After hours of driving up and down mountains on two-lane highways, I started to see signs for Yosemite National Park. It was 105 degrees by noon. I kept driving in, getting closer to the center. Around 3, I came upon a huge hotel complex with multiple lodging buildings, and quickly pulled in, tires squealing, to see if there a room (possibly, miraculously, maybe) was available.
I think I was the only person in the long line without a reservation. I got that unpleased look from the woman behind the counter when I asked if there were any rooms available, “like for tonight.”
“I’ll have to talk to the manager,” she said.
She left. I prayed (literally). I already knew I’d pay pretty much anything at that point if it gave me the opportunity to see the park.
“There’s one room left.”
I handed her my credit card and license and signed papers as she clicked away at her computer and handed me a key. A key to the park! Staying there was the only thing that would’ve allowed me enough time to explore the park that day and the next—and possibly get to a campsite early enough the next morning to find a spot. Otherwise, it would’ve been three hours driving out and another three driving back in.
Unlocking my room for the night and stepping inside was one of the very rare luxurious moments of my entire time on the road. The room was so nice. So big. So clean. The bed was huge. Huge! And white! Crisp white sheets and a soft comforter that I quickly fell into, getting my dirty all over it. I could barely muster up enough strength to get out. But I did. I ate some nuts and seeds, left my bags there, and headed into Yosemite Valley, a mere two miles away.
And that’s when I realized Yosemite is essentially the Walt Disney World of nature. I was in a line of traffic for more than an hour before I found a place to park, and getting out of the park was just as grueling. But in between the traffic jams—and even during them—was pretty magical.
That first moment when I saw Yosemite Falls, my mouth fell open and stayed that way for several minutes, as if my body were matching its form. I pulled over on the side of the road and walked into a big meadow to take it in. I’d never seen anything like it and quickly realized that it was these waterfalls, falling off of cliff faces thousands of feet high and at nearly 90-degree angles, that make Yosemite Yosemite. They're what have drawn people here for thousands of years.
As the sky turned to dusk, I walked along the Merced River and waded in its waters, one of many waters I’ve stood in across America. They all feel different. I felt tiny underneath the all-powerful El Capitan. Its essence was unspeakable.
It was hard to escape tourists, and as the day drew darker, I got back in line to head out of the park. The traffic was long and slow, one lane, bumper to bumper, but eventually I reached my hotel room and got back in that bed. I kept trying to figure out how I could extend the hours in that room, how I could bend time in my favor. I stayed up as long as I could, writing for awhile, then having a long phone conversation with a friend from back home.
The next morning, I got up early. I was on a mission to find an empty campsite at one of the walk-in campgrounds. I figured my odds might be a little better since it was a Sunday, and I’d be getting there before the crowds (maybe). I made the drive up Big Oak Flat Road and then turned east onto Route 120, aka Tioga Road, through the high country of Yosemite.
The first walk-in campground, Tamarack Flat, was down such a long, bumpy, gravel road—steep and rocky and narrow, with cars driving in both directions—that after a few miles, I turned around, before I ever saw the campground. The next option, White Wolf, was not an option at all. The road to it was closed. The road to the third campground, Yosemite Creek, was also rough and so many miles from the main road, I dropped that idea altogether and headed for the fourth and final campground, Porcupine Flat, hoping I’d be lucky there and not have to turn around to head back to Yosemite Creek.
I did luck out. Porcupine Flat Campground had a few spots. The dirt road was rough in spots but flat and not terrorizing. I found my spot next to the tiny Porcupine Creek, paid for it in a dropbox, and set up camp, which included going through my entire car and every bag I had with me to put all food items and basically anything that resembles food has a scent that could be taken as being edible (lotion, cough drops, herbal balms and oils—basically half my car) into the bear locker at my site. Then I was free to explore Yosemite.
I hopped back on Tioga Road and stopped at several sites along the way. First, a mountain stream. I washed the clothes I was wearing there, wrung them out, and laid them out on a big, hot rock to dry while I played in the water. I kept heading east to the glassy Tenaya Lake, which I also promptly got in (very cold), then hiked around Tuolumne Meadows, a high meadow at over 8,000 feet elevation. I walked through its grassy fields and climbed up mountains made of stone.
As dusk approached, I headed back for my campground, where the campers were the most respectful of campers in perhaps all of America. It was as if someone flipped a switch when the clock struck "10 p.m. quiet hour," and suddenly all the car doors and conversations promptly ceased. It was dead silent. I could only hear the creek behind my site and the distant sound of cars and trucks on the road, although even that gave way to silence through the night.
It was pitch black, too. I held my hand in front of my face, just to see if I could see anything (nothing). With it being that dark and that quiet, I felt no urge to fight it, and so I crawled into my tent, into my sleeping bag, zipped my body and laced my head inside its warm cocoon, and drifted off to sleep, too.
Yosemite was beautiful. It is beautiful. It also reminded me of an amalgam of several places I’ve been before, including places right in Maryland and Pennsylvania, where I grew up—aside from those waterfalls over massive cliffs. It served as a reminder that most hyped-up things aren’t worth the hype.
I usually find places just as beautiful, if not more beautiful, off the beaten path. In Yosemite, with limited time, I didn’t have that luxury. If I’d had more time to explore, it probably would have nourished me even more deeply with some good nature. As it were, I only had those two nights, two days. I wanted to keep that long-coveted campsite and stay in Yosemite all week to learn its secrets, after all the time it took me to finally get there, but I’d told a woman, a high school friend of my mother’s, that I’d meet her on Monday. And without any phone reception in all of Yosemite and the surrounding Sierra Nevadas, I couldn’t tell her otherwise, couldn’t postpone. So the next morning, I loaded everything from the bear locker back into my car, took down camp, and headed east again for Sonoma.