My First Backpacking Trip, Day 4: The South Koreans & Nature's Groove

Type 2 Fun: An experience that feels miserable while it’s happening, but fun in retrospect. 

After a relaxing and blissfully uneventful day at Merced Lake, I enjoyed a relaxing and blissfully uneventful night of sleep. At least until the coyote alarm clock sounded at about 5am. They weren’t anywhere close by, but their piercing howls still jolted me out of my slumber. 

[If you landed on this page but haven't seen the rest of the adventure, start with Day 1.]

Day 4

It was time to break down camp, pack up life on my back once again, and start the journey back home. 

Aside from camping again at Little Yosemite Valley, the majority of my hike back down to Curry Village would be different — and presumably far, far easier since it was mostly a descent! 

Instead of doubling back on the John Muir Trail, I took the southern route along the Merced River and was treated to an endless visual feast of small waterfalls, streams, and gentle river passages flowing down the glacier-sculpted canyons. 

Most of these are recorded only in my memories, because my battery charger was dead, and I was hesitant to use my phone’s camera constantly. I needed just enough charge to show the YARTS driver my bus ticket. So, there aren’t as many photos of the return home. 

And since it was October, the water levels were generally pretty low, leading to less dramatic views. It was still beautiful, though. Serene and inspiring. But I’d love to revisit this stretch when there’s snowmelt coming down from the Sierras in early Spring. 

Speaking of those grooves in the granite, my brain made an amusing connection. 

On the left (above) is a photo I took, and on the right is a microscopic view of a vinyl record’s grooves. One can imagine the wind and water flowing through the grooves, playing the music of nature. Pretty cool, right? 

I also passed through another “Dead Forest,” which had already been reborn out of fire, evidenced by the baby pines dotting the landscape. 

There were even some lingering blooms, which seems rare for this late in the year.

After about 6 hours of peaceful trekking, I made it back to Little Yosemite Valley’s backpacker’s campground. The trail leading in was still riddled with large puddles from the rain 2 days prior. 

Before I veered right to scout out and claim a good spot, I decided to grab a bite to eat on the riverbank. And then I decided to plunk myself down right in the Merced River, sitting in the shallow river and icing my feet and legs as I casually refilled and filtered my water. 

I could have made it all the way down to Curry Village by early evening, but then I would have missed out on something unforgettable: the South Koreans…

When I’d rolled through here on Wednesday, it was a ghost town. Now, on Saturday, it was brimming with activity and there were very few camp sites to choose from. But I snagged a pretty spacious one. 

My neighbors ended up being two dads with three pre-teen boys in tow, and I have to admit that I did some internal cringing about this. But they were the most well-behaved kids I’ve ever seen, and they were dead silent after about 9pm. 

I was still craving solitude, but I slowly warmed up to the notion of some random conversation and company after someone started a fire at the communal fire pit. It was freezing, and who wouldn’t want to warm their bones a bit before bunking down for the night? 

Within a half hour, the group around the fire grew from 3 to at least 15. A couple in their 50s from San Francisco, hiking up to Cloud’s Rest in the morning. Some college students sipping and sharing red wine. A researcher from the Netherlands. Another solo backpacker from Los Angeles who was burned out on his I.T. job and tech in general. 

And a decidedly drunk, elderly Korean gentleman who slurred enough English for me to understand he was climbing Half-Dome in the morning — without the cables. 

He was gradually joined by 5 of his friends, all hailing from Seoul, South Korea. They ranged in age from 30 to at least 70. It was difficult to understand the finer details, but drunk guy explained they met because of a “hobby group” and traveled around the world together climbing mountains. 

One of the men was his friend from high school. Another older fellow was someone called “The Captain.” One of the two younger women busied herself collecting pinecones for the fire, while the other seemed to act as group photographer, constantly snapping photos.

One of the Koreans casually dropped the fact he’d climbed Kilimanjaro and Annapurna in the same year, and that Half Dome would be “very easy” compared to those. 

Out of the blue, the sloshed and increasingly “handsy” elder gentleman sitting next to me started singing a gentle melody in Korean. Within seconds his friends joined in, and the soothing lullaby went on for several minutes.

Being serenaded by a group of South Korean climbers around a communal campfire had not been on my 2024 bingo card! It was surreal. And wonderful. I continued to enjoy the conversations around me, but eventually everyone started peeling away and heading off for some sleep. 

Day 5

In the morning, “The Captain” already had a roaring fire going. I brought an offering of pinecones and sat down to sip my coffee and warm up my feet. 

He told us his group had left for Half-Dome at 5am, and that they’d be back in 5 hours. Now, I haven’t climbed Half-Dome, but I know it’s far from a casual walk in the woods. Plus, the cables were down. This mostly elderly group of Koreans was going to journey there and back in 5 hours? 

One of the college students laughed politely, and explained to “The Captain” that he shouldn’t get his hopes up they’d return in only 5 hours. “I wouldn’t worry until they’ve been gone at least 8 or 9 hours,” he said.

That’s when “The Captain” dropped the bomb: they were a professional climbing group that toured the world practically non-stop and climbed the globe’s tallest and most majestic mountains. Yes, they’d all done Everest, too. 

In fact, next month, one of South Korea’s national television stations (he explained it as being “like your ABC or CBS”) was filming a documentary on the group. 

My only contribution to this conversation, aside from looking gobsmacked from the revelation, was “age is truly just a number.” 

I sort of regret not getting any photos of the night before, but my phone’s battery was on its last legs, and I was content to sit there and enjoy the vibe, the stories, the warmth, the conversation. 

I walked into camp dreading the crowd, and the crowd became an unforgettable memory. Going forward, I’ll make a better effort to put all my preconceived notions on the shelf… 

The last day of hiking was relatively short. Back to Curry Village, and back to civilization. My legs, however, wanted some respite, so I took the John Muir Trail back down. It added 1.5 miles but bypassed most of the Mist Trail. Honestly, after climbing up that thing on Day 1, I was borderline petrified to climb down it! 

The JMT meandered along the mountains and wound its way back to the beginning: Happy Isles, and the end of an adventure that changed my life. 

I rewarded myself with a Medium “El Capitan” pizza (I devoured every bite and wanted more!) and a pint of beer from The Deck, and then collapsed onto a bench to wait for the YARTS bus home. 

When I woke up in my own bed the next day, I was physically and mentally exhausted, dragged down a little further by the onset of a cold. And yet… I was already craving the next big adventure, the next “Type 2” fun. The next opportunity to conquer “the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” 

Go take a hike. You won’t be disappointed. 

~Jason