The Curse of Bodie

7^th August

I first visited Yosemite in November 2006, and whilst I planned to leave the park east via the Tioga Pass, it was closed to traffic for the winter just the night before I was due to leave.

It was for this reason that I was excited to be finally travelling the Tioga Pass through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and into Yosemite.  The entrance was just 12 miles from our accommodation in Lee Vining which overlooked Mono lake. 

  

The Tioga Pass wound through the mountains and into the park which we immediately noticed was far busier than any of the parks we had visited. The roads seemed slightly narrower and this was exacerbated by the forest edge being directly beside the road.  This meant that clearings or larger open spaces often appeared very quickly with little time to make a decision on whether to stop or not.   The pace here was very different, not helped by a fast 45mph speed limit, and the obvious dangers of near visibility and speed was horribly illustrated to us when moments later, we passed two rangers bending over a Black Bear which had just been hit and killed by a car.    We were suddenly very aware of our own presence in these beautiful and wild places and found ourselves questioning what impact we were actually making.   The rangers place a “Speed Kills Bears” sign where bears have been killed and we saw at least half a dozen others during our visit.  Apparently around 15 are killed every year.   I understand the need to keep traffic moving through the park, but with the much larger Yellowstone having a speed limit of 35mph and only 10% fewer visitors, I feel there is argument to cut the current 45mph speed limit.

Despite this sad start, we enjoyed the rest of our day in the park.  From several miles along the valley we saw climbers on Half Dome, just tiny dots in the distance. We also hiked to Vernal Falls, a steep and rocky trail up to a waterfall.  Again tragically, we saw signs for three missing people whom had last been seen “going over” the falls.  This was no theme park and danger seemingly hid around every corner.  Despite this, we stayed safe and Jo enjoyed looking for bodies along the river banks.

8^th August

We started today visiting Mono lake, a million year old body of water within a volcanic landscape.  The lake has dropped several metres in the last 70 years since water was diverted to meet the growing water demands of Los Angeles.  This drop has revealed giant tufa towers originally formed underwater and they emerge quite eerily from the motionless lake.

It was a reasonably short drive to our next destination, the ghost town of Bodie.  The town grew up from a small mining camp in 1859 to a large settlement of between 5-7,000 inhabitants.  Other booms in nearby towns drew people away and the town began to decline, first being labelled a ‘ghost town’ in 1915.

After driving down a small side road which eventually became unpaved, we arrived at Bodie.  The town boasts nearly 150 existing buildings which are described as being kept in a state of ‘arrested decay’.

Looking through the windows, we saw evidence of previous occupants in the shape of old shoes, clothes, bottles, and peeling wallpaper.  The town remained significantly occupied until the 1940s.

As we wandered around Jo spotted a small piece of pottery on the ground which she picked up.  We debated taking it home for a souvenir  but knew it was wrong, so decided to put it back on the ground where we found it   Later we  visited the small museum and visitors centre and I came across a large, a very large folder of letters written by people who had taken artefacts from Bodie and were returning them with unrelenting tales of misfortune.  These ranged from twisted ankles to the sudden death of close relatives.  Jo and I looked at eachother and imagined we'd just had a very lucky escape.

10 minutes later we couldn’t decide whether we were lucky or unlucky as after three hours walking around Bodie we returned to our car to find both offside doors wide open.  On the back seat was Jo’s handbag where she left it with her purse almost comically poking out of the top.  My wallet was on an open shelf on the dashboard.  All our other possessions were dotted around include two full suitcases in the boot.  Nothing was missing but we wondered if this was just a warning.  

A little shaken we headed out and back along the Tioga Pass to Yosemite.  We had a picnic at Tuolumne Meadows, and headed up to Glacier Point for an incredible view across the valley as the sun began to set. 

The road up was slow and winding, so we left before sunset to beat the rush.   On the way back as it slowly began to get dark, Jo had a strong feeling about us seeing a bear. 

Less than one minute later, I spotted something in a clearing as we drove past.  I turned the car around as soon as I could to return to the clearing, and to our delight, there was a Black bear, alive and well and in clear view.   We jumped out of the car and were immediately set upon by mosquitoes but it didn’t matter because here was a real life wild Black bear.  It didn’t stay around long but again this was a fantastic end to the day and we headed out the western entrance and our next motel in El Portal.  Our accommodation was a double room with spa, which we assumed was the spa attached to the hotel.  Oddly, it turned out to be a giant whirlpool hot tub in the middle of our bedroom.  

The Day the Sun Went Out

Sunday 24^th July

Had a bit of a lie in but got going around 8am heading for the same coffee place in town.  The young guy recognised me, and his opening greeting was “Hey, I was just reading about some guy in Hong Kong reckons he’s proved time travel is not possible”

I’ll miss this place, especially when I’m next sitting in my local coffee shop knee deep in dirty cups and napkins.

We started the day just inside the northern entrance at Mammoth Hot Springs and then headed to what is probably the second most photographed attraction in Yellowstone after Old Faithful; Grand Prismatic Spring.  The steam emanating from this extraordinary 370 foot wide hot spring glows just above the surface in reds, yellows and blues from algae and bacteria living in its 170 degree waters.

From here we saw the massive Yellowstone lake for the first time as we drove around the western edge towards the eastern entrance along the Sylvan Pass.  In the far distance over the Absaroka mountains, we saw smoke coming from the Shoshone National Forest.  The evidence of the 1988 Yellowstone fire is quite obvious as trees stand dead stripped of leaves and bark with new small young trees emerging  from the hillsides.  Apparently 36% of the trees were destroyed in the fire.

 

The smoke was coming from quite a way outside Yellowstone and at the time we had no way of knowing that it would soon engulf us for over a hundred miles and finally as the ash rained down on the car, the sun disappeared from the sky.

Monday 25^th July

I’ve never been a runner. Jo and I go to the gym regularly where she runs, and I am happy on any form of rower, cross trainer stepper etc, but I have never been comfortable with running.  I tried it once many years ago and choose a dark night in the middle of winter for my first attempt at being a bona fide jogger.  My inexperience led me to close my front door and immediately run as fast as I could in a random direction.  After around 90 seconds my breathing became so heavy that I imagined my sleepy village lane neighbours would be cowering in the corners of their houses praying that the ogre outside would not get in.

As I knew I would be away from the gym for a while I decided a few weeks back to learn how to run.  With some excellent guidance from my friend Chris, I got to grip with the basics, most importantly, pacing and got up to 5k in a short time.   I know this may sound a bit pathetic to most, but for me it was a real personal achievement which allowed me to complete an early morning 3k run at 7732ft along the shore of the Yellowstone Lake.  Beats the treadmill at David Lloyd any day. 

Some souvenir hunting followed including the discovery of Hot Tamales, a cinnamon jelly bean type chewy sweet which become slightly dangerous if eaten more than one at a time.

Our next destination was The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, an area of canyonland in the park with two giant waterfalls where we saw Ospreys nesting.  It was from here also that the Ribbon lake trail starts, the spot where a hiker was killed earlier this month. The trail was sealed off.

As we came out of here a temporary road sign flashed a warning to 'Stay in Car, No Stopping for Half Mile'.  It didn’t say why, but we knew. 

We stopped a little way past half a mile and waited in an empty pullout by the side of the road.  We scanned the nearby area with our binoculars and once again it was Hot Tamale time.  As Jo doesn’t like them it was a solo effort.    We never found all the Hot Tamales that I dropped when we spotted some cars emergency stopping up the road.

We drove over and parked the car.    Just across the field was a mother grizzly and her two cubs, most likely the same we had seen yesterday.  We couldn’t have wished for a better end to our final day in Yellowstone. After an hour or so, we started our journey to our next stop, Thermopolis.

Soon after we exited the park at the eastern entrance, we saw the smoke from a Shoshone Forest fire hanging low in the sky. For the next hundred miles or so the sky was dark and the ash floated all around us. When the sun finally disappeared we stopped the car and got out to take a photo.  The ash rained down on the car.
 

In Thermopolis, we encountered a mosquito so large, one of the locals was running around the town with it clutched in his hand, and he was screaming. 

Humans vs Bears

Bears can run faster than Usain Bolt.   

This unsettling fact made me seek out official advice on dealing with bear encounters.  As our USA national parks trip approaches, and it was reported that a mother grizzly bear munched on a hiker in Yellowstone yesterday, I felt it was appropriate to learn what I could about bear safety.    

I found the following;

"Avoid carcasses."  I tend to do this wherever possible anyway, so I feel the risk from this is somewhat low.

"Allowing a bear to obtain human food even once often results in the bear becoming aggressive about obtaining such food in the future"    I am just the same with biscuits, so I understand the importance of not letting them get their paws on them in the first place.

"If a bear attacks...." well that depends on what sort of bear it is.   The most up to date advice with grizzlies is to hold your ground and freeze as it may be a bluff charge.  I can imagine it would be very difficult to hold your ground with a bear charging towards you at 30mph, a bit like not stepping out of the way of a Fiat 500.  It seems grizzly bears are pretty bad at climbing trees so they rely on aggressive behaviour to protect themselves and their cubs.

If it does attack, the advice continues; "curl up facedown on the ground and don't move."  I think at this point I would be wishing I had a packet of HobNobs.  

With black bears, the authorities recommend not dropping to the ground but fighting back with whatever weapons are at hand.  This could include carcasses but heavy rocks and large sticks would be more effective.  It doesn't mention punching them on the nose, but I think I may be confused with sharks, or maybe lions.

The next piece of advice.   "Colour cannot be used to identify whether the bear is a grizzly or a black bear."   Jeesh.    

So as this creature is charging towards me, I have to decide in the blink of an eye whether to play dead or start a punch up with it.  I'm not sure I could even punch an animal, but do accept that my survival instinct may well have already kicked the shit out of my Buddhist tendencies at this point.

A handy grizzly and black bear comparison diagram found online shows two seemingly identical bears and one's got a bit of a hump.

So overall the advice is to avoid bear encounters which is of course very sensible.  Whilst it is terribly sad for the family of the man who died I like to think that as they were in a relatively isolated part of the park, they must have been experienced hikers.  The kind of people who respected the natural order of things but were just unlucky to surprise a mother bear with her cubs.   It makes a great news story, but if bears could write headlines, just imagine what they would say about our impact on them.

By the way, don't hit lions on the nose.  I think I must have got that from the Wizard of Oz, so not recommended as a real defence technique against real lions, unless of course they are cowardly ones.