from yosemite, with love

On our last morning at Yosemite's Wawona campground, I met a woman who had spent a month each year during her childhood camping at Wawona with her grandparents. Our family had just finished our fifth night of camping--an achievement of epic proportions, as we had never done more than three nights in a row--so I asked her to repeat: did she mean that she and her siblings had slept in a tent for a whole month, while their grandparents took care of them? Indeed. Those summers, she said, were the happiest memory of her entire childhood.
We were brushing our teeth while having this exchange, and I could see in the shadowy dimness of the unlit bathroom that she was a beautiful woman in her late fifties. Her face glowed when she spoke of her childhood, and she seemed elated to be in Yosemite again.

As we piled into the car to head back home, I reflected that one of the unexpected benefits of camping is the chance to meet people from all walks of life and to observe how others experience contentment. Sometimes we hear their whole life stories, but more often than not, we get fragments that prompt us to imagine the larger picture. There was the couple from Florida who camped for one night only and listened quietly to the radio all evening while reading on their Kindles. There was the other couple--an older white man from New Zealand and a stunningly beautiful young black man from Brazil--who also spent only a night and asked us, upon leaving, where in the Bay Area they could find outlet stores (you bet I have a whole novel in my head about those two). There was the family with three tween boys who, when they pulled up in the site next to ours, seemed exactly like the type of neighbors whom one hopes to avoid in a quiet campground; they went to bed before all the rest of us.

There were also, this time, a couple of rangers who made a deep impression on our kids. Wawona, a quiet campground in the southern corner of an otherwise inconceivably busy park (17,000 people on average can be found in Yosemite Valley on any given day in summer!), prides itself on its daily campfire talks. The first talk we attended this year--about bears in the park--was led by a ranger serving his twenty-sixth season in the park; in his regular life during the year, he is a middle-school Art teacher on the Central Coast of California. When Sava woke up on the morning after the talk, the first thing he said was that he had loved listening to Ranger Jeff and that his students must be very lucky to have him. Sava's enthusiasm for Ranger Jeff inspired the rest of us to attend two other talks--one by a young female ranger who was spending her twenty-fourth summer in Wawona, having first come there before she knew how to talk, and another again by Ranger Jeff. Over the course of these talks, Rado and I marveled at the fact that 1) the National Park System, which this year celebrates its hundredth-year birthday, has the wisdom and resources to provide these wonderful educational opportunities for free; 2) the NPS attracts people of the highest moral and intellectual caliber; and 3) our kids have a deep intuitive appreciation for the knowledge and life experiences of the rangers. We didn't need to tell them that these talks embodied world-class public service. They knew goodness when they saw it.

I had never heard Sava avow his admiration for an adult as openly as he did for Ranger Jeff. I believe he learned at least as much over the course of those two one-hour talks as he might have learned over the course of a month in science class. I also loved watching Raya listen in awe to the young female ranger as the latter recounted a day in the life of two fictional Native American children--a thirteen-year old boy undergoing for the first time the rituals of a deer hunt, and a ten-year old girl helping the women in her tribe gather and prepare food. The next day, Raya woke up motivated to do the requisite work, and she earned her first badge as a Yosemite Junior Ranger.

For both kids, it was a moment of authentic learning, which far exceeds anything that happens in the classroom.

So, all things--but especially the people--considered, this might have been our most enjoyable camping trip ever. Just a few of the highlights:

1. Sava brought his fly-fishing rod. In our most sanguine dreams, we had hoped to find the stream that a book told us was full of trout (Bridalveil Creek via the Ostrander Lake trail). We did find the stream, after a sun-drenched chilly hike through the high country off Glacier Road.

 

Once there, I started putting lunch together, paying no attention to what I assumed would be the futile efforts of the amateur fisherman. So when he cried out, "I got something! I think I got a fish!", I pretty much dropped the food, fumbled for the camera, and unsuccessfully tried to record the moment. There is Sava, and then there is the fish, but there is no Sava with the fish. Sigh.

 

Nonetheless, it was a moment of true triumph, as this boy who has spent hours practicing both how to cast and how to tie his flies got his very first fish without an ounce of adult guidance. When two seasoned fishermen stopped by later (one of them, aged sixty-one, had been fishing this creek since he was sixteen), one remarked, at seeing Sava cast, "I think he's bit!"

The landscape up here is quite dramatic; lots of fallen and falling trees; the forest creaks.

2. We finally caved in and bought an ultra-light hammock that fits in a tiny bag. It made for some truly happy campers.

3. The river! The river is the best thing about camping at Wawona. Our campsite sits on the edge of the bank overlooking the South Fork of the Merced, and all night long, we can hear the water rushing past, drowning all other noises of the campground.  I had not slept that well in a really long time. The last two mornings, the kids slept until 8 am!

The friends who joined us love swimming in cold water. Rado and I had forgotten our swimsuits, but we hadn't forgotten our kids'. While the weather was perfectly cool during the first three days, allowing for excellent hikes and banishing mosquitoes, the last two days afforded some true opportunities for getting wet.

This log across the river, right at our campsite, made for some perilous crossings; the water underneath is quite deep.

5. We visited the Valley for half a day in order to bike to Mirror Lake and take showers in the newly renamed Half Dome village.

Biking is the only way to get around; too many people!

6. The boys built a survival shelter on the banks of the river, while the girls served food to everyone.

7. We hiked up Sentinel Dome, as we had done two years ago, and this time the kids practically ran to the top of the eggy giant boulder; like a true mountaineer, Sava sustained an injury on the way down.

Can you see the girls in the distance? I had to pant and scramble to keep up with them.

Yosemite Falls in the left half of the picture

Half Dome and Bridailveil Fall in the distance

8. We also, finally, hiked from Sentinel Dome to the justly famed Glacier Point.

hiking our way to Glacier Point; Bridalveil Fall in the distance

I took one look over the railing 3000+ feet down into Yosemite Valley and despaired immediately of taking a good photograph. Seriously, I didn't even try, except for the one picture below, which is pitiful compared to reality.

It has to be one of the most spectacular views in the entire world. I have no doubt about it, and I have not even seen the rest of the world. It is mind-blowing. It is breath-taking. It is worth the President of the United States and his family coming over to see it, which they did the day after we hiked there!
*****
So the sum of it all is that we are--again, freshly, more strongly than ever--in love with this magical park that embodies the National Park System.
I've been thinking a lot lately--as I do whenever our pace slows down--about the essence of the good life. What I hope for my children is that some days they'll seek out experiences like last week's and, more importantly, like the lady I met in the bathroom on our last day at Wawona, they will feel the deep satisfaction that comes from being outside with other people. I hope they will take on the responsibility of protecting our wild places, and I hope they will find something to do in life that will allow them to experience the joy of giving back. Too many people around us these days care mostly about what the world can do for them and not about what they must do to make the world a better place. This all sounds cliched, but it is the sad truth, particularly in Silicon Valley. The race to success blinds parents and children to the true source of happiness, which has been proven again and again to depend on our lasting and meaningful connections to other people. And there is no better mediator for our relationships than time spent together in the great outdoors.

Thank you, Yosemite, and thank you, National Park Service. Thank you, Sava and Raya, for being the best little campers ever.