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Yosemite!! Sep 19-22, 1997
It all started with a throwaway comment, "Gee, hasn't it
been a couple of years since we had fun with bears in Yosemite? Isn't it about time
we had another up close and personal look at the furry creatures?" Ok, so we
cranked up the e-mail machine and got the ball rolling. Almost everyone from the
original assault team signed up for the sequel... fools. However, it didn't seem
fair to hog all the fun so we widened our net and captured a few first-timers.
"Golly, will we really see some bears," they
asked. "Snicker, snicker," was the reply from the old hands.
"Yeah, and they're so cute rooting around in your pack, sniffing the length of your
tent at midnight, climbing trees after the food you took pains to hide but merely
succeeded in advertising like a neon flag. Yeah, they're cute all right... cute like
Darth Vader." (Background chant, "...if I only had a brain...")
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Enough about bears already. The REAL objective is to
get away from it all, ditch the day to day grind that is computer geekdom, and take in
some fresh air, see some sites, and challenge our physical beings... cough, wheeze.
The chosen hike covers some 30 miles. It begins in Tuolumne Meadows on the northeast
end of Yosemite, NP on Tioga Rd. and ends in Yosemite Valley four days later. Each
day is programmed... er... scheduled for about 8 miles with at least one major attraction
along the way. This way the troops stay interested and mutinies are quelled,
important if you are responsible for planning!
The Hike
 | Day 1: Muir trail @ Tioga Rd. to Sunrise High
Sierra Camp
 | Length: 8mi |
| Beginning Elevation: 7,900ft |
| Ending Elevation: 9,300ft |
| Gain/Loss: +2,025ft/-1,280ft |
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| Day 2: Sunrise HSC to Clouds Rest
| Length: 7.5mi |
| Ending Elevation: 9,500ft |
| Gain/Loss: +1,950ft/-2,000ft |
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| Day 3: Clouds Rest to Half Dome
| Length: 7mi |
| Ending Elevation: 7,300ft |
| Gain/Loss: +2,100ft/-4,600ft |
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| Day 4: Half Dome to Yosemite Valley
| Length: 4.8mi |
| Ending Elevation: 4,025ft |
| Gain/Loss: +400ft/-3,540ft |
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The Crew
| Names of the participants are NOT being withheld to protect
the innocent. In no particular order they are:
| Andrew and Martha Carver, aka. "The Carvers."
Andrew is jungle guide for desert environments including Borrego, SP and the Grand
Canyon. Martha is one of the newbes to the Yosemite team. |
| Tom Boldt, a.k.a. T. Boldt or Mr. GQ. A recidivist (It's
a good word. Looked it up in Funk and Wagnall's) with our Yosemite assault team. |
| Serge and Adriana Issakov. How a Russian and a German
could be married to each other is beyond me... How does that wise old saying go,
"those who don't know history are doomed..." Serge is a two timer and
Adrian is another newbe. (Ooops, did that come out wrong?) |
| Hal Lonas. Our man who escaped a brood of 4 kids
to rest-up climbing tall mountains. "Watch out for that cliff... don't
jump!!!" Hal is the guy who got this trip rolling... no surprise there. |
| Brett Phillips, a.k.a. the Brettster. Big man on campus.
Only guy on the trip that outweighs me. Geek extrodinaire. Sent his
Nikon film off to Kodak to have a CD-ROM made of the adventure. Visit his site at http://pinhead.mole.org |
| Kurt Kremer and Susan Feldman, Mr. Personality meets Ms.
Physically Fit. Susan is a newbe but is probably the only person in the group that
can run him down if he steps out of line. Kurt is another one of those damn
recidivists. |
| John De Aguiar, a.k.a. Johnnie D. or Mr. Math or Vector Brain
or CADman... Man of many talents. Amazingly fit for a clubfoot, harelip northern
Californian. A newbe but learns quickly... "No John, we didn't know that total
entropy of the earth is being increased by our journey. Turn it off, will ya?" |
| John Hart, a.k.a. The Vet Doc. Though new to the
Yosemite group, John is team medic on many other adventures. "Show us again how
how you fix a broken leg..." |
| Gary Stowell, the Old Fart. Still in there pitching,
though fading fast. Already picked out his burial site but I don't think the Park
Service will go for it. |
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Some Notes
| It is worth clicking on the maps to enlarge them in their own
frame. Each map has several hot links from locations along the route (marked with
flags) to pictures taken at or of that location. |
| Please, wait until the little thingy on your browser stops
spinning or you'll miss some of the cool stuff the webmaster worked so hard to include.
Those with slow connections to the Internet... go for coffee. |
| Most of the pictures have words with them. Scroll around
to get the play by play. |
| The pictures came from three sources, a Kodak Photo-CD (thanks
Brett), scanned prints from various cameras including a panoramic disposable (thanks
everyone else), and a digital camera (happy birthday Gary). See if you can tell
which is which. There is no prize. |
| The frames pages (Day1 - Day 4) are resizable. If you
don't have at least a 17" monitor, you'll want to take advantage or this feature.
Many pictures are large, >750 pixels. |
| This site is best viewed with MSIE 3.0 or later.
Netscape 3.0/4.0 will work but I used a Microsoft product to author this site and it
discriminates against Netscape where possible. Imagine that... Billy boy is a
dirty trickster. |
| All navigation buttons and bars are Java applets.
Browsers earlier than 3.0 will not display them properly. Recommend MSIE 3.02 or
Netscape 4.0 |
| As always, if you have some complaints about this site or its
contents... fold it five ways and... |
 Since
1-Dec-98
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