod. He was one sweaty guy, and about 30 minutes later he came down, jogging all the way. I tell you what: that guy was clearly an arsehole) anyway, we'd been told by some random that we should make the extra effort and hike another mile to the other side of the falls. We did, it was quite nice, and was completely worth it. We also met this Dutch Guy, who incidentally took this photo coming up on our left. He was on a roadtrip, and this guy seemed to know road trips. He'd been to Australia a couple of times, and has driven around the coast, and driven north to south, east to west. For this trip, he had gone up to the northern beach of Alaska, driven down through Canada(including Calgary) and was driving down through the US to Panama, where he was going to meet up with some friends. He drives a real piece of shit (which had some recent mechanical issues) and works where he can. He'd just been working in Alaska as a fudgepacker.
Yep, the man packs fudge for a living. Apparently, a good fudge packer is hard to find, so he can usually find work. And just to clarify, he really does work with fudge - packing fudge to be precise.


With the light fading fast we made our retreat, eating snow and forcing it into our water bottle for some hydration (eating it isn't very effective, but the water bottle trick did pretty well). The light conveniently left us right about the time we made it back into the forest part of the trail, and thoughts and stories of bears crept into our minds for obvious reasons. Youre' supposed to wear bells on your shoes, to give the bears enough warning of your approach so that they can bugger off; it seems bears get antsy when they think you've snuck up on them. So with that in mind, we had a go at non-stop conversation. It's funny how you can't think of anything o say when you really want to. We sang a few songs, we talked a bit of shit, and P learned all about Black Spider-man and Venom for the upcoming Spider-man 3 (well, as much as B knows, which was more than enough for P). There was no real threat of course, as its rare for even big bad Grizzly's to attack people if there's more than one of us strange, furless people ambling along, but still, when it's bear time and you're in bear territory and you don't have your bear glove, then the mind-bears take on a real significance. The amusing thing is, we've been looking at the numbers of bear incidents at Yosemite, and less than 10% were in the wild - contrasting the more than 70% of incidents that occur in either the campground or in the parking lot. Those crazy bears, always after someone's pic-anic basket. Or toiletry bag.

Yosemite musings

We ended up spending longer than planned in Yosemite. Yes, one reason was our dismal effort at managing to get up in time for a breakfast in the morning (though, to be fair, I blame the sun). But with P sick, and much of the park closed due for the winter, it seemed foolish to leave without embarking on one of the few fat hikes left open.

To your left you can see Half Dome, also closed in winter. In the summer you can scale it's curving peak, but they say that if you can see a storm on the horizon, turn back, since: it takes about that long to mount it (tee hee), the 'path' is a metal ladder supported by two metal cables, and the rock itself turns into one giant, slick lightning rod. Looks pretty though.

Due to the nature of the granite cliffs, Yosemite is always changing. Water runs into the cracks of the rock and, if it freezes the crack is widened until the sound of rocks cascading down into the valley interrupts your dinner. These can happen almost anywhere, but the Rangers do have some 'hotspots' to avoid: "If you do this hike, don't stop under the three brothers for lunch." Thanks for the advice.

In fact, as we were driving into the Valley we met a delay. They'd closed down one half of the highway (the entrance highway), so the exit highway had to be shared. As we drove along, whistling to ourselves and singing songs about Yosemite Brown (a mischievous imp to be sure) we saw the reason for the closure. A big, fuck-off rock slide had consumed about 30 metres of road.

One thing B would like to point out is the interesting layout of National Parks (and the National monuments, forests, etc) in the United States. You see, while planning the road trip, B had catered several days for the larger Parks, planning with his knowledge of Australian parks - where you have to go and out and hike or whatever to see the best bits. But they do things differently here. You can see most of the park, from the safety and comfort of your car or motorised home. Sure, sometimes you might have to crane your neck, or even step out and walk for a few metres, but in most every Park we ventured to, you could enjoy the wonders of nature without leaving your John Denver or air-conditioned comfort of mechanical transport. This is especially apparent in the larger, well-known parks such as Yosemite, Arches and Grand Canyon (and apparently Yellowstone), where you don't have to leave your car at all. While great tracts of road running through large tracts of the Park, complete with that harmonious sound of traffic and the occasional horn blast (and in peak season, unbearable traffic - ah the paradox, escaping the city to be caught in an overly-congested Park), raises obvious questions of sustainability (15 bears were killed by cars in 2006), it does make Park-hopping a much more viable option.

Speaking of bears, on the left are some of our food-storage bear lockers. Turns out, even in winter when most bears are having an extended lie-in of their own, the black bears of the Sierra Nevada prefer to wallow in their own crapulence. And black bears have a tendency of smelling food and anything like food (like toiletries) and doing whatever it takes to obtain said food. Cars are literally peeled open like cans, and cans are peeled open like cars. The ranger told us that bear will smash open a jar of peanut butter and just scoop it into their mouths glass and all. Which is obviously a big problem for the bear... but a much bigger problem if you've left some food in your car or tent or sleeping bag - about a 180kg problem if you know what I mean.

The advice about playing dead with a bear stands only with Grizzlys. If one plays dead with a Black Bear, the bear will still wail on you like ninja with shurikens in both hands and feet, and daggers in its mouth. If one does encounter a Black Bear, do not run, as this will trigger a hunting instinct in the bear; instead one should yell at it and make as much noise as possible, whilst making oneself appear larger and more threatening. If this is not working, then one should throw rocks at the Black Bear - however do not hit it in the face, as this will only enrage the bear. Remember as well not to make eye contact with the bear, as this will seem to challenge the bear, also enraging it.

Hmmmmm.

By the third day P was starting to feel more "human" and could handle a short walk. Unfortunately B was starting to feel more like a cucumber, but we went on the walk regardless (sniff, no one ever considers the man's feelings).

This is lower Yosemite Falls (though the whole falls are obscured from view, the cliffs behind the falls give an indication as to total size). At 739m from tip to toe, Yosemite Falls is arguably the tallest waterfall in the US , and either the 6th or 7th tallest waterfall in the world (apparently they discovered a new one hiding in a secret trapdoor in the middle of the Iraqi desert or something). However, due to the complicated nature of measuring a waterfall (should gradiant be included, cascade vs vertical drop, does the surrouding peak count, volume of water, seasonal output, etc) it's also not the tallest in the US, and only the 19th tallest in the world (this is according to the World Waterfall Database). Now, we assume that the WWD know their shit when it comes to waterfalls; however, due to their downgrading of Yosemite's waterfall status, we're sticking to the more impressive, yet potentially less accurate, ranking. Why? Because the next day we climbed it, and we want to make ourselves feel better.

Yosemite National Park (31 Nov 06)

Good Morning Sunshine


This is Burdo cooking Bacon and Egg Bagels, or as he calls them, 'Baceggelos con una bola'.

(Behold the mighty Trangia: our travel stove that can turn the simplest of ingredients into cuisine!! All you need is Metho, or as they call it in the US: Denatured spirits, ethylated alcohol, and good-luck-trying-to-find-some spirits. We've had to marvel at the humble Methylated Spirits recently, and it's many, many uses. In the US, they have many different versions of Metho - all basically identical but for a dash of benzene, a trickle of toluene, or a splash of pyrazine. These make them especially suitable for a single use, and are marketed thusly. This all makes poor ol' flexible, reliable and cheapable Metho a wee bit redundant... and quite expensive.)
Now where was I ??

Oh yeah, mountains.
The impressive Yosemite valley. On the left you can see El Capitan, on the right you see some other peak, and in the centre, away in the distance, is Half Dome, but we'll get to him later.

El Capitan is a close-enough-to-sheer granite surface that draws in rock climbers from all over the world - or at least, I assume it does. But amateur climbers need not apply, for it takes a good 3 days to climb. Did I say 3 days?? Not hardly, it actually takes 7 - 9 days to climb. Apparently during the warmer months the face is littered (well, littered might be an exaggeration, just like Budweiser's claim of 'King of Beers') with little specks, moving slowly up the granite. We couldn't see anyone while we were there, but we stayed in the climbers' camping ground and there were a few groups of people training and sleeping in those dinky rock-climbing beds. I can't attest to the fun factor of being suspended on a cliff face, several days climb from anywhere, and having your bed blown around by some the vicious winds that sweep up the valley, but I can imagine they'd be quite high - like popping Nitrous Oxide bottles.

One thing to note about Yosemite is the valley. See it? Girded by those impressive granite cliffs?? Engulfed almost entirely by shadow. Well, we didn't have an alarm clock, on account of our mobile not actually being endowed with 'international voltage' as previously thought.

Whoops.

But that's okay, we're camping, we'll get up when the sun gets up and touches the sky with a hint of pink merry and a golden smile. We'll get up with the chirping birds and the rousing chipmunks, greeted by a glorious new day and the smell of a fresh morning's dew. It sounded alright in principal but as we learnt on the first day, the sun doesn't really touch the valley floor until about.. ooooohh, midday. Well, 11am really, but let's not split hairs. Instead, let's split six six packs of beers and sit around the roaring fire.

We loved that fire. Not just because the wood was free (procured from other campsites and deserted fireplaces). Not just because there's nothing like camping with a roaring fire, and to be without the warm and mesmerising glow is to feel ashamed and downtrodden by 'the man', but because it was freaking cold. Sure, now as we write this, it's about -13C outside, and it was only hovering 0C at the time, but dammit, we were outside then and that shit was cold. When you have sleeping bags that are good for 0C, and you're too cold to sleep - it's cold. When you place down a cup of water for a minute and return to find pieces of ice forming in it - it's cold. When you'd rather pee your pants than go to the toilet - you're probably in Anton's footy team and enjoying the warmth spread o'er your loins. But anyway, the point is, we slept in and didn't get anything done.

Now look at the Coyote.