AAVE Trip BLOG » Bold West #3 - Adventures in Yosemite!
August 11, 2008
Bold West #3 - Adventures in Yosemite!
Posted by AAVE Leader in : Bold West, General AAVE Trip BLOG , trackback
Overnight Raft trip
]
Yosemite, birthday, Tuolomne Meadows, oh my…
It is past mid trip, we can’t believe it! Yosemite was one of the most powerful places we have been on the trip so far. This is because of the towering rock walls and the beautiful canyons and waterfalls! We could see headlamps at night on El Capitan of people rock climbing, which takes 4 to 8 days in a harness at all times, to reach the top, wow!
We took showers, yeahh, in Yosemite Village on our way in to our first campground called Crane Flat at about 7,000 ft elevation. Based out of this camp, we spent a day hiking a total of 8 miles up to the top of Nevada Falls, one of the most popular and rewarding hikes in the park! Everyone rocked the hike especially Eliza with a recovering toe injury and Jack who charged confidentially in the front of the pack with Deanna who was leader of the day and who kept us together, happy and safe! Kelly joined them for the game 20 questions the whole entire way back down the trail! Ben lead the group in a side trip to the bottom of Vernal Falls. Mike, Alex, Noemie, and John all went to the rocks at the bottom of this waterfall also and they came back soaking wet from the amazing mist that came from the spray which created a rainbow all the way around them when they were standing in the mist!
During lunch we had a constant battle protecting our food from the army of squirrels that seemed to have tactics set up to distract us from our food while other squirrels went in for the grab. Kai, Shapiro, and Ben could give the squirrels a scare and no squirrels were hurt in the process and we had no food casualties. Victor and PH were our lookouts from a higher rock above our lunch area. Noemie, Barbara, and Nicole were able to enjoy the view of a gorgeous lake next to our lunch spot where we were not allowed to swim, but when we got to the top the final waterfall we found a perfect spot for a refreshing swim! This group loves to swim even if the water is way chilly! Jack is usually our first brave soul into the water of our swimming holes and he was first to brave this spot also!
For Victor’s birthday he requested showering, which was a success after swimming in the river in hot Yosemite Valley! The swimming pool had showers for us after we did a few cannon balls and splash dive contests! Tuolmne Meadows treated us well as our second camping destination in Yosemite at 8,600 ft elevation! We had a cake, presents, and small celebration for Victors birthday around the campfire.
We had so many options of fun things to do in this area and we opted for a hike to a great natural slide where we all slid down a smooth granite bowl and did some cliff jumping with Half Dome featured in our views! PH and Victor had a masterful sliding technique and the first duo descent of the slide! 
Jack and Alex had the most descents of the slide! Ben and the big Ben and Barbara team had the most speed! We then went to one of the coolest, most random natural hot springs in the middle of a field with cows in serenading distance after walking down a beautiful boardwalk and waiting out a thunderstorm which later provided us with a rainbow. The pool was made out of natural rock and Jack as leader of the day took advantage of this spot for a great meeting! We smelled of sulphur and felt revived after changing and heading into Mono Lake for a dinner out at the fantastic Whoa Nelli Deli! This dinner was great compared to our night of forgetable macaroni and cheese the previous night!
The next day we drove to the camp at White Water Voyages to prepare for our two day rafting trip! We had showers, again yeahh! They also have skunks, boo, but now we are professional skunk shewers to keep them from our camp at night. Sometimes our road trips end up being a couple extra hours than expected and with ice-cream, good music, good conversations, bracelet making sessions, and great brain teasers we survive just fine!!
We hope everyone is well! We are having an absolute blast and are looking forward to Santa Cruz for surfing and for some time in San Fran next! Again I am so impressed with this group, their bravery, their success with hiking, their fun spirits! We wish we had more time to describe the amazing places we have been to, but we look forward to sharing stories in person soon enough with many great pics!
Until the next entry of the Adventures of BW3!
Deanna, PH, Shapiro, Kelly, Ben, Jack, John, Eliza, Victor, Barbara, Noemie, Kai, Alex, Big Ben, and Nicole
Loving the AAVE Life!
Yosemite National Park
[/caption
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?