08/25/09
California Part 1
Day 2 - So I have to say that I feel much better tonight than I did last night. After a great hike and a shower, I can’t complain.
Yesterday was a different story. I flew into LA at 8:40 and was on the road to Yosemite by 10:30. It was weird driving out of LA past all the signs you see on TV and in the movies: Wilshire Blvd, Hollywood, Beverly Hills and many others. It took about 5.5 hours to get to Yosemite. Overall it was a pretty standard drive. I went up through he Central Valley, so there was not much scenery until I got past Fresno.
When I got to Yosemite I walked a couple of miles through the Mariposa Grove. It is home to numerous Giant Sequoias. If you are wondering, they are as big as people say they are. You can even walk through one of them. (Stat of the day: On the tree called the Grizzly Giant, one of its limbs is 7 ft. in diameter. That is larger around than the trunk of any other non-sequoia in the grove.) Leaving the grove, I went back to Oakhurst, CA where I was staying the night.
What made yesterday so rough? There was a lot of physical pain. I threw my back out 9 days ago, so the three-hour plane ride and over 6 hours of driving kept it really tight all day. That wasn’t so bad though. The real problem was my knees. I don’t know why, but a few days ago they started getting really stiff and inflamed. Anytime I wasn’t walking they would just tighten up, so sitting on the plane and driving was really difficult on them. It got so bad that even driving to Subway from my hotel, a drive of about 3 minutes, put me into lots of pain. Trying to stand up out of the car or go up a flight of stairs was awful.
Since I have a backpacking trip in two days and I wanted to get a hike in today, I decided I needed to do something about the pain. I went to the drugstore and got some pills that said they were specifically for knee pain along with something called Tiger Balm that is similar to Icy Hot. Having taken the medicine, I went to bed at 8:30 hoping for the best.
I woke up at 8:00am this morning, and as luck would have it, I was virtually pain free. I could bend my legs with no problems. Now I never would have purchased the Tiger Balm had I not thrown my back out. I have a friend at work that just finished backpacking through SE Asia for 6 months. When I told him about my back, he said it was too bad I wasn’t in Thailand because they had this amazing stuff called Tiger Balm. Thank you Oliver for your recommendation.
My goal today was to hike Half Dome. However, given the pain I was in last night and the part where I needed to wake up at 5am to do the hike, I decided to pass. Instead I picked a shorter trail called Glacier Point. IT was 4.8 miles and 3,200 ft. up from Yosemite Valley. I don’t know what it is with steep hikes, but apparently I like them. This one did not disappoint.
Though steep, it was a very nice hike. On the way up I was mostly in the shade as the majority of the hike was through a forest. Every now and then the trees would break giving way to great views of the valley below. The top of the hike is a huge rock outcropping with views up and down Yosemite Valley. Directly out in front of you lies Half-Dome. It is an amazing sight. You get the first views of Half-Dome about halfway through the hike. There was a part of the hike where there were about 8 guys doing trail work. I didn’t envy them as they had a large amount of heavy gear and tools. They said they had to bring it in all themselves. Rope, wheelbarrows, sledgehammers, metal cables; it made the hike seem less difficult.
The trail wasn’t too crowded. Most of the people were going down. This is because you can actually drive to the top. A lot of people will drive up, see the views, then hike down and take about an hour bus ride back to their cars at the top. I needed to see how my legs and back would take hiking, so I took the waling option both ways. The people going up were all very nice though.
The views at the top were awesome. It was crowded, but I didn’t mind. I was just glad I made it. Aside from Half-Dome you could also see two large waterfalls and the Sierras stretching out into the distance. I spent about an hour taking it all in, and then made my way back down the mountain to my car.
I drove through the rest of the valley since this would be my only day there. As you would expect, Yosemite had a very nice visitors center. The Ansel Adam’s Gallery was very well done, and you should definitely stop by if you are ever in Yosemite Valley. After checking out some roadside wildlife, I took off for the hour and a half drive back to Oakhurst.
I certainly feel better about this trip tonight than I did yesterday. I really couldn’t see how I was going to walk 60 miles with a 40-pound pack if I couldn’t even standup to get out of the car without stumbling. Today, thanks to Tiger Balm, I think I’ll be just fine. Time to eat!
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