Yosemite Adventures

Day 0 “There’s a 40% chance of rain tomorrow,” the Ranger told me when I picked up my wilderness permit, “but it shouldn’t be any worse than a refreshing sprinkle.” With weather worries somewhat alleviated, I left Yosemite Village and made the short trek to a completely vacant

“But all this is invisible from the bottom of the Valley, like a thousand other interesting things. One must labor for beauty as for bread, here as elsewhere.” ~John Muir, “The Yosemite” The quote above by John Muir sets the perfect tone. Because today’s 9-mile hike to Merced Lake

“If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.” ~Banksy The Night Before… “Murder pinecones.” That’s what I ended up calling them… At about 7:30pm on Day 2 I had stumbled into Merced Lake’s backpacker’s camp in the dark with no energy left in the

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

I spent the last hour struggling to conjure up a title for this blog post. For 60 minutes I was stuck in my head instead of just doing the thing. It’s a perfect reflection of the state of mind I grappled with on a recent mini-adventure in Yosemite. Let’

Earlier this month I wrote about heading up to Yosemite to bust out of winter hibernation mode, rediscover my hiking legs, and start training for the John Muir Trail. If you’ve read that, you know that despite having a wonderful little trek on the Upper Yosemite Falls trail, the

I’m the type of person who learns by doing. This tends to infuriate some people, but I am who I am! You can warn me that a 3-season tent (a tent not designed for the extremes of winter) won’t hold up in a heavy snowstorm, but I need