Camp Wawona, Part IX

When I went over to Medical on Tuesday night to have a blister I'd developed by practicing archery too much, I was surprised by the sheer number of campers there nursing injuries from Dare Base. Apparently, the game gets a lot more intense with older campers. The next evening, as I was preparing a few things for the wranglers' departure, Rachel, the girls' director, invited me to go on the camp out on the top of the hill with the base campers. I accepted gladly, and had a wonderful evening with the campers beneath the stars. We all slept on a tarp in the middle of the horse corral, which had a wonderful view of the sky. We played a few games, and had a very thought-provoking discussion on modesty.

In the morning, I looked up at the sky and thanked God for its vast blueness and for the brightness of the clouds. Breakfast was at Indian Camp, where the boys had been camping the previous evening, and it was a bit of a hike to get down there. As I waited for my breakfast, I discovered that the doctor who had treated my blister the previous day had also been to Romania, along with his wife. She and I talked a long while, a conversation that energized me for the day ahead. Lunch prep ran into rodeo prep, with a very small break in between. I did not even stay for the entire Rodeo; instead, I went down to the Lodge kitchen and helped my friend Yvonne, from crafts, prep food for the staff party. This involved making melon bowls and cutting the mangoes--by the time I finished with the mangoes, I was so tired I could hardly stand. Still, I enjoyed seeing the food art everyone had created--the award-winning "Pac Man" was very inventive indeed.

After campfire last night, I was happy to greet my dad and my uncle Mark as we set off to do a moonlit Half Dome hike. Adorned with glow sticks, battery-operated Christmas lights, and head lamps, we started off from Curry Village right around midnight. The moon shone brightly between the dark trees as we marched through the night, laughing and enjoying each other's company. It felt good to be on the trail again, and feet seemed to have been craving it for all too long. The air was nice and cool, and I found that we made much faster and more pleasant progress at night than we ever had in the blistering heat of our other escapades up this trail.

The sun began to rise as we started up the cables, bathing the glittering granite rock in golden light. Once at the top, we had a spectacular view of the sun streaming into the valley through the various mountains, and the view of Half Dome's shadow on Glacier Point was magnificent. We enjoyed a breakfast of olive hummus, string cheese, baked tofu, Cheez-its, trail mix, dark chocolate, and Lizard Fuel before attempting a few acrobatics on the top and heading down again. We were shocked, nearly scandalized by the number of people on the trail today--we must've passed well over 300 hikers, and going down the Mist Trail was tricky with such traffic. Finishing up right around noon, we enjoyed a delicious lunch at Curry Village before wearily heading back to camp. It had truly been a spectacular hike.