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.
