Coming Home to Yosemite

“As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and winds and birds sing.  I’ll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche.  I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens and get as near the heart of the world as I can.”

John Muir

I think everyone has a special place in their memory that shaped their lives.  Yosemite was mine.  Every year from the time I was four years old until I was eleven, my family packed up our ‘56 red and white Chevy station wagon and went camping in Yosemite National Park.  For two glorious weeks, we lived among the pines and I ran free scampering over granite rocks, playing in the creek and swimming in the Merced River.  We slept under the stars and woke to the “shhhhh” of the Coleman stove where my mother was making hot cocoa and cooking Spam and eggs for breakfast.  My older brother and I would walk to the Curry Village store to buy Charms suckers so huge, they would last for hours.  To top off the day, every evening at 9:30 we watched the “Firefall” (no longer in existence). It began with a park ranger shouting from above “Let the fire fall!” followed by a cascade of bright red coals pushed over the top of Glacier Point 3000 feet up.  We would “oooh” and “ahhh” never tiring of this spectacle.

My father took us on bike rides, hikes and mule rides.  Then one year Dad hiked the Chilnualna Falls trail from Wawona with my older brother and me.  I was maybe eight years old and my brother twelve.  It was a challenging hike-4 ½ miles, pretty much up 2000 ft.  Though the actual main waterfall cascaded unseen into a ravine below, the top rewarded us with a fabulous view and a wonderland of small cascades over granite in what I called “moon pools”. These were pools rounded from thousands of years of swirling water.  I remember exploring these looking for bugs and tiny fish.

My father passed away on May 5, 2017. He requested that his ashes be scattered on top of Chilnualna Falls and so this last week we honored that request.  I traveled from Oregon with my son and daughter-in-law and rendezvoused with my younger brother and my older brother and his wife in Yosemite. Over 50 years later we retraced our steps, climbing to the top of Chilnualna Falls where my father will have now have a forever view.

It was bittersweet to revisit Yosemite after so many years have passed. My childhood paradise is suffering from climate change and too many people, but there is still such beautiful magic among the granite cliffs and spires. I am forever grateful to my father for giving such happy family memories in this special place.

R.I.P. Bruce Pass

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