Yosemite Valley

Took a trip camping in Yosemite Valley two weekends ago with the Environmental Sciences Students Association (ESSA) of Berkeley. Here's the writing that came out of that short, but incredible trip.

After waking up in the morning, the surrounding new faces of sheer grey cliff greeted us. Yellow, green, grey, blue- the colors of Yosemite November. Big leaf maples, brilliantly yellow and smelling like fall. The Mist Trail, to Vernal Falls, to Nevada Falls, back down to the John Muir Trail around switchbacks and back to the campground.

The hike took us to some of the most beautiful places- beautiful is such a limited word. Powerful. Humbling. Breathtaking. Spiritual. Maybe real beauty is feeling small. Feeling tiny in a world that is so much bigger. Maybe that is what the world needs- for humans to feel a little smaller. We tend to feel so big, powerful, able to harness and even change the environment to suit us. That attitude rarely leads to good outcomes, because the truth is, we really don't know what we're doing. We really aren't big.

This is maybe the best argument for wilderness. We need places to go where we are reminded that we are small. How could anyone visit Nevada Falls, among cliffs shaped by geologic forces, huge pines pointing upward, water pushing down, and still feel like humans can, and should, triumph over nature? We need wilderness to humble us. Every basic education must include a wilderness experience, however simple. We need to foster a better attitude toward the earth.

And a poem:

Drive to the Sunrise at Glacier Point.

Orange, grey.

Wonder.

Cross-legged in flannel pajamas

on cold Yosemite rock

waiting for glow,

in silence,

It Came.

Observation, reflection from the drive out of the park:

Before we knew it, we had crossed the border. Out of Yosemite, and into Stanlaus National Forest. What does that border mean? Out of the realm of preservation and into the realm of conservation. Muir's fantasy to Pinchot's. After two days in pristine wilderness, altered only for accessibility to limited recreation, I was now in a National Forest. Here resources are used as well as appreciated. Rangeland, timber, fishing, camping. America does need these things in addition to Muir's "temples." I found it beautiful, in a way, that Yosemite and Stanlaus are able to live shoulder to shoulder in a way that Muir and Pinchot never could. Stanlaus seems to serve as a buffer between the agricultural and developed land into the national park. A buffer for the human senses, and a buffer for wildlife populations as well, which don't understand a boundary line between protected and non-protected. Stanlaus takes conservation and stewardship seriously, and so, there lives a happy marriage between the "forest" and the "park."