May
23
2009
By Greg Sacks
Last year my friend James and I found a treasure map of sorts, minus the map. It was a brief, technical yet enthusiastic description of a four night/five day back country hike in Yosemite National Park.
It promised no trails, no people, and the most beautiful alpine scenery in all of America. "Aaarh", said James. "Now that's a pirate's booty if ever I heard of one."
I had been to Yosemite before - I went on a day hike around Half Dome like everyone else. It is gobsmackingly beautiful, don't get me wrong, but while the footing on the trails was tricky, and the fearless bears even trickier, I was left wanting adventure. Too many tourists I say, under my breath of course since I work in tourism. But now, years later, James and I were chasing what most people try to avoid: the luxury of getting lost.
Armed with bear canisters, a topo map, GPS device, and a few precious paragraphs that described the route in uncertain terms (zig zag up the imposing cliff toward the broad saddle directly to the west), we set off from Tuolumne Meadows and into the wild. Lodgepole pines carpeted slopes above meadowlands strewn with shining boulders. Like school boys who had broken into mom and dad's liquor cabinet, we were intoxicated by the absence of trail. We traversed valleys, circumnavigated lakes, and scrambled up the glacier-polished buttress of Mount Conness. We got lost. We got found. We got scared. But most of all, we got inspired. And then we sent a letter to the man who wrote the directions, thanking him for the best hike of our lives.
www.nps.gov