Not eaten by bears

[jethrien]

Not only did I not get eaten by bears while backpacking in Yosemite, I didn't even see any bears. Sad face. Although we saw an awful lot of bear poop. And apparently, while we were on the trail, a juvenile bear terrorized the campground, by which I mean tried to eat things until the rangers chased it off again.


- We spent most of the week in the back country off Tuolomne Meadows. Which is a really fun name to say. Much quieter than the valley, both in the sense of fewer people and less ridiculously dramatic landscape. Still super-dramatic, mind you. But most of the charm is in tiny creeks and wildflowers and endless meadows instead of towering cliffs and waterfalls that plunge forever.

- I have something like 500 pictures of waterfalls. Ok, maybe not that many, but it felt kind of like it. So many waterfalls of so many sizes and shapes. So pretty.

- We spent about a third of the trip completely off trail, in a canyon that doesn't have any trails. It was definitely the best part. There's a certain problem-solving element to "how are we going to get down this cliff face without dying horribly" that's rather entertaining.

- We got temporarily stranded one morning up at a frozen lake above the treeline when the snow between us and where we wanted to go was frozen too hard to climb. Fortunately, we'd expected this to be a possibility and just hung out until the sun rose enough to thaw things out a bit.

- There are at least two different varieties of mosquitos. Have to say, the ones that don't make noise are actually a lot less of a problem than the buzzing ones. You don't hear them coming, but the buzzy ones were driving me completely up the wall with the incessant buzzing.

- I found a stream that is what every log flume ever wants to be. Horizontal cuts diagonally across the mountain, sloshing up the sides at the turns, perfect teal splash pool and all. Of course, the drops would kill you. But it was amazing. Clearly log flumes need more granite and greenery. (I jumped in the pool. It was maybe 500 feet down from the snow melt lake. Strangely exhilarating. The really amusing thing was that I'd gone so long without showering that my hair was completely water repellant and barely even got damp.)

- The Valley is jaw-droppingly amazing. Crowded like Disney World, but amazing nonetheless. The landscape really does look almost fake, it's so dramatic.

- Pie is delicious. It is possible one breakfast may have consisted of an entire pie split between the two of us. (The amount of calories you need to haul a pack a third of your body weight up hills all day and then not freeze to death when it's cold enough that the condensation is freezing on your sleeping bag at night is staggering. I was probably eating two or three times the amount of food I usually eat. shnayder had a spreadsheet optimizing calories per ounce. There was a lot of Nutella involved.)

I'll try to get some pictures up, but I haven't had time to deal with them yet.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I suspect the bears also know that the campground is a lot more crowded than where you were.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

They're trying really hard to teach the bears that the campground is scary. The rangers run straight at them screaming, and shoot them with paintballs and rubber bullets when that doesn't work.

Apparently some of the bears in the valley have learned to recognize ranger uniforms. They'll hang around, unconcernedly pawing through backpacks while the tourists run around screaming, and then take off as soon as a ranger shows up.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Bears are smaaaaaaart.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

There's one bear in the valley who's learned how to open the bear boxes. She's the only one, and she's 30 (which is like, 100 in bear years), so they put a radio collar on her and watch her carefully and they're kind of just waiting for her to die of old age. But it's really impressive.

You have to use the park's designated canisters for food--the bears have learned how to open the twist top ones, and so now you can only use the ones that have to be opened with a quarter or a spoon. (There are multiple screws to undo whose heads are smaller than their claws.)

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it's practically people-proof, too.

[elissali.livejournal.com]

yeah, once I was camping and I couldn't figure out how to open the dumpster. Then I remembered to think like a primate. :)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Most of the ones we saw had helpful instructions printed on the side. Many including how-to graphics. I guess we're pretty confident the bears still can't read 2D graphical explanations...