Life

Patriotitis

Last weekend a group of us took a trek up to Yosemite National Park to go hiking and spend some time at the lake. Even though it was a long trip up and back because of the holiday traffic, we had a great time kayaking on the lake, watching fireworks from the car on the way up, playing Scroker (that’s playing poker when you wager Scrabble pieces), and generally relaxing our arses off.

On Friday night we drove a couple hours from the cabin to Yosemite Valley and started our hike around 12am (yes, AM). With nobody on the trail, we made good time and by 4am were at the top of Nevada Falls. Sadly for me, I ended up getting sick (see: altitude, food, dehydration, or just being a pansy) and threw up all over Little Yosemite Valley then had my legs completely cramp up. I tried giving myself a jolt of potassium from a banana and some electrolytes but they just came back out the same way they went in, and by 4:45am at the base of Half Dome I wasn’t able to keep going - so the rest of the crew charged up to the top while Danielle escorted me to the nearby Ranger Station. We slept for a couple hours there and then after being checked over by an EMT and getting cleared to go (despite worries on their part of having to fly me out or take me out on horseback like a couple other hikers in the last month) we met up with the other 4 and hiked back down the mountain.

By 1pm we were at the car and heading back to the cabin. On the way down there were thousands of families heading in the opposite direction, so we knew we made the right decision hiking the night before. I’ve decided to diagnose myself with Patriotitis due to mockingly listening to far too much Toby Keith the night before (hurray July 4th).

I didn’t get a lot of great pictures, but here’s a set on Flickr.