the __earthinc

Please read part 1.

We brought a ticket to Merced via Bakersfield (LA and Bakersfield are connected by a bus) at the Los Angeles Union Station and later, chose a spot in the station to rest. I hadn’t slept yet so waking up till 0400 hours was a little tough to do. So, after discussing with Leman, we planned to meet up at the Park’s Visitor Center an hour after noon. If we failed to reach there by the agreed time, he was going to leave the Valley, our hiking starting point without us.

So, he left with the 0100 train and us.

We were all alone. At least it was better than the original plan. The original plan was designed before Epol join our little party. With Leman got the trip planned up a few months up front (it might be a few weeks but you get the idea), I didn’t get the chance to follow closely his steps from Ann Arbor to Detroit.

The original plan for me was to get a cab from Ann Arbor to Detroit, get on a plane to SFO Airport in San Francisco (home of many cool electronic companies, such as Blogger.com and of course somewhere around there, the Googleplex, Google’s HQ), get a bus to from the airport to Emeryville, situated across the bay and from Everyville, towards Merced. Plus, the ticket price to SFO was about 10 or 30 bucks cheaper. But with Epol joining in, the ticket price to LAX seemed to decrease and thus, the ticket issue went to the surface no more.

Well, we didn’t get mugged in the station nor did we lose anything but time certainly crawled. I fell reluctantly into slumber and later woke up because my back hurts. It was 0130.

Slept again, but the chair was so uncomfortable. It was 0200++.

Slept again, woke up and still it was not 0300.

Slept again, woke up and it was just about 0300.

Slept again, woke up and I said “OMG, time really crawl slower than snail.”

Time really crawled I tell you.

I was about to sleep again but then, I bought a pop (pop means soda, thanks to Mike from Cambridge 300++ for drilling the term into my head) and stayed up well till 0500++. By 0400, the connecting bus was here. The bus was very punctual even at 0400. I wonder if Malaysian bus service will ever get on par with US standard.

We got on the bus and the bus had only 4 passengers; they were me, Epol and two other black guys. As I said before, I slept in the bus at around 0500. Had a weird dream but forgot what it was about.

Later, at around 0600 or so, my two eyelids reopened and I was amazed by the sight outside the bus. Both to my left and right rose rocky rolling hills up into the dark morning sky. The hills seem to cooperate with each other to form a high wall on both side of the road. From a more logical thinking, most probably the civil engineers decided to cut by the side of the hills. But in any case, there were a lot of naturally built hills on both side of the highway. The most breathtaking event on the LA-Bakersfield journey was the way how the hills suddenly disappeared to open up a gale and from that gale, a long, huge valley was formed. With the grasses in the valley that you could only see in Western movies swaying , I did hold my breath for a few moments. And there was a small lake, might be more suitable to be called a big pond somewhere on the right side of the road. And I had finally seen what I had read in book; the famous California Aqueduct. It looked like a huge drain but nevertheless, seeing something that shaped Californian history is something.

There were a few moments during all this when I was about to ask the camera from Epol but seeing him asleep made me changed my mind. So, I sat all by myself enjoying the view before falling helplessly into dreams again.

We reached Bakersfield about an hour or so later. Bakersfield, what can I say? It looked like a typical American town you could see in old blank and white American movies. It gave me the creep although there was nothing scary about it.

We got off the bus and waited for the train to arrive. Took off a few photos and drank a cup of coffee to keep my spirit up a bit. I wasn’t downed. I was just plain sleepy. It wasn’t long before the train reached Bakersfield.

Just before we got onto the train car, a conductor gave us a tip to get on the first car. He said that the first car is usually empty. I said thanks and went for the first car. True enough, it was empty. We went for the car’s upper level and took up eight seats just for us, four each. Two for my big ass backpack and two for me with a table in the middle. Cool huh?

The train left the town some time after 0700, almost 0800.

And shit, I lost my note. This is what happens when you use tissue papers as writing papers. I used tissue papers as note papers because I forgot to get a note book from Ann Arbor and I can’t find anything in Detroit and in Houston. I’m digressing but since I can’t find my note, I’ll just have to write straight from my head. Here goes nothing.

When Bakersfield was out of sight, Epol and I gave the galley a visit. Bought a fillet and some drinks. It was not sufficient as a lunch but I guess that had to do for the time being.

Before I forget, the scenery on the way from Bakersfield to Merced was less spectacular than the rolling hills I saw outside of LA. However, it was still great. From the train, I saw all kind of plantations and it seems like the grove expands to the end of the horizon. Green grapes or whatever it was grew almost as tall as the train’s two-story car. The yellowish wheat, it might be just dry grasses, grew almost everywhere and odd enough, it was beautiful. This was the biggest plantation area and the biggest valley in the whole America and I saw it all from the ground.

It view outside the windows didn’t change a bit all the way from Bakersfield to Merced. It was green and then it was yellow, green, yellow and again green and yellow. Too much green and yellow made me fell to sleep slowly. I slept all the way until the conductor announced that Merced was the next station. Of the two days of travel, I found sleeping Amtrak train most comfortable.

We reached Merced Station around 1100 hours. Merced Station was definitely smaller than Ann Arbor’s. I asked the man behind the counter where I could buy a bus ticket to Yosemite. The man told me to just go outside and wait for a guy. Convincing indeed but I was an outsider. So, I just went outside and indeed there was a lady asking “Are you going to Yosemite?” I obviously say “Yes we are”. Sounds funnily like a covert operation but what the heck.

Later, the bus came and picked us up. From there on, off we go to Yosemite.

The ride to Yosemite Valley was cool. The bus driver was talkative like hell, worse than the cab driver back in LA. Nevertheless, the driver was at least informative.

As we were about to leave Merced, I saw, I actually saw the whole town. The town is more pathetic than Purdue’s (no offense mates) West Lafayette. And this little puny town is going to be the home of UC’s tenth campus home. I wonder how the UC Merced’s future undergraduates are going to survive hell of boredom. On the bright side, at least Merced is much more better (notice the redundant superlative thingy or whatever they used to call it in grammar class) than Universiti Petronas back in whatever the town is called. And town at least has some aesthetic value. Boy, I am sure glad to leave that desolate university in order to attend Michigan.

Digressing again.

The scenery during the first half of Merced-Yosemite route was the same as the Bakersfield-Merced route. We were in the huge valley still.

During the travel, I found out that Merced (before I forget, it is pronounced as ma-sed, not merced as in Mercedes) means mercy in Spanish, a name derived from Merced River. The Spaniard, back during their golden seafaring age, traveled all the way from the east coast to modern day California. As they walked and explored, their water supply started to dwindle. I would suspect that a lot of Spaniard soldiers died from thirst. And then, they found out that God still love them and therefore, they saw a sizable flowing water. And Voila! They called it Merced.

Furthermore, as I have said earlier, the yellowish grasses that fill the California are omnipresent. This is the actual reason why California is called the Golden State, instead of the famous gold rush that happened back in the 19th century.

As the terrain rose, some oaks started to appear on the hills along the road. Their density became dense slowly as we move further uphill. According to the conductor, we actually gained something like 4000 ft vertically. It was nothing really impressive but it was kind of hard to see how we had gained that altitude. Nevertheless, the gorges and the valley sighted from far above seemed to strengthen the fact, or at least the conductor’s words.

And of course, Merced River flows on the left side of the road, down below.

It wasn’t until an hour or so until we reached Mariposa, a small old town situated almost in the high country. The town looks as though it had never progresses with time save a fairly modern bus station and a few noticeable satellite dishes. And of course, the cars but still, most of it were something from the 70s.

The bus made a stop at the town and later continued on with the journey. Oak density was getting out of hand until it seemed that they had formed a whole forest. The climb too had increased although I believe it was just around 20 to 30 degree.

It wasn’t until another hour till we reached the entrance to the Park.

There was a small ranger house at the entrance, giving out permit and that sort of stuff. The entrance to the Park itself magnificent, instead of a road with a gate, two rocks, which I can’t figure out whether it was naturally built or man made, sandwich the road, making it very tight to pass. The bus barely made it without a scratch.

Entering the Park was a great experience. Right after the sandwich rocks, we were greeted with a valley, apparently called Yosemite Valley with Merced Rived still flowing on the left side of the road. A few landmarks came up. There was a mountain top called the Three Brothers. It was called the Three Brothers since the mountain has three similar peaks. The first person to find it, a Red Indian chief saw it and somehow named each peak after his three sons. There were some other obscure details but I can’t recall it.

Then we finally reached the center of activity of the valley. First thing that was noticeable was how narrow the valley is with two sort of mountain ranges (the whole thing were still called Sierra Nevada. I thought it was the Rocky but in truth, it was a few hundred miles northward. In reality, the ranges are not ranges but merely a wall of mountains surrounding the Valley). Although it is a narrow valley, it is still wide enough to contain perhaps about 2000 or even more people at one time. The next noticeable landmark is the meadows. Green grasses cover most of the area where the conifer trees fail to grow at. While on the bus, I noticed that the meadows were under conservation project funded by Chevron. I simply smiled at the Industrialist’s hypocrisy.

It’s not that I think Chevron funding a conservation project is a bad idea. In fact, the Green needs every bit of help. However, the industrialist is doing too little to fight a non-petite problem. Similarly, how Bush is encouraging the development of fuel cell in order to fight the accelerated global warming. And also, in a way, they are only trying to shift public opinion on fossil fuel usage rather than having the conscience to actually help the public to fight the real problem.

Anyway, we saw El Capitan, one of the highest fall in the world (with the highest fall is Angel Fall in Venezuela), Yosemite Falls and dome shaped Half Dome rock.

We got off the bus some time before 1300, just enough time to call Leman on his mobile and told him to wait for us. Once that was accomplished, we went straight ahead to a nearly grill restaurant and filled our sorry stomach before the storm.

After we were filled, we met Leman later at the Valley Visitor Center. At the time we found him, he was chewing a bagel and talking to some guy whom was doing a geology research for UC. Once done chatting with that person, we when to the ranger place and apply for the wilderness permit with a bear can; a can that we needed to keep our food save from the black bear.

At this point, I was amused at the bear learning rate. I tell you it is fast. The black bears are able to open the normal screw head bottle. They are able to open all other stuff. Perhaps this is another reason why we need to keep the wilderness wild. A wilderness with a bear able to drive a car is certainly a civilized wilderness and scary.

After attaining the wilderness permit, we conducted a search for a burner. The search was a failure and thus, we decided to go ahead with the hiking expedition without the burner. After all, we did have two lighters, a solid fuel and a lot of fire woods. It might sound polluting but hey, I fight for a sustainable growth, not for “back to the primitive” as some people had portrayed us falsely. Speaking of back to the primitive, Soulfly sucks big time. With a full stomach and nothing bad going on yet, we decided to start out ascent to the top of Yosemite Fall at 1500.

And the pain begins here.

p/s – if you think Solar Car race is boring, check this out:
Cal Sol (Berkeley) arrived last night. Just outside of Tucumcari yesterday afternoon while they were racing on the interstate a tractor-trailer sped by and blew off their canopy. Then the force of air inside the car without a canopy proceeded to blow off their solar array! It lifted up, turned 180 degrees, caught on their roll bar and came to a sliding stop behind the solar car. Fortunately, no one was hurt and neither was the array. It only has some scrapes on the underside. They trailered to Albuquerque to be on the safe side. The team says they will be ready to start again tomorrow morning.”

Taken from American Solar Challenge, a report by Richard King from U.S. Department of Energy.