Category: Travels

Please read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6 and part 7.
Another day had arrived and this one had promised me an adventure that I will never forget.

Leman as usual was the first to wake up and I was the second. At that time, which was between 0700 and 0800, the Sun had already hit the sky and so it was sufficiently bright to force anybody to wake up.

Gradually, everybody lost their sleepiness and started to move on a speedier tempo.
The dying bonfire was again lighted, this time for breakfast. Breakfast was generally okay, some sort of soup eaten with few bagels though I was already missing West Quad’s scrambled eggs with well-cooked tots eaten with ketchup. And who could forget, before hitting the eggs and tots, huge hot bagels with blueberry stuck in between them. Along with the dishes, chocolate milk and orange juice to sweeten up the watery mouth. Lastly, a Devil’s chocolate cake as dessert. In the middle of nowhere, that luxury could only be dreamed of.

After breakfast, I don’t know why but there existed a quiet and strange atmosphere. All three of us were keeping to ourselves, packing all of our belongings carefully into the backpacks. I was the last to completely pack my stuffs. In reality, I was among the first to start packing but on that day, the sleeping bag was being naughty and as stubborn as a mule. I took me more than ten minutes of trying before I finally gave up and asked Epol to help me out with the sleeping bag. Thanks to Epol, shortly it was compressed into the lower part of the backpack smartly.

And so we left the spot behind at roughly 0900 hours. The awkward silence was still there and it continued – well, you might say till the end of the journey.

The three of us walked together, with Leman for the first time in the hiking trip took the lead with an incredible pace. With that, Epol and I were left behind together. I was in between Epol and Leman; in fact, I was considerably away up front of Epol. I hiked to a point where I exhausted and took a long rest. Minutes later, Epol joined me on the dirt, trying to catch up a few breaths. Once satisfied with the short rest, he got up a called for me to walk with him but I simply said you go first and I’ll catch up later. If bool is applied to the “you go first and I’ll catch up later” statement, it would not pass the and statement. This was going to be the last time I would ever see any one of the team members for about another 36 hours.

Some time later, I got up and hiked, hoping to fulfill the “I’ll catch up” promise to Epol.

I was hiking really fast hoping to catch up with Epol but along the way, the scenery was beginning to take my breaths away with every step that I took. Of course, the 50 lbs backpack also took my breaths away.

The trail started to go uphill almost radically and the rise won’t stop for more or less another 5 miles, of which in the metric system is (1.6 * 5); approximately 8 kilometers.
Among the wilderness, it was funny that I didn’t feel any fear. By any standard, I would be more scared of being alone in New York City or Los Angeles in the middle of the night than being stranded in the middle of the wilderness.

The view was magnificent. As I said before, I was hiking uphill. The canyon system was born roughly a few miles ahead, carved by the Tuolumne River and its sisters. As the river flows down, it formed a cascade of three main falls. The first fall was the Waterwheel Falls. From down below, the fall was majesty. With tons of water falling at such height, the fall was exerting an incredible amount of force to anything unfortunate enough to meet the water head on.

I stopped here due to both exhaustion and the wanting to savor the fall. Never in my life have I seen anything compared to this. In Malaysia, the falls are merely cascade of streams of which hardly noticeable from the air. On the contrary, the Waterwheel Falls would be impossible to miss. The only way to miss it is to be blind. Of course, the Niagara Fall is bigger but Waterwheel offers a different kind of impressiveness.

To explain the kind of impressiveness Waterwheel gave, Bob Burd’s Sierra Travels sufficiently quoted somebody – “The water dashes 600 or 700 feet down a surface inclined at an angle of 50 to 55 degrees, a mass of foam and spray. At intervals … the water is thrown out in columns fifteen to twenty feet high, and in huge waterwheels of fantastic forms”.

From the fall base, I thought that the view from the top of the fall would be far more exciting and so, I found a new motivation to get up and walk all the way up to the top. But yet, I can’t help but notice that the trail up to fall top was as tricky as the trail leading up to Upper Yosemite Fall of which I had conquered on the first day.

On the top, I found myself meeting some new acquaintance, three Americans guys. We sort of walked together to the Meadows. To be accurate, we were racing and I was foolish enough to race with them. I was already exhausted at that time and the racing made me almost immobilized.

It took me an hour or two to reach the top. The Americans were the first to reach the top though the time taken by both of us was roughly the same. When I was somewhere in between the top and the base of the fall, I gave my poor muscles a treat. While resting beside the narrow cliff, a man in his 30s or 40s came across me from the opposite direction. As soon as he got me in his sight, he conveyed to me that he saw someone from Michigan way up behind, waiting for me. I asked “way up there huh?” with a stress in the syllable ‘way’. The man replied “Sorry for being so discouraging” and so I just smiled back and thank him for the information.

Looking down from the top, I couldn’t believe at the height that I had just climbed. And the falling water was simply beautiful. The water just before the fall was surprisingly calm as there was simply a mass of flat land at the top. Also, I found the three Americans to be resting under a huge pine tree. We greeted each other.

Climbing up the fall was tiring and so, I made a couple hundreds meters from the Americans before putting down the heavy backpack for another rest. During this time, I took the liberty of replenishing my water supply.

At first, I thought there was only one fall to be beaten but upon reaching Waterwheel’s summit, I found out that this is not true. Immediately, I lost my motivation to hike. When I saw the next falls, which was La Conte Falls, I felt a surge of anger and slammed the stick against a huge boulder on the side of the trail. As a result, the stick broke into two. I was disappointed upon seeing that because the stick would still be a kind of a help in climbing the falls. Therefore, from here on, I would be hiking only on my two weakening legs. With crumbling enthusiasm and lack of choice, I continued my climb.

Slowly but steadily did I climb. At last after hiking and cursing my depleting stamina, I reached the birth place of Le Conte Falls. I was about to celebrate my victory in conquering it when I realized, a few miles ahead, the next challenger was California Falls.

With low morale, everything started to go wrong. In the end, I finally felt being abandoned by the other team members and started to curse them in my heart. Anger started to burn me off but the worst thing that could hit any person stuck me in the middle of literally nowhere. It extinguished the increasing flame and replaced it with a hard cold fact – the realization that I had no food inside of the 50 lbs backpack with me saved two cans of mushroom soup of which probably took too much room in the backpack.

With that newly realized knowledge, my stomach was growling. And guess what?

A new knowledge struck me; the can opener was in a bear can, carried by Epol in his backpack. Though I had a knife, with the knife alone could no way open up the can. The can seemed to be made out of carbon alloy instead of aluminum.

The only word I could muster upon that cruel enlightenment was “holy fuck”. I repeated that phrase about five or six time before I started laughing at myself. You have two cans of food in front of you and you couldn’t eat because you can’t open it.

Immediately after I was done laughing, my mind was set to survival mode. I dropped my pack and started to look around for anything that I could find. Unfortunately, there were nothing much around but trees, rocks and of course the abundant water. However, one thing managed to attract my attention – a sort of berry plant. Though the berry was far smaller than a grape, I gave a thought of consuming it. It could be poisonous but at that time, I would rather die trying than dying miserably out of hunger. I had a few dozens of it and it turned out that it was not poisonous at all. In fact, it has no taste at all but left an aftertaste worse than that pinkish antibiotic syrup.

While eating the berry, I played around with my knife and got into thinking.

Can = fucking can.
Knife = not good enough.

And I saw some small stones. So…

Stone = useless bitch.
Knife + stone = huh?
Stone + can = destructive = no good.
Knife + can = no good either.
Can + knife + stone = hmm…
Can + knife + stone = food?

And so I tried. I held the can appropriately with my feet, a dagger in my left hand and a stone on the right to act as a hammer. With a considerable amount of force, I hit the knife with the stone against the can and voila! The knife went through creating an opening.

I kept on hammering the dagger, imagining myself pathetically back in the Paleolithic age.
From here on, I relearned an old lesson. Never become dependant on anybody. Not your parents, not you friends, not even God. The only one that you could count on is yourself.

p/s – The lack of photo is due to the separation. Epol had the camera and he is a lazy guy in photography term.

Please read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6.

We slept like babies that night but woke up easily the next morning. I was the last to wake up. By the time I opened my dreamy eyes, the breakfast was served and it was great.

Once the stomach was filled partially, I undid the tent and prepared myself for another day. We were ready to leave the place by 0900 and left we did.

The day started easily as the path stayed flat. In fact, it stayed flat for another 10 or 15 miles. As in the previous day, the path followed the river jealously and so, the sound of the roaring river screamed at my right ear all day long. Furthermore, the trail was covered by tall and bushy trees, making our journey less painful.

Throughout the day, we didn’t talk to each other, perhaps each of us was trying to concentrate on our footing or just didn’t have the mood to talk. I myself rather be left alone most of the day. Nevertheless, there were times when we exchanged some thought, asking for help but never starting a conversation.

At one point, I was so bored and I sang Row The Boat for more than an hour, repeating the rhythm over and over again until my boredom reached another level. The only thing that prevented me from dying out was the sight of the river and the mountain on both of my sides.

While singing, a group of hikers came from the opposite direction. One of its members was a girl with black hair, wearing a blue top and carrying a small backpack on her back. Boy, she was an angel. She smiled at me and I simply melted away. At that time it seemed, even my weariness melted away. He girl face stuck in my head and thus, I stopped singing Row The Boat and be with myself.

We hiked for another three or four hours before we reached a great place to take a cat nap in the heat of the afternoon. Immediately after freeing our shoulder from the 50 lbs burden, Epol and Leman went straight to sleep. I however, didn’t quite feel sleepy though no doubt, the rest was needed by me. I laid on my back with my head on a clean whitish stone, eyes wide opened singing old songs that I used to hear when I was a child. Later, I fell to sleep joining the others in slumberland.

The rest took longer than we had anticipated, more than an hour or so. And so, we took off quickly and quietly.

There was nothing worth mentioning in the second part of the day hiking. We simply hike all the way till about 1800 when we found a fantastic camping spot. There were a few tall confiner trees there and thus keeping the place sufficiently shaded. With the river a few meters from the camp site, it was cooling as the air was rich in water vapor. The river was filled with rapids, making the water looked white. Across the river, just after a companion of trees growing at the edge of the river, there was a rocky hill with the height as tall as the Dragster rollercoaster in Cedar Point.

Now, last week, I went to Cedar Point, just a day before the biggest blackout in North America happened. Though I went to a few crazy rides, I still can’t believe I took on the Millennium Force, the once tallest rollercoaster in the world, with the maximum height of 300++ feet. The first drop felt like terminal velocity; I actually felt my body wanting to get out of my seat. The only thing that had prevented me from flying without wings was the safety strap around my lap.

It took considerable amount of my courage and patience to get on the Millennium Force ride. It was fun but Dragster was something else. No matter how hard I tried, I could never garner any courage at all for the fastest and the tallest roller coaster in the world. I dare to drive 110 mph but driving a car and riding a roller coaster with a maximum speed of 120 mph and as high as 420 feet, are two different things. Call me a coward, call me a chicken but before that, I just need to challenge you to stand outside the track and see how the train sped faster than you could say holy fuck.

Enough digression.

We stopped at the said camping spot and just sit there. We had not even planned to stop but somehow, we couldn’t resist the temptation to stop and savor the pretty sight.
At this time, the Sun was still high and we could have just hiked for another hour or two. Leman and I were in favor of walking but Epol suggested that we camp here for the night. Nevertheless, Epol somehow managed to convince both of us to camp here tonight.

By far, this was our best camping spot ever for this trip. In addition to God’s gift, the ground was not hard because white soft sand made up the earth. Standing on it was like standing on a thick expensive Persian carpet. And since we had lot of time, we properly planned the layout of the campsite.

To celebrate the sight, we built a huge bonfire relatively to the others that we had made earlier. Even dinner was comparatively more luxurious than the days before. After dinner, we exchanged some jokes.

The best joke of the night was about a refrigerator, an elephant, a giraffe and King Solomon. The first question was how to place a large elephant into an incredibly small refrigerator. As stupid as the question is, the answer is to open up the fridge door, push the mammal in and close the door. The second question was how to get a giraffe into the fridge of which the elephant took the whole fridge space. The answer to this was to open the door, get the frozen elephant out, push the giraffe in and close the door. The final trivia was when King Solomon calls up all the animals, which would not come. The answer is the giraffe because the giraffe is stuck in the fridge still. It is an old joke but it never fails to crack me up.

That night, before going to bed, I raised my head up and marveled at the heaven above. I didn’t see any constellation that I recognized but there were countless of stars decorating the dark sky. Imagine what the others in the cities, full of light and other kinds of pollution, are missing. By God’s name, even the mystifying Cleopatra cannot possibly be compared to the alluring Milky Way.

After much thinking and waiting, I am officially member of Greenpeace. Thanks to Krons and Peebz from guardians.greenpeace.org.

This is part 6. Please read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.

I couldn’t sleep well that night. The sleeping bag was useless because it was so cold; one could suffer frost if one had slept outside of the tent without proper insulation.

I was only glad to finally see the morning Sun. When I woke up, the tent was wet. I looked up and realized that we forgot to open an opening up for ventilation. Outside the tent, the dew was everywhere, making the sight freaking but charmingly whitish. It was as if snow had fallen in the middle of summer.

We packed our things up. My hand was numbed due to the low temperature but I simply ignored it so that we could start our hike as soon as possible. Once done, we headed for the restaurant where we had our dinner yesterday for breakfast; nothing good like a few cups of hot chocolate with English muffins and huge piece of omelets to start the day in the cold morning. While we were enjoying our breakfast, we overheard a few people talking about their love for hiking. It was kind of entertaining to listen to their ramblings about their experience.

By 0830, we were ready to pay the bill. It was during this time that we learn why this place is called White Wolf. According to the cook, who no doubt taking a few seconds off from his duty, there are two tales – one was that this place was found by a Red Indian chief named White Wolf. The other story because people in the past claimed to have seen a white wolf somewhere in this area, and thus the name.

Before we left the restaurant, or rather, a grill, we checked out a topographical map nearby. I found that the contour lines at the Canyon were very close to each other, indicating a very steep slope. Intimidated, I checked the other route to the Meadow, the Ten Lakes route. The contour lines were much sparse there and thus, I recommended that we follow Ten Lakes. However, I missed out something; though steep, we only had to go down while with Ten Lakes, the climb was terrible, ascending to nearly 10 000 feet.

Since we luckily spotted this, we went ahead with our plan to give the Canyon a visit.

After bidding farewell to White Wolf, we went back south in order to take the trail that leads to the Canyon. We walked rather fast, considerably more than one mile per hour. It took roughly an hour before we met the junction that we passed yesterday. We took the path heading to the Canyon and continued on walking at a fast rate. Also, this was the first time that we actually sang songs together. Perhaps it was the singing activity that made us walked so fast.

It wasn’t long until we observed how the surrounding changed dramatically. All around us, burnt and fallen trees were everywhere. Dust would fly up to air whatever we do. I thought it was a result of a forest fire but Leman said it was artificial lighting, fire started by the rangers to kill the older trees so that its younglings would be able to grow without having to compete with much larger tree.

Although the process is for a good reason, I felt very uncomfortable among the dead trees. It was very Mordor-like.

With all the fallen trees, it didn’t take us long to lose the trail. While singing, we suddenly realized the trail had disappeared for good. We stopped and looked back. No trail at all.
So, we did a standard procedure. We put down our backpacks and sent three scouts to three different directions. Leman searched the front, Epol to the rear and I to the left. I made about 30 yards before I found the trail. I called up the others and continued our mission. This fiasco took us approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

It was among these dead trees and fallen trunks where we got ourselves our very own walking sticks.

All went well after that, at least for that episode. It was here, in the fire-scarred place that we met an impressive hiker. This guys, around his 30’s or early 40’s, armed with a pair of composite walking sticks in both hands with a small backpack, a bit larger than a third of mine, stopped to have a chat with us. While chatting, we came to learn this guy actually hiked 20 miles in one day, all the way from the Tuolumne Meadow and was already about another five or six miles to White Wolf. Furthermore, he told us that he was going to follow the path leading to the Ten Lakes and all the way back to the Meadow. Some people are born to hike.

It wasn’t long until Mordor became something else. As we came closer to the Canyon, I realized that I do recognize the large trees around me. After much mind searching, I remembered Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi was set on Endor, a jungle planet where the Empire had the Death Star II orbited. The feeling and the sight was very similar to the movie minus the undergrowth. Here, the forest doesn’t have a jungle characteristic. The earth is clean, almost clear of mere stem-plants and full of potpourri. I was almost sure that Star Wars was shot here but nevertheless, the movie was shot somewhere a few hundred miles north of Yosemite. To be accurate, near Crescent City, a place located in California, near Oregon.

By noon, the previously flat earth changed into a bit more challenging and our pace was slowed as a direct result. Later, we finally decided to take a noon rest. We stopped, put our backpacks onto the ground and drank a lot of water. However, we didn’t sit and have a rest. Rather, we realized that the hill on our right seemed to offer a spectacular view from its peak and hoped that the Canyon would be in sight from the peak. Together, we walked towards the hill peak.

On the way up, we saw a bunch of flowers in colonies that looked like a white lily on the ground. They were beautiful despite being wild as oppose to cared garden in the city.

On top, there was no sight of the Canyon but the view was indeed spectacular. We saw rolling hills filling a huge valley with tall conifer trees growing as if it is omnipresent. We took our time up there, enjoying the view, sleeping and all things that are wonderful. Alas, all good things must come to an end. We returned to our backpacks, picked it up and again burdening our poor shoulders.

It wasn’t long until we saw the Canyon and it was such a great feeling to see such a glorious sight. Again, we took our time to enjoy God’s creation.

I noticed while our side of the Canyon is blessed with verdant greens, the other part seems to be desert like. Down below, the river flowed silently. Maybe it was still too far for us to hear the roaring Tuolumne River. On far left, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, much to the dismay of John Muir, was created in the name of development – the lame reason almost everybody gives in order to sideline the Greens.

And so, we, I finally descended down into the Canyon, down to a canyon for the first time in my life. We stopped no less than ten times just to admire the Canyon. Also, there were a few cascading falls crossing the trail.

We descended down rather fast, feeling not the weight that we carried on our back. On our way down, for the first time, somebody overtook us. There were three of them, walking with backpacks as large as us.

At around 1600, perhaps near 1700, we saw a pond, mirroring the sky up above. I was astonished to see such a calm pond, clearer and cleaner then Lukens Lake. A few steps further brought us face to face with the Tuolumne River. The river was by far the wildest one I’ve ever seen and it gets wilder upstream.

By 1900, I was already exhausted and both Leman and Epol had outperformed me in stamina contest. We walked and walked but deep down in my heart, I frantically waiting for us to stop and camp.

It came as a delight to me when we finally reached Pate Valley, a place where another large river meets Tuolumne River. However, we had to walk for another 20 minutes as all the spots suitable for camping were already taken by some other hikers. I was holding back myself from trying to kill the hikers and get the site as our own.

In the end, we found a perfect camping spot right beside the trail, merely 20 meters from the meeting point of the two rivers. We set up our campsite and gathered firewood for cooking and heating. As soon as we were done, I took to the opportunity to wash up myself. It is a great feeling to have the cold river water to freshen you up; no mint, no Mentos, no nothing; only the cold fresh unfiltered natural water.

The Sun finally set at 2030. Usually, it wouldn’t be dark until 2100 but canyon effectively blocked the Sun. Even when it was six in the evening, it was started to get dark.

That night, we shared a few jokes and stories after enjoying an improvised dinner. While we were sitting near the bonfire, Leman told us a ghost story, told to him by his cousin who was a lumberjack. A pretty scary story but with some logical flaws but anyway, seeing a ghost itself is out of a sane person’s mind.

Yet, I slept that night, thinking of what actually happened to some of the people who claimed to see ghost back in the Malay College. Irrational or not, I am glad that I didn’t see any ghost myself back at the Big School, a building that saw two World Wars with second one happened right under its corridors.

The Big School, an old building that housed three Houses that, given the chance, would have presented a united front against a common enemy, House Mohammad Shah. That was back then.

Now, such tradition no longer possible thanks to the school administrator. No longer could anybody refers the West Wing as House Sulaiman, no longer could one refers the East Wing to House Ahmad, no longer could somebody refers the Overfloor to House Idris and no longer could everybody insult the Pavilion so one could insult House Muhammad Shah.

I fell asleep that night, remembering a teacher that once slapped me in the face for a false accusation. I fell asleep realizing how much I am missing the Malay College of Kuala Kangsar.

This is part 6. Please read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.

A few hundred yards later, the terrain started to rise slowly and the environment was filled with rocks. Despite the rise, the hike was still bearable. The only thing that was a turn off was the lack of shade. The Sun’s, with its ray in full spectrum continuously bombarded our miserable skins. Our clothes were also wet with sweat but there was nothing we could do but ignore it.

By 1300, we were too sleepy to go on and so we resolute to take a cat nap at a place beside the river. The nap lasted for nearly an hour.

Having regained of our strength partly, we continued on walking. Along the way, we did meet a few interesting people. One of them was a father of three. Upon seeing us, we said out loud, “Are you doing it?”

I was not paying attention to my ears and so I replied with a short “What?”

“Are you doing it?” He repeated. “Hiking! It sucks!”

I only managed an “oh” but Epol went on further by declaring “I agree”.

We were tired but Mother Nature repaid our resilience almost immediately. As we gained more altitude and later found that Yosemite Creek was way down below in the middle of a very small and steep ravine. The river was also wilder. It must be a fantastic spot for extreme canoeing.

For a full two hours, we hiked the tight, treeless path under the merciless Sun. It was during this time as my skin pigments were being bombarded with UV ray that I finally realized that I forgot to apply sun block lotion.

It came as a relief when green and tall vegetation came back to existence. Shade slowly replaced the light on the floor as we moved forward and we were more than glad to walk under the green canopy.

Somewhere under the shade, we had to cross a stream that flows into the Yosemite Creek. It was a small stream, barely 4 feet in width. Despite that, the trail seemed to disappear after it went into the water. We took roughly 15 minutes to figure out what needed to be done. After sending each other as scout to three different directions, we finally found the other part of the trail about 10 meters upstream. This happened because the part of the trail is being consumed by the tiny stream. Nature seems to have a way in reclaiming its property.

It took another hour or two when at last, in the middle of nowhere, we heard internal combustion engines roaring somewhere in front of us. Through the map, we had to cross two roads, one unpaved while the other is a state freeway; reaching the first road means that we were near to our destination.

However, the first road was paved. We were surprised to see a paved road as it could mean that we were lost. Looking at the map again, we found that it is impossible to cross or to find other paved road as within 50 miles radius, there are only two roads with the unpaved road always on the freeway’s south. We later concluded that our map was outdated, or though however unlikely, the American notion of unpaved is different.

A further hike finally brought us to the freeway. There were signs that confirmed our location with White Wolf laying 4 more miles ahead and better, downhill. We took a rest and some photographs near the road.

The only piece of technology that we brought with us was a camcorder and a digicam. Nothing was impressive about either the camcorder or the digicam. However, what was impressive is the memory, a staggering 120 Megabytes in a card with a total area less than 3 cm. When I was first introduced to a computer, an early Mac back in the late 80’s, a 5” floppy disk could only hold as much as 360 kilobytes. And the floppy disk drive itself took up 1/3 of the total CPU space. Although I consider myself to be well-informed and located somewhere near the technology frontier, I can’t help but marvel at how fast the rate of computer technology is being developed.

Anyway, we fought on and another mile later, we saw the incredible Lukens Lake. The approach is particularly worth mentioning.

The trail that leads to the lake was heavily shielded from the Sun by the tree branches and the slope was tolerable. It took about a mile or so until the area became flat. The vegetation of the area also changed. Tree trunks were giving way to a weaker green-stem species. At the same time, the mosquito population density increased.

We sort of waded along the path as the small but tall plants, a little bit taller than me grew into the edge of the trail. Merely roughly 50 meters later, the tall green-stem plant stopped its infiltration as a smaller species took dominance. With the lack of the green-stem plants, Lukens Lake was visible under the completely clear blue sky. On its background, confiner trees are everywhere and just before the lake, purple flowers are as many as the mosquitoes, making the sight as pretty as a well-painted picture (in fact, better!).

Beside the irritating mosquitoes, there were all kind of dragonflies flying around. With the whole populace concentrated around Lukens Lake, I had the chance to see one of the rarest dragonflies – a blue colored dragonfly. It might not be rare according to biologists but it is a rare encounter for me. The usual dragonflies that I am familiar with are colored in green and to some extend red.

Though the water looked marvelously beautiful with the reflection of the blue sky, a closer look revealed that the lake is not a good place to be in; it was mosquitoes’ breeding and dragonflies’ feeding ground. The water itself was murky. On the other hand, it was a great fishing spot for those with fishing as a hobby.

After a few photo sessions, we left the splendid Lukens Lake behind for White Wolf. The time was around 1800, two more hours before the Sun finally set in the west; three more miles to our camping ground. Despite the short distance, those last three miles seemed like 3000 miles. My body was already exhausted after more than 10 miles of hiking. Epol also looked tired but Leman was by far still had his stamina.

As we walked farther down the path, the temperature dropped slowly. I could feel the cold air touching my already burned skin. While I was trying to conserve my body heat, we reached a junction. The right trail leads to the canyon and the other one leads to White Wolf. At first, we we had wanted to leave our backpacks here and walk for dinner to White Wolf. However, in the end and I was disgusted by this decision, we brought everything with us. I didn’t show any sign that I was against this decision since I believed it was rather an improper time to argue. In addition, I was already exhausted and any argument by my side would lead to a disaster.

And so we brought everything with us. The last mile was challenging in a way I could no longer pull any muscle. My backpack seemed to get heavier with each step forward. It was as if my legs told the brain that they didn’t want to walk any further. I was all ready to commit a rest time but up front, somewhere in the trees I heard cars and voices. This could only mean that we were already in White Wolf. And so, the brain told to the legs “Get your act up because we are going to have a very heavy dinner afterward”. The legs had a renewed motivation and marched all the way towards White Wolf.

We set our feet in White Wolf approximately 15 minutes before 0900. We were lucky to have reached White Wolf by this time since the only restaurant serving the area close at 0900. Once we unbuckled the backpacks, we sat at a table situated in a patio. All the tables save two in the patio were taken. As soon as we settled in our seat, the waitress gave us a smile and three menus. I was hungry and tired and I returned the smile and quickly searched the menu. She gave us some time to make up our mind and when she got back, I asked for a fillet dinner served with french fries and a cup of hot chocolate.

The hot chocolate was so delicious and properly made that I asked for three refills.

White Wolf is a small settlement, a few miles off the nearest freeway deep in the wilderness. It has a main campground setup for families and hikers alike, a small but great restaurant and a bus stop. Buses do serve this settlement but the fare is rather expensive. On four corners, mountains and tree loom tall.

With full hope, we went to the campground to rent a site. Alas, we learned that we need to reserve a site in advance. Subsequently, we had to hike back outside of White Wolf and so that we could camp. If we just had to hike back, I wouldn’t mind. However, one hiking rule demands us to hike a full mile off any paved road before we could camp.

Furthermore, it was dark; well passed 2100. My disgust with the earlier decision reached another level but remarkably, I managed to hold a nonchalant composure.

Worn-out, we cheated. We ignored the rule and walked merely 30 or 40 meters from the campground before we made our camps in the dark and quiet night.

Please read part 1, part 2 and part 3.

We cooked some mushroom soup for breakfast to be eaten with some bread. It wasn’t enough for me but I wasn’t really hungry at that time, so I didn’t say anything about the quantity that I had.

By 0700 on 3rd July, everything was ready and we left our first camping ground no later than 0800.

We were supposed to follow the trail that leads to the Ten Lakes but somehow, we had the urge to see the Grand Canyon of Tuolumne. Therefore, instead of going to the right, we headed northwest towards White Wolf.

It wasn’t long until we reached a place where rocks were a predominant landscape instead of soil. We saw a huge rock and decided to climb it. We left the backpacks behind for awhile so that we could climb the rock faster. We got up, armed with a digital camera and a view cam in order to record anything that we would see.

Up there, we saw some footprints. Leman said that it was dears’ prints but I suspect that it were not dears’. In any case, I think it was mountain lion’s print since the prints were somewhat similar to the lion’s print shown the Valley Visitor Center. In any case, a few feet ahead laid a ledge that overlooks the mother of Yosemite Fall, the Yosemite Creek.
The creek was more like a river full of rapids. The water from far looked greenish but a closer look convinced me that the water was crystal clear. And of course, the sound of dashing water made the view surreal in the cold morning. In any case, I was surprised but delighted to be treated by Mother Nature with such a sight so early after we begun our hike.

Once satisfied, we went down the rock to continue our hike. For an hour, our trail went through a forest with a rather flat terrain until a point where trees suddenly ceased to exist on both side of the trail. While the trees gone, an enemy started to appear – mosquitoes.

Actually, even where the trees provided much needed shade for us, the annoying insects were already feasting on our red blood. However, I managed to shake the mosquitoes off me by applying a rather smelly insect repellant. The thing worked greatly at first.

Then, while we were in the open, it seemed that the mosquitoes were making a nest on our shoulders. At one time, there were roughly 20 mosquitoes hanging around on Epol’s right arm. 20! Even when I was in my grandparent grove, never had I ever encountered 20 mosquitoes at one time. We frequently swung our cap from left to right and to the left again so that the mosquitoes wouldn’t have the chance to suck our precious oxygen-rich blood.

As the trees somehow stopped growing at some point, an open space opened up with dried grasses standing almost everywhere. There was nothing worth mentioning about the open space since it was merely sort of a vast field with improper grass.

Somewhere at the end of the field, where the greens started to reconquer the scenery, we took a rest for a few minutes. We did plan to take a longer rest but the insects were getting on our nerve. Consequently, we got on our feet marched from the mosquitoes breeding place with hope that the insects’ would not follow us. On also, from here on, our trail went away from the creek.

It would take another hour or two until we met the creek again. However, the water behavior changed. Rather than the wild dashing white water fighting for its way among the rapids, this time, the atmosphere was relaxing. Calm water as clear as crystal flowing gently towards the Valley.

We stopped and freed our shoulders from the evil fat guys and went off trail to check out the creek. Across it, a fallen timber formed an improvised bridge, allowing us to cross the creek without getting wet unnecessarily. On the other side, the stones looked must like Cinderella’s fair skin with the sand acted like her fumes. A type of plant grew as tall as me, became an artist’s finishing touch to the already masterpiece work. I was so entranced by creek that it made me deaf. I didn’t response to neither Leman nor Epol, who was calling me to get back and carry on. With a heavy heart, I returned to them and carried on.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t long until we discovered a waterhole with a cliff, some place as high as two meters exists on both sides of the creek. The place seemed to be a marvelous stopping place; the water was so irresistible that we decided to make an unplanned stop and take a swim. With properly place the backpacks against a fallen, almost rotting tree trunk, we with an unusual fast speed, got into our swimming gear, ready to jump straight into the water.

Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that the water was icy cold despite the Sun shining at full capacity. The first and only victim was Leman, who jumped from a full two meter high ledge into the water. We were still on the dry ground when we saw Leman was struggling back to the ground. Upon seeing that, both Epol and I put our jumping trip on hold and checked Leman out. Leman later strongly recommend us not to jump; we simply adhered to his advice.

It would be a waste not to take a little swim at such pristine water located in the middle of the forest high up somewhere nearby to the Sierra Nevada. So, we still went into the water slowly. I in particular took a long time to get into the water. Once in the water, I simply found it hard to breathe because the temperature of the water was so low compared to my usual body temperature. Nevertheless, I did enjoy having my whole body submerged in the cold refreshing water.

The time I took to get out of the water was as long as the time I took to get into the water. This was our first bath since we left Ann Arbor and so, I tried to be in the water as long as possible until I suddenly came to realize that something is wrong with our little detour to the canyon. I got out, put some new clothing to my half naked body and asked Leman for the map.

For today, we were supposed to camp somewhere in the middle between Yosemite Creek and White Wolf. I made a few rough calculations and confirmed my fear. If we were to follow the plan, there is no way we could make it to the Valley back in time without missing our flight back to Michigan. After voicing out my opinion, we realized that we must hike more than 14 miles (roughly 23 km). Deep in my heart, I thought it was an impossible hike although I was the one that first raised the issue.

Thus, we got our backpacks and marched with a renewed mission. We left the waterhole sometimes at 1100.