Over the week that I spent with volunteering with Big City Mountaineers in Yosemite, I ate more junk food than I’d eaten in the past several months at home. It’s weird t think of eating gummy bears and chips on a backpacking trip, but those were the things that I most looked forward to at the end of a day of hiking. It would make more sense to have a banana or a Clif Bar, since they replenish nutrients a damn sight better than candy. Oh well, sometimes your emotions outweigh your common sense. I think that happens to me more often than I realize.
This year, I was sent with East Oakland Youth Development Center, an organization that I wish I would have known about when I was growing up in the neighborhood. Seriously, the center is less than two blocks from my old place. I also went out with EOYDC two years ago, on my first trip with BCM. The girls there are well behaved – mostly due to the presence of Regina Jackson, the driving force behind EOYDC. She swore two years ago that it would be her last backpacking trip because she was getting too old for it. Yeah, right. Those kids are all her kids. They love her like a mother and she looks over them as if they were her own. Why don’t all the organizations send an adult chaperone with their kids? Teenagers are unpredictable enough with their raging hormones and emotional dilemmas. They need some type of stability. Don’t just send them out into the backcountry with a bunch of strangers. Duh!
I had a realization about myself, as I usually do when I spend any time in nature. I’m hiking up some switchbacks behind Timmeya (however you spell it), the most dramatic of all the girls on our trip, on Trail Day #3 and I’m hurting pretty badly in the knees and the bottom of my feet. My shoulder straps are cutting into me where I got an awful chafing burn the first day of hiking, and I’m thinking, “Hester, you’re an idiot. You’re suffering right now as you do every time you do this shit, and when you get back you will forget all about this part. You’re going to be the first one to sign up as a volunteer next year like none of this torture ever happened.”
It’s completely true. When I send in my volunteer application next year, I won’t be thinking of the teenage angst and attitude problems. I won’t be thinking of the nasty cyst I got under my left boob that I had to pierce with a needle from my blister pack two nights in a row before it started to heal (not nearly as disgusting as squeezing the puss out of that fungal infection I got under my fingernail at the monastery in Thailand, but definitely high on the repulsive scale). I won’t think of the spine-tingling shock in my knee when I jump down from a rock on a downhill switchback. I won’t think of the endless hours that passed when I was too tired to remember the lyrics to a song so I kept singing the chorus in my head over and over again. What I will remember is the sweeping views of the Sierras, the fields of wildflowers dancing on the breeze, the fluffy white clouds passing overhead and the girls smiling and giggling all the way home. I’ll remember how strong and centered I felt afterwards. This is why I keep telling everyone to do it and experience it for themselves.
We had to hike out a day early because it was snowing. Yes, I said snowing! We had planned a 10,000+ ft summit climb, but the temps were too low. It was uncertain if we had enough clothing to make it safely through the night, so Alison (another volunteer and also a Park Ranger at Yosemite – and one of the kindest and most generous people I’ve ever met) and I hiked out the one mile to the end point ahead of the girls to go and shuttle the cars so they’d be ready when the group came out. They started screaming when they saw the SUVs through the trees. As expected, they ran the last hundred feet or so to the parking lot. It’s hilarious to me every time. I’m hoping to get a chance to return to Yosemite before the Fall so Killa B and I can do a hike (either the same trail in two days instead of four or a couple of day hikes with a night spent on Alison’s floor in between).
This year, I was sent with East Oakland Youth Development Center, an organization that I wish I would have known about when I was growing up in the neighborhood. Seriously, the center is less than two blocks from my old place. I also went out with EOYDC two years ago, on my first trip with BCM. The girls there are well behaved – mostly due to the presence of Regina Jackson, the driving force behind EOYDC. She swore two years ago that it would be her last backpacking trip because she was getting too old for it. Yeah, right. Those kids are all her kids. They love her like a mother and she looks over them as if they were her own. Why don’t all the organizations send an adult chaperone with their kids? Teenagers are unpredictable enough with their raging hormones and emotional dilemmas. They need some type of stability. Don’t just send them out into the backcountry with a bunch of strangers. Duh!
I had a realization about myself, as I usually do when I spend any time in nature. I’m hiking up some switchbacks behind Timmeya (however you spell it), the most dramatic of all the girls on our trip, on Trail Day #3 and I’m hurting pretty badly in the knees and the bottom of my feet. My shoulder straps are cutting into me where I got an awful chafing burn the first day of hiking, and I’m thinking, “Hester, you’re an idiot. You’re suffering right now as you do every time you do this shit, and when you get back you will forget all about this part. You’re going to be the first one to sign up as a volunteer next year like none of this torture ever happened.”
It’s completely true. When I send in my volunteer application next year, I won’t be thinking of the teenage angst and attitude problems. I won’t be thinking of the nasty cyst I got under my left boob that I had to pierce with a needle from my blister pack two nights in a row before it started to heal (not nearly as disgusting as squeezing the puss out of that fungal infection I got under my fingernail at the monastery in Thailand, but definitely high on the repulsive scale). I won’t think of the spine-tingling shock in my knee when I jump down from a rock on a downhill switchback. I won’t think of the endless hours that passed when I was too tired to remember the lyrics to a song so I kept singing the chorus in my head over and over again. What I will remember is the sweeping views of the Sierras, the fields of wildflowers dancing on the breeze, the fluffy white clouds passing overhead and the girls smiling and giggling all the way home. I’ll remember how strong and centered I felt afterwards. This is why I keep telling everyone to do it and experience it for themselves.
We had to hike out a day early because it was snowing. Yes, I said snowing! We had planned a 10,000+ ft summit climb, but the temps were too low. It was uncertain if we had enough clothing to make it safely through the night, so Alison (another volunteer and also a Park Ranger at Yosemite – and one of the kindest and most generous people I’ve ever met) and I hiked out the one mile to the end point ahead of the girls to go and shuttle the cars so they’d be ready when the group came out. They started screaming when they saw the SUVs through the trees. As expected, they ran the last hundred feet or so to the parking lot. It’s hilarious to me every time. I’m hoping to get a chance to return to Yosemite before the Fall so Killa B and I can do a hike (either the same trail in two days instead of four or a couple of day hikes with a night spent on Alison’s floor in between).
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