Oh The Humanity!

Yosemite. The weekend before the 4th of July. It feels as if all of humanity has arrived to enjoy the great outdoors of this popular National Park and for a girl who has spent the past 70-something days living in the backcountry it feels extremely crowded.
  As I hiked toward the Tuolumne Meadows area of the Park from Donohue Pass I was well aware of the change in the air. For the first 750 miles of the trip (mas o menos), I could count the number of day hikers or southbound hikers on two hands. The PCT was mainly clogged with people headed north with a very long way to go. We met in towns and leap-frogged each other on the trail, but we were all headed in the same direction. At Mt. Whitney that all changed: we encountered our first John Muir Trail (JMT) hikers. Most JMTers hike from north to south, beginning in the Yosemite Valley and 250 miles later finishing on the top of Mt. Whitney. Thus the sudden influx of traffic on the PCT since the PCT and the JMT trails are one and the same for a majority of those 250 miles. From out of nowhere hikers with giant packs, heavy leather boots, and a few extra pounds on their bellies were breathily greeting us PCTers on the trail while we verily bounded with our relatively small packs, light weight sneakers, and 700-miles-under-our-belts bodies over 12,000 foot mountain passes.
  I've had a couple of weeks to get used to this trickle of people who are not PCT hikers. But approaching Tuolumne Meadows brought on an entirely different slice of humanity: day hikers with tiny backpacks and white sneakers, fisherman with nothing but fly rods, joggers with pink pigtails, piercings, and tattoos who look at you like you're in their way. Don't they know I've been on this trail for 942 miles? Don't they know they are on my trail? So as I approached Tuolumne with the excitement one always feels when her parents are meeting her and there is promise of gobs of food, I was feeling anxious about the hoards of people about to encroach my idyllic world. This was Yosemite after all... in peak season: bring on the chaos.
  The Tuolumne Meadows Store and Grill area was predictably insane: families streaming out the doors with hamburgers and ice cream cones, hikers with bulky packs frantically inhaling calories, shuttle buses idling in the parking lot, and no one really watching where they're going.  This sort of crowd would have me bristling on a normal day much less one where I'm emerging from my blissful backcountry sabatical of the high Sierras.  However, I found my parents and fellow PCTers and in short order the giant bagel sandwich in my face eased my anxiety riddled brow.  People? What people?
  My folks and I stayed in the enormous Tuolumne Meadows campground with hundreds of other car campers and mostly they stared in awe as I continued to consume calorie after calorie.  Besides walking, eating is what I do best right now. It's insane. Eat everything in sight and my ribs are still sticking out and my britches hang on my bony hips.  But I digress. My parents left the next day and I secured a spot in the backpacker walk-in campground for a day of R & R.  I wrote postcards and when I ventured to the Grill for a soft serve cone I immediately returned to the relative sanctuary of my picnic table for peace and quiet. The humanity and busy-ness was too much.
  On the trip to the store area, I ran across a National Park Service volunteer.  He was a gentleman who was acting as campground host for the summer and living in the campground in his RV with his wife and small dog.  I inquired if there was anywhere available to plug in my cell phone and camera battery for recharging and he invited me to leave them with him and he'd be happy to charge them for me. I found this extremely nice since if he went out of his way like that for everyone, he'd have a full time recharging station: this is a campground of 350 sites plus the walk-in sites.  I happily handed over my technology and promised to be back in an hour.  What a nice man!
 Upon my return, Mike was sitting around his campfire with a glass of red wine. He got up and helped me gather my belongings and said his wife was interested in speaking with me about the PCT.  She returned from a walk with the dog and I answered her questions about the trail, why I was doing it, yes, I feel safe, and no I haven't read "Wild."  As I profusely thanked them for the electricity, Kim invited me to come back for a shower.  My first instinct was to gratefully decline the offer....but then I thought about it: I was about to launch into an 8-day stint to South Lake Tahoe and I would not have a chance to really be clean until then. I went back to my campsite, ate dinner, and decided to take them up on the offer of a shower in their RV.  So as campers flocked to the Campfire Program, scurried to the public restrooms to wash their faces with icy cold water, and tended to their s'mores, I returned to the RV and was treated to a hot shower. It was heavenly.
 The kindness of these campground hosts got me to thinking....not only were they not burnt out or jaded on people, the amount of people, or the routine of campground life, they were still excited to meet people, to help out a hiker on her journey.  I've worked tourist jobs like this my whole life and I know how tiresome it can become to deal with travelers who seem to leave their common sense at home most of the time. But these volunteers, after years of service, still found genuine interest in my journey and opened their home to me.  As I emerged clean and glowing from the RV we exchanged goodbyes and Kim sent me back to my site with a cold Coors Light for a nightcap. I felt a bit smug walking among the common campers.
 And then I started to think about the mass amounts of people I was surrounded by.  These are my fellow citizens (and people from all over the world, for that matter) who are using our national resources for family time, time away from the TV and internet, and time in nature.  Sure, most of them never get more than a mile from a road, but still, they are out utilizing one of our greatest national treasures: our National Parks.  They may not be hiking 2,650 miles or even 5, but they are enjoying time together, sleeping in tents, and experiencing nature on their terms, not mine. As I examined this perspective I became less claustrophobic of this crowded campground and more appreciative that these people were here at all, out of their comfort zone, and "roughing it" for the weekend.  And if Yosemite Park has to endure 4.5 million visitors a year, feel like a parking lot at times, and take the brunt of park visitation then there is this silver lining:  it leaves most other Parks free for people like me to find solace, peace, and isolation.  Let Yosemite be the crowded area. Let Yosemite wow visitors from the comfort of their SUVs.  I'll be in Kings Canyon or Sequoia Park away from the crowds and mass of humanity.  I happily realized that there is something for everyone.
  The next day I hiked away from Tuolumne Meadows.  The trail was crowded....for 1/2 a mile.  The people thinned out and in no time I was back in trail mode, enjoying wilderness mere minutes from the roads and chaos of Tuolumne.  I felt lucky and grateful for the kindness of Mike and Kim, the campground hosts. I felt more of a connection with the faces I saw on the trail: we're all just out here to get away from it all, no matter what lengths we go to to do that.  I was happy to see a number of young folks out with their parents with backpacks on....right on.  And then I happily hiked away from all of them, to my happy place miles from nowhere.
  That experience was over a week ago now and I am enjoying a relaxing couple of days off in South Lake Tahoe.  As generous as I left Tuolumne feeling about my fellow Americans, one of them deposited a nasty cold upon me and that, added on top of one of the arguably most difficult sections of the trail, contributed to the last 8-day stretch of hiking being some of the hardest of my trek.  You know when you're sick and you get winded just getting up from the couch to go to the kitchen for a cup of tea? I continued to hike 20 miles a day through that. I don't know how I did it and it was exhausting.  On top of that, my pack was ridiculously heavy with food (it's impossible to carry enough calories!) and my pack AND my shoes gave out during this week.  I can feel every rock on the trail and my pack is now considered a torture device, leaving bruises and chaffing to prove it.  New pack and shoes will be delivered next Saturday!! Needless to say, I had my own pity party and I listened to my iPod a lot to distract me. Fortunately, though one of the toughest sections, it was also one of the most beautiful sections and there was Trail Magic along the way to bolster my spirits with soda and fruit and junk food.  I am staying with definite Trail Angels, friends of friends who have generously taken me into their sanctuary of a home, and am taking an unprecedented 2 DAYS OFF IN A ROW to recoup from the exhaustion of my sickness and nurse a sore hip flexor muscle.  I'm pretty dang happy. I'll be back on the trail tomorrow and while I'll be missing my English hiking buddies that I've been with through the Sierras, I have a feeling we'll meet up again and I'm looking forward to being back on Wee Time.