I felt a significant weight on my soul. The sudden increase in visitation to Yosemite National Park (my office and backyard) that signifies Spring Break for the general public had seemed to put a lot of acute pressure on park resources, and the resulting flood of carelessness and ignorance was staggering. Time to leave. Time to take to heart the immortal words of James Brown and "get on up!"
In elevation, specifically. With the March 28th opening of the Glacier Point road, a whole avenue of high-country adventure opportunities had suddenly become available. In the dawn light of that very day, I fell into ranks with a few early-rising visitors on the Glacier Point road and drove up to just over 7000 ft, to the Mono Meadow trailhead. There were sure to be dozens of cars buzzing up and down this road very shortly to admire the easily-won views from Glacier Point, but it was with a relieved smile that I set out on a long backcountry run that was certain to leave me with a renewed love of this place and why I am here. The weight began to noticeably lift from my chest...
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| Half Dome, the Illilouette domes and Mt. Hoffman in the distance. Taken from near Buena Vista pass. |
The day's chosen route: the Buena Vista Loop, or at least one version of it. Upon searching the internet for information regarding this route, I came upon at least three different loops that all went through the vicinity of Buena Vista ridge, in the southern reaches of Yosemite. The loop I chose is a relatively popular 3-5 day backpacking trip that starts from Mono Meadow, heads south through the Buena Vista creek drainage and climbs over the route's high point at Buena Vista pass (~9300 ft) before turning west to pass several gorgeous alpine lakes. The loop finishes by turning north, eventually dropping into the Bridalveil Creek drainage and ending on the Ostrander Lake trail. The loop distance is around 30.5 miles.
The running was...scrappy. Attention-grabbing. Anti-rhythmic. Raw. Real. Natural. Unadulterated.
Running this route in late March would be unthinkable after a "normal" Sierra winter (although that standard is changing annually). It might make for an epic end-of-winter ski tour, but only in this most horrifyingly dry of winters was it manageable in running shoes at this time of year. I still encountered snow fields and patches above 8500 ft; some of them were waist deep and required crawling over so as to not fall through. Normal amounts of post-winter deadfall were encountered consistently across the entire route, which required a fair amount of extra energy to climb over. Many meadow areas were waterlogged with snowmelt, and my feet stayed wet for the majority of the run.
It felt like a good, rough-edged late spring run in New Hampshire, where you're not sure what you'll find but you are pretty sure that you'll have the reserves to deal with whatever is there. Where you become a living, breathing part of a transitioning landscape - the world is thawing from what winter was there, as you yourself thaw and warm to the potentials of a renewed and blossoming world.
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| Buena Vista Ridge |
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| Buena Vista Lake |
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| Buena Vista pass! |
Gravity is an impossible force to fight, and I eventually had to come down from my wilderness high into the populated valleys below. But putting myself where the air is thin gave me a new reservoir of soul strength to draw from: the high country is still out there, 95% of this park is still lightly-trodden wilderness, and I am still one of the lucky humans that gets to live here and be a part of it.
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| Royal Arch Lake |
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| Johnson Lake |
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| Crescent Lake |
-- Robert Rives, 3/29/2015
