22nd Birthday Present: A Trip to Nepal

March 23rd – I started the day at my mom’s house in Eatonville. I had just finished college at the University of Washington turning in my last paper on the 21st. I earned my degree in Economics and I was off to do a little bit of traveling. My cousin Alanna was teaching in Nepal, so I figured that coming to visit her would be a fantastic idea. My uncle was going over also, so I figured that going with him would be a good idea. So my mom drove me to his place in Silverdale, where we picked him up and got on the ferry. We were on our way to Seattle for our first set of flights. I had not spent much time with my uncle Jim, but I always liked being around him. We got off the ferry and he paid for a taxi to the airport. I would have taken the bus, so this was definitely a luxury. Everything went smoothly in the airport. Soon we were on a plane to San Francisco. We got to San Francisco with plenty of time to spare. We got some dinner, checked in with international, and hung out at the gate.

March 24th - I noticed it was midnight, which meant it was now my birthday. Uncle Jim wished me a happy birthday and fifteen minutes later we were on our giant flight. This had been a new experience for me completely with the passport and going to another country, so the huge plane was another interesting sight. We had fantastic seats with no one in front of us. This made sleeping easy as it was quiet and dark, so soon I was out.

March 25th – When I awoke we had crossed the international date line, so my birthday was now extinct. Our first plane stop was Taiwan. I remember looking down at the houses below and realizing how dramatically different the perspective of flying over this place was from just seeing it on a map. We got more fuel there and just had a short stop. Then we were flying to Bangkok. We arrived in Bangkok in the early morning. We had to switch planes there. I remember seeing CNN and thinking how strange that was to be in Thailand and see that. We had a bit of layover, but were soon on a flight to Kathmandu. “I think I’m going to Kathmandu. That’s really really what I want to do. If I ever get out of here. I’m going to Kathmandu.” “Kathmandu, I’ll soon be seeing you and you’re strange bewildering ways.” The flight was different as the stewardess just passed a bottle of brandy around. Things seemed more relaxed and finally we plopped down in the heart of the city. At the airport, we went through security which I did not understand, just went with the flow. We looked out to the beautiful day and there was my cousin Alanna to pick us up. She argued her way into as cheap a ride as possible in her best Nepali. I was glad she was handling the negotiations. She took us to the house of Mr. Pawdell who was one of the richest men in Nepal. He and his family had housed my cousin for a couple months and now he was letting us stay with him.  They had an incredible home, especially for Kathmandu. We had our own entire floor with two bathrooms, which made them a very wealthy family. They fed us dal bhat (rice and lentils) and shoved it on our plates until we could not hold any more. We had to eat with our right hand as utensils are not part of the culture and apparently toilet paper is not either which is why it is the right hand instead of the left. I’ll leave that one to you to figure out. That night all we did was go downtown to Kathmandu so we could use one of the internet cafes. Everything was overwhelming and exciting, but the plane flight was catching up to us, so bed seemed like a good option rather early.

March 26th – We awoke and had breakfast with a General in the Nepali Armed Forces. Okay. He paid basically no attention to me, but Uncle Jim got the run down. See the U.S. had just started one of those war things with Iraq, so they were a little curious about our opinion and honestly whether we thought the U.S. had any interest in Nepal. Well, Jim gave a rather straightforward opinion of I don’t like this war, but I was not quite sure yet. After that, we got our plans set for our mini-trek through the Annapurna region starting the next day which I was stoked for. Then we spent the day going around Kathmandu. Alanna brought along her friend Neelima who taught English with her at the school she was teaching at. We checked out Alanna’s school, then went downtown. There were so many interesting buildings, people, and culture to check out. We did a bit of shopping at the businesses as even though these were my first days in Nepal, it was winding down to be Alanna’s last. They were going back to Washington when I flew out to the Khumbu to go trekking. The city was such a combination of old world, new world, and sprawl. We wandered around and came upon temples in squares that were open to the public without any real purpose to them as far as we could see. We checked them out and also walked around the city where we were harassed constantly by people just because we definitely looked a bit different. We had lunch where I promptly ordered fried rice because I knew that I could get by eating that. I also had a gigantic beer which is served in huge bottles, so having one bottle of beer is like two and a half in the U.S. After lunch, we decided to go to Swyambunath, better known as the Monkey Temple. The weather was not very good as it was slightly drizzling and when we got there, we had a set of very steep stairs to climb. I was excited to do some climbing near mountains, but these stairs could be a good warmup. When we got to the top of the stairs there were tons of monkeys just chilling at the temple. Alanna told me not to look them in the eyes because they had been known to attack people, so I refrained. We wandered around the holy Buddhist site. Kathmandu was a mixture of Buddhism and Hinduism as both religions saw it as a holy city. The Nepali girl who came with us, Neelima, was Hindu and Alanna talked about how her religion had thousands of Gods. It was hard to fathom, not being exposed to it much. We also got ourselves a little follower who wanted to be our tour guide. Really he was just looking for a handout. Jim was nice to him but the rest of us ignored him as we checked out all the statues and buildings. The rain started to come down a little bit harder and eventually we had to retreat to the Pawdell’s for some more dal bhat. After dinner, we decided to take the evening out on the town. Uncle Jim was tired from the time change, so Alanna, Neelima, and I went to a Nepali Beatles cover band at the Holiday Inn where we were able to chat and have some beers. Actually we only had one beer, but that was enough to get Neelima rather blitzed where Alanna I had to sort of babysit her the rest of the night. Mostly, though, it was fun to sit back and enjoy being in a new and different culture, something that I had not experienced enough of in my lifetime.

Old Hance Trail

Having moved back to Grand Canyon longing for some awesome backcountry adventures, I was having trouble finding people who could handle the trips I wanted to take. Luckily, one of my co-workers, Matt was up for a trip. I talked him into the Old Hance Trail. The New Hance Trail is probably the steepest established trails in the Grand Canyon. It was built in 1898 after John Hance abandoned the Old Hance Trail for being too steep and washing out frequently. So you can just imagine that this was going to be an interesting trip. We found a viewpoint on the road out to Desert View where the trail was supposed to have started. We were just going on information from Harvey Butchart's book and information obtained from the backcountry desk. We were able to pick up pieces of the trail at times, but you could imagine that after a hundred years there was not much left. At one point I was scared I was a goner as Matt kicked down a giant boulder and it went very near me. From that point on, we were more cautious and kept a close distance to each other. It was unbelievably steep for the first part until we were able to open up on a slight plateau between Coronado Butte and the Sinking Ship. That is when we spotted another hiker. He was going over to climb Coronado Butte. We talked to him a bit and he said that he had been hiking off trail in the Canyon for 30 years and yet we were the first people he saw in such a remote place. He gave us a little more information about what we would see below and then we went our seperate ways. We were glad we talked to him because when we came to the one major obstacle, we were able to pick out a safe, yet steep route that helped us continue down the steep drainage of what would become Hance Creek. The Canyon is so magnificient because as we looked up to see where we had been, the rim seemed an unfathomable distance away, yet we had only been out for a mere couple hours. Eventually the drainage became less steep and the nervous

ness died down. The boulder picking became creek walking. We ran into a baby rattler and saw all the remnants of the Hance camp in Hance Creek. Hundred year old grafiti was all over the rocks as I am sure John Hance encouraged his tourists to leave their mark. Wow, it would have been interesting to see the Grand Canyon in those days. We followed the creek to where it interestected the Tonto trail. Here is where Brian, Austin, John and I had camped several years ago on a four day backpack over Veteran's Day weekend. Matt and I contemplated going down Hance Creek all the way to the river, but he was not for it. It would have been an impossibly hard day, but I would have been happy to do it and probably would have been successful. Instead, we went up the Tonto trail that would take us steeply up to Horseshoe Mesa. Along the way, we decided to stop first at Page Spring for some water and then at one of the bigger copper mines. This one was huge with deep uncovered shafts. We went quite aways back until Matt had enough and then continued to Horseshoe Mesa. From there we had the steep 3 miles from the Grandview trail up to the rim. With another car situated there, we would have an easy time making it back home. This trail is steep enough itself, but with how good of shape I was in, it was a piece of cake. I was so happy to have completed that hike as it was the one I definitely wanted to cross off my list. The Grand Canyon is amazing and I sure appreciated a good day off to spend hiking around it.

Spring 2002: Toulumne

 Enough city time in Seattle, studying for Econ 401, and doing dishes at the sorority house, it was time to hit the road to spend the entire quarter visiting National Parks through independent study courses. My good friend Larson and I were taking a full course load with classes in Biology, Earth Sciences, and American Indian Studies. We would study all of these courses as we visited National Parks and spoke to superintendents, tribal chiefs, and visited with the rocks.
We exited a dreary March day in Seattle to take I-5 all the way down into California. Along the way, we even were interviewed for a local tv spot on the local news about gas prices and how they were affecting our Spring Break plan. Not much, as we were taking a full spring break. We drove as far as we could until we found our way to a campground a little south of Sacramento. The next day we awoke and finished the drive to our destination, Yosemite National Park.
Our goal on this trip was to never pay for camping, so after looking around the Valley for a while getting some work done for our classes and preparing for the next day of hiking, we went back down the road to where there was a forest service campground. It was now pouring down rain on us which made us slightly nervous for the next day. We met some permanent campers, a family that asked us to come over and visit. So we did and their tent smelled like a greyhound bus. We felt sorry for the kids living in this environment.

We got up the next day to a cold, drizzly day. We drove into the Valley and got our permit. They were happy to give it to us, but curious about our route. The previous summer I had worked at Yosemite, so I knew this hike well. I remembered the notches on the trees for winter travel. We were going to hike up from the Valley to Tuolumne passing by the face of Half Dome along the way. The trail switchbacked steeply at first. We were snowshoe free for the first mile or so, but soon that was over and we were slogging through the snow. Then we got the joy of having snow start coming down on us. We spent the entire day just slogging through the snow until our energy and the light gave out on us. We were prepared for this and spent the evening winter camping in a snow storm. It was semi exciting and we actually slept pretty well. I awoke to see my stuff floating in a pool of water at the end of tent. Luckily enough, this stuff was in a dry bag and I was glad that I had been smart enough to bring that. We continued our hike through a foot of fresh powder. For skiers, this is a dream come true. For hikers, not so much.
Eventually, we were able to pop out to Olmstead point and take a look down on Cloud's Rest and the now much whiter Yosemite Valley below us. Having endured the snowstorm, we would now have to endure a long trip on the snow covered Tioga Road. This was fine with us as the route finding of the day was now finally over. We could relax and just follow the white powder snow to our final destination. The views from the road were not too incredibly bad anyway.

 The peaks, trees, and frozen lakes were all around us. One of the highlights of this hike was being able to walk across Tenaya Lake. This cut off quite a bit of time as instead of skirting around it on the road, we walked on top of the frozen water just hoping the entire time that the ice was not too thin and it would drop us down into a freezing pool of water. That would ruin the day quite quickly.
We made it just fine across, but were inspired by it and when we saw some old tracks going into the woods, we decided that they may be a short cut to Tuolumne Meadows. Nope, they lead us away from the road and into some heavy deep snow. We got a little testy with each other here as we were both getting exhausted from two days of just snowshoeing, but we used our map reading skills to eventually find the road again. This was putting us rather close to dark, though, and we were debating whether to camp for a second night. Instead, we put on our headlamps and finished the last hour in the dark. When we got there, we found one other person there, a backcountry skier named Lance. He offered us a beer and I was glad to take it from him for my first legal beer. You see, this was my 21st birthday and I was spending it doing exactly what I wanted to do. I was having an adventure with a good friend out in the wilderness. It was the best tasting beer I could have. But honestly, I was extremely tired, sunburnt with the most painful chapped lips ever. I was happy to have a good rest in the comfort of the toasty ski hut.
We had grand ambitions originally of climbing one of the 12 or 13000 foot peaks that dominated the landscape from Tuolumne, but instead, we were just happy to have a day to take it sort of easy. We decided to instead just snowshoe over to where my summer tent cabin was. This was interesting to see as just the floors remained from a small community of summer cabins. We then decided that we had to get on top of something to get some views. So we decided on a March ascent of Lembert Dome.
Lembert Dome was the first peak I climbed in Tuolumne when I arrived there. We were now going to go up it in the snow. We actually had to lose the snowshoes since the all granite peak would not allow us to use them. The snow had sloughed off in so many places that it just would not have been practical. Getting to the top of this peak still filled up a bunch of our day and I was glad that we had not tried to fight our way to the top of Mt. Dana or Mt. Gibbs.

Instead we got to take our time and enjoy the views at the top. You could really see for miles as we enjoyed a clear brisk day. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing in the ski hut. Lance wanted me to try to break into the safe at the ski hut since it doubled as the campground office I had worked at the previous summer. I could not remember the combination, though, so I disappointed him. That evening the ski hut was filling up with cross country skier coming out to enjoy the fresh snow. I was happy we were getting out the next morning as their body heat really made it stuffy and hard to sleep.
With a few hours of sleep under our belts, we awoke the next morning to a glorious day. We said goodbye to Tuolumne and the amazingly pristine landscape that existed after that wonderful snowstorm. We were said to see it go, but so happy we got to have the experience. On this day, we were really moving quickly. We wondered if another day was going to have to be spent camping out in the snow, but no, going downhill was so much easier.

We flew on the road by not taking our "shortcut" through the woods, though we did take another trip across the lake. The peaks were so white with snow and we enjoyed it, but soon we were on our way down from Olmstead Point. This was even faster as the gradual downhill from the road gave way to the steep downhill of the trail. There were places where breaking trail was a ton of effort and now we were literally running down them in our snowshoes.
In late afternoon, we were happy to see the green of the Valley show its face. It was amazing to spend a couple of days in the white country of the high Sierras, but in March it was time to spend some time in a snow free landscape. We were able to get our campsite from a couple days ago and spent another day in Yosemite doing hikes on our own. Funny though, we both chose the same hike, going to the top of Yosemite Falls. We were sad to see this part of the trip end, but it was time to get to some warmer weather and some desert conditions.