Beware of bears and rangers

BY DEBRA JOPSON

There's something deeply unnerving arriving at California's Yosemite National Park in mid summer, at the same time as a large slab of humanity.

There is a disjunction between the grand granite edifices, with tall pines in a fringe along their base, lining a river surging white with melted snow; the tour buses jostling for space in the car park; the long, impatient queues at the Yosemite Lodge at the Falls desk; and the crowds that throng thickly along trails the width of a highway. And what about the French tourists: accidentally on purpose leaving snacks lying around so they can take photos of squirrels charmingly thieving, despite signs imploring humans to help wild creatures stay wild?

The truth is that this World Heritage site is so famous, so close to San Francisco (a three-hour drive) and so rich in natural wonders ranged along one valley alone that there is no point in going there to be alone with nature, unless you make special arrangements.

It is possible, with good planning, to take walks in wilder parts of the park and there are less-frequented places to stay, including in privately owned cabins.

But if, like me, you book only a few months out, a package tour might be the only way to get anywhere near the park, and the famed Yosemite Valley shouldn't be missed. Humanity is dwarfed, anyway, by the massive domes, the waterfalls that ribbon thunderously across rock faces and, despite the Earth trumpeting all its glories, an uplifting sense of a big sky arching over it all.

The best advice is to enjoy the energy of the crowd as they get wet from the spray off Yosemite Falls, 739 metres high, just a short walk through woods. And the exclamations as a rattlesnake flashes out of reach ("I want to take it home," a child says). And the bus-loads that clog the winding road to Glacier Point, then try to squeeze themselves and gigantic, sweeping vistas into their digital cameras at viewing platforms where it is hard to decide which part of the view deserves most focus. Is it the Merced River, gleaming between the green meadows below? Or Half Dome, 1520 metres high and a remnant of the ancient sierra; or Nevada or Vernal falls, which leap with a different show of froth and light into the valley?

At least 3 million people visit the park every year. Most seem to be here when my travelling companion and I take our three-day tour during the US school holidays. The free shuttle buses that transport tourists along the valley between attractions are packed.

Many tourists come on buses just for the day, with only three to four hours to take in one of the world's most majestic landscapes. So the most popular tracks buzz with visitors with a deadline. But wait for late afternoon, when they are gone: a calm falls, like a railway station after rush hour. Our room at the Yosemite Lodge at the Falls is hushed, with just the swish of a nearby creek. An outdoor sitting area provides glimpses, through bright-green leaves, of the massifs that soar from the narrow valley.

Against advice in the hotel guide, I open a door to let in some air. A squirrel that had been sashaying outside like a cartoon character takes the opportunity to whip inside and secrete itself behind a wardrobe.

If the notices are to be believed, it's Wildlife versus The People in this national park. Squirrels, deer, coyote, bears and deer mice have become hooked on human food and are adept at finding it. Our hotel directory advises: "Since mice have no collarbones, they can flatten their bodies down to one quarter of an inch to gain entry into a room." The section on mountain lions counsels: "If attacked, fight back!"

Many signs warn against taking food or scented items anywhere near the black bears, which will aggressively seek a feed. They have grown fond of the American diet; a predilection that has eluded us.

They are not as scary as grizzlies and, like many tourists, we would dearly love to come across a bear. This will not happen, though, on the Vernal Fall walk, a 4.8-kilometre round trip involving a 300-metre climb alongside a waterfall flowing fat and free with the energy of an especially big snow melt. Hundreds of other visitors have had the same idea.

Yet our thinking is not entirely faulty. The ranks do thin out as we climb. When the top of the fall is so close thatwe must yell above the roar when we speak, who cares that it is hard to take a picture as walkers file endlessly into the frame? We are all on a big adventure together, donning our wet-weather gear to clamber up stone steps through a curtain of water as the wind carries the fall on to us, a rainbow trapped inside it.

When we decide to take the shuttle bus to the bottom of El Capitan, that sheer granite face that is the Mount Everest for rock climbers, the crowds evaporate on the dirt trail away from the must-see attractions favoured by day-trippers.

Here, we amble through the woods, ogling the rock-face specks that represent climbers on a journey that can take five days and requires sleeping at night in hammocks suspended from pitons.

We take stepping stones across a noisy brook, congratulating ourselves on the sensation of feeling alone in Yosemite. Then I remember the two apples and a tube of toothpaste in my backpack.

We escape a possible mauling by both bears and rangers. (A friend whose son left an apple core in the back seat had her car towed and received a US$300 (NZ$425) fine.) Rangers have guns but not just for the bears. One ranger says that one of their roles in this mini-city-within-a-park (there is even a magistrates court) is to make arrests.

Yosemite, it turns out, is a cultural experience, too. This is not just about the empty, re-created Miwok Native American village and museum, which induces sadness at what the indigenous people have lost. There is the curious stream-ofconscience commentary from all the California coach drivers we encounter. On this "fully narrated" tour, as they convey us through extraordinary landscapes, they feel obliged to fill in any empty space that might be forming in our heads.

"What is needed is a mute button," I overhear one Aussie declare.

However, on the trip from San Francisco, we're charmed by Walter, an aged hippie who is schooled in geology and laces his explanations of the San Joaquin valley and the Sierra Nevada with corny jokes, social commentary and reflections on rocks. When describing the evolution of the mountains, he suggests picturing a chocolate cake with syrup between its layers. The syrup is molten lava, 66 kilometres long and 52 kilometres beneath the Earth's surface, which erupted to form the mountain chain 200 million to 800 million years ago.

The 50-minute trip to Glacier Point, one of those hardened pieces of syrup seemingly at the top of the world, is blighted by a tedious traffic whinge from another driver-guide.

And the driver taking us back to San Francisco must wait for a New Zealand day-tripper who is late meeting the bus. He calculates that it will cost his tardy passenger US$500 for the journey home by taxi, which he describes in detail. The driver wants to leave but his passengers vote to wait. Impatient, the driver speculates that the Kiwi might have met a bear. He recounts how he lost a passenger once to a rock fall. "I hope he wasn't eaten by a mountain lion." Then he offers: "Maybe he met a girl."

Fifty minutes late, the Kiwi appears red-faced on a shuttle bus. Oh, how some wish they had had one more hour in that landscape, out of reach of a man with a microphone.

FAST FACTS

A three-day excursion from San Francisco to Yosemite with California Parlor Car Tours costs US$860 for singles, US$1140 a double and US$275 for children aged 5-11. This includes two nights' accommodation at Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, a half-day tour to Glacier Point and transfers from San Francisco; see sanfrancisco. tourcorp.com. A more expensive tour staying at the luxury Ahwahnee Hotel is also available. Independent travellers can book accommodation at yosemitepark.com. A room at Yosemite Lodge at the Falls needs to be booked well ahead. A double queen or king room costs from US$179.

There are a dozen walks in Yosemite Valley, ranging from the 20-minute trot fromthe car park to Bridalveil Fall, to the strenuous Four-Mile Trail to Glacier Point. For those seeking moderate walks, a 30-minute to one-hour modest climb to the Vernal Fall footbridge is a good way to get the feel of the mountains with minimum effort. The five- to sevenhour valley-floor loop walk will yield more contemplative moments with nature. Ranger advice on walks is excellent.

- © Fairfax NZ News