Yosemite

I'm back from Yosemite!!! :D I actually came back yesterday night, but I was too tired to post anything. We were supposed to leave last Sunday morning, but we ended up leaving Monday morning because Yosemite was out of electricity after the big storm. But at least we got to play with fresh snow when we got to Crane Flat!

We stayed at Crane Flat for a day and a half or so. Since there's a lot of snow there, we went snowshoeing and cross-country skiing! I personally loved cross-country skiing.

For our first lunch, we ate "sun-butter" and jelly sandwiches! The sun-butter was made from sunflower seeds; the Yosemite people decided to feed us that stuff instead of peanut butter to avoid allergic reactions. And the jelly was rasberry jelly, which was also really special. :)

On Tuesday (afternoon), we rode a bus over to Curry Village/Boystown. It was really muddy there, so it wasn't as fun as Crane Flat. The snow was also really dirty...but that's ok...I guess. At Curry Village, we mostly hiked rather than doing activities in the snow like we did at Crane Flat.

On Wednesday, we hiked over to a place called the Indian Cave, I believe, and climbed through it. It was really fun! Next to the cave, there was a rock split into two called "Split Rock" (what a coincidence!). The space in between the rocks were only about three feet wide; it was super narrow! At first, when we walked in, we had to be blindfolded because it was supposed to be a surprise. Inside, we then un-blindfolded ourselves and did an activity where we had to arrange ourselves in "birthday order" from least to greatest without talking. That was PAINFUL; barely one person could even fit in the tight space, but we still had to squeeze ourselves into the correct birthday arrangement. We ended up getting into the correct order though! :D Further down the hiking trail, we reached a huge rock that had a bunch of holes in it. Our Yosemite Institute (YI) Instructor told us that this area used to be the home of many Native Americans, and the holes were used to grind nuts and food. That was also why the cave we climbed through is called the Indian Cave. However, within four years, all the Native Americans were driven out of their homes so they could make Yosemite a Native American-free national park. (I have no idea why though.)

The next day, we went on our Challenge Hike up to the "Oh My Gosh Rock". On our way, we passed by Columbia Rock, then reached our destination (the OMG Rock). The hike up to the rocks were pretty steep and tiring to climb, but it was really worth it. The view at the OMG Rock was stunning; the Yosemite Falls could easily be seen to the left of the rock, and to the right were the beautiful ice-capped mountains! :D The only thing bad about that day was our lunch; we ate pita bread and hummus, which was really gross. But at least we had Fig Newmans!

Haha, speaking of which, almost everything we ate there were some sort of Newman brand food. Once, we ate these Oreo type of cookies, but they were called Newmans or something. And instead of Fig Newtons, we ate Fig Newmans! :P But my YI Instructor said they like to buy Newman-brand products because they're a non-profit organization, and all profits go to a good cause. :)

On our last day (Friday), we went to the Spider Cave. Wow; when I think about it, it's hard to believe that just yesterday, I was still hiking up at Yosemite! Anyway, we went to the Spider Cave and climbed through it. It was pitch black inside, so we had to listen carefully for instructions from the person in the front and pass specific instructions to the back. In my opinion, it would've been a better idea to do the Spider Cave in the beginning of the week, because it gets people to bond with each other in the group (especially the people directly front and back of you), and it's almost like a game of Trust. You have to trust the person in front of you to tell you the correct instructions, and have to care enough for the person behind to give them clear instructions as well. So it felt kind of out-of-place to do such an ice-breaking type of activity on our last day. It was fun anyway though! And FYI, they call it the Spider Cave because it looks like a spider, but as far as we know, there aren't too many spiders in there. :P Native Americans also used the Spider Cave as a hiding place when people came to take them out of their homes during those four years I mentioned earlier.

After the Spider Cave, we ate lunch at a cemetery! It wasn't creepy at all though; it was sunny, bright, and happy. :) There, we learned about a guy called Galen Clark, who was the person who helped Yosemite become the first federally-protected place in the U.S. (Yosemite wasn't the first national park though, Yellowstone was.) Here's a biography of Galen Clark (and Yosemite, kind of) in a nutshell. When he was 40 yrs. old, he fell sick with pneumonia. At that time, cures for sicknesses were still ineffective and scarce, so his doctor predicted that he only had six months left to live. So he decided to spend those months wisely. He traveled to a place where is now called Yosemite, and fell in love with it. He dug his grave (near the place where we ate lunch at) and planted five(?) Giant Sequoia trees there to "guard" his grave. He then went to work on spreading the word about this land to friends and family through letters, and even contacted President Lincoln. I'm not sure, but I think President Lincoln was the one that approved of Yosemite to become federally protected. Later, President Teddy/Theodore Roosevelt was also invited to come visit Yosemite. After word spread for some time, more and more people started to come to Yosemite. Some time later, Yosemite became a national park. And Galen Clark's doctor was definitely wrong; Yosemite sure did good things to his health, because he lived to be 96 years old (or something like that)!!!! And when he died, he was buried in the grave he dug for himself earlier. :P

Overall, the trip was pretty fun! Some people in my hiking group were really loud though; they screamed like, every two minutes when they tripped over a rock or something...but I guess that's better than having awkward silences all the time. :P

I have a lot of pictures, but I can't post them up right now because my dad hasn't put them on the computer yet. I'll (hopefully) put some pictures up some time though!!! :D