Day 5

This isn't goodbye.
By Allison Jones
atj21@txstate.edu

Miles walked: 12.70
Flights of stairs climbed: 165
Fun fact: Even if you can't make it all the way to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls, the view is still pretty great.

Our last hike
As the trip begins to wind down and the reality of leaving this beautiful place sets in, our group decided to go big on our last day. Although most of us still had assignments to complete and content to gather, we wanted to make sure our last day was the best day. The morning started just like every other day - an early wake up call at 6:00 a.m., a quick breakfast and stopping for coffee before we head to our morning destination. Some of the group chose to drive up to Glacier Point, which was about a four hour round trip. The rest of us chose to conquer a hike that would be more of a two hour round trip so that we had some more time to focus on our class work. But boy were we wrong!

My group was planning to head to Lower Yosemite Falls, which is about a 25 to 30 minute hike one way, and the trail is fairly simple. It's meant for the average park visitor rather than an avid hiker. The six of us were on our way to that trail when we suddenly decided to challenge ourselves and take on Upper Yosemite Falls. When we read that the trail was only 3.5 miles, we didn't see that as a problem considering our hike on Monday was close to five miles. But once again, we were wrong.

We started on what seemed like an easy trail walk around 8:45 a.m. The trail was steady with a low incline, and there were people of all ages around us. Around 9:15 a.m., we noticed that the trail started to incline a bit more than we thought it would. We also hadn't seen anyone pass us on the trail that was heading down - which was odd since most people choose to hike early in the morning with the crisp, cool air. About 15 minutes later we found out what we were in for. A large incline, unstable rocks and mountains of dirt carved into the side of a mountain is what we were taking on. The trail quickly turned from a fun morning walk into a scary, challenging hike. Nevertheless, we continued. It was our last day, so we had to go big.

A little over one mile into the journey, we met someone who was on his way down. He had started his hike at 5:00 a.m., and at this point it was about 10:00 in the morning. We quickly realized that we were either going to make this a half-day hike, or we'd hit the half way mark and head back down.

The final decision

Half way up Upper Yosemite Falls
Photo by Tony Klespis

Our group decided to make the hike up to the 1.5 mile marker because we heard from others passing by us that the view was beautiful there. When we finally reached out milestone, we felt accomplished and excited. The trail was hard, like really hard - especially for someone like me who is not an avid hiker. The view was incredible and unlike anything we had seen before. Pictures do not do this place justice, let me tell you.

We started to head down and by the time we reached the bottom of the trail it was close to 11:00 in the morning. We headed back towards our camp for a quick lunch and then left to gather more material for our projects. We were all exhausted but excited for the rest of the day.

Ending our day
The whole group, all 15 of us, met up for dinner and attended a play on our last night together. It was bittersweet. We've all gotten so close and this experience has been a gift to all of us. We all felt this feeling, so tonight was different. Most nights we all headed to bed early on because we knew we had an early morning to wake up for. But tonight, we stayed awake trying to ignore the fact that we'd all have to say goodbye in the morning.

However, it's not a goodbye. Just a "see you later."