Towering cliffs of granite and thundering veils of waterfalls. These
bring millions of visitors to the park each year. Each with cars,
tents, bicycles and motorhomes. To serve all these people there is a
crew of thousands, mostly in the confines of one valley, the Yosemite.
Every now and then a ranger passes by in the classic grey shirt, green
pants and old Stetson hat bearing the leather marks of the giant
sequioa cones. Yet they seem as out of place as the rest of us
backpackers huddled in a remote camp in the park. All like church mice
on a crowded Sunday revival.
After three weeks in the relativle solitude of the High Sierras, the
valley was a sort of system shock. I had grown up with Wilderness
Parks such as the Olympic and North Cascades, yet those I have always
regarded as special. Yet to see the city brought to the Temple was
hard to swallow.
As I sat there below Yosemite Falls, moved like a great force in awe
at the falls above, I wondered what old Muir would have thought. Would
he shake jos cost at the wave of commercialism that covered the valley
floor. is hard to say. He had the full range of the Tuolumne and
Merced to explore alone. Yet he lived long enough to see the park
grow. Yet this is Olmsteds park too. Where society meet nature along
planned avenues. These cliffs and waterfalls still inspire people to
leave the confines of city comforts of Camp Curry or the Awhanee
Lodge. To walk the footpaths up the valleys past those first few
miles, to find a little of the Muir in each of them.
Would Muir understand his valley was given up for a greater cause?
After following the trail that bears his name and watching new faces
in amazement at the mountains that surround, I suspect he might have
some hope. So as we eat our ice cream sandwich from the trailside
stand we head towards the wilderness, just 6 miles north of that
Tuolumne Trailhead. There is were we find home again, back to the long
thin line we call the crest.
- Ridgewalker 山武士
From the backcountry mile
Ridgewalker
山武士
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