The Great Bear Attack

Day 4; Yosemite National Park; 6th July

Sleeping in a tent is actually comfortable! 
Like srsly 

8am was our set off time, well, it was meant to be 8am most days but 8 meant 8:30 to us. 
So it was an early start, tucking into breakfast of bagels, yog, fruits and the OJ. 
You had to be up early to get OJ, I only had it a few times :( 
Sleep > OJ

We started our drive through the park towards Glacier Point. 
A few photo ops on the way showed how incredible this national park is; the views were unreal! 

Marcel, Jana, Me, Colin, Sofia, Alan, Joe, Sarah & Ellie                                  



                        We parked up and decided on a short hike before getting to Glacier Point. 
The hike was up to Sentinel Dome
I feel I'm going to use the word 'incredible' a lot when describing this park so I'm going to google some synonyms now to mix things up a bit. 
The view from the top was ... preposterous?? 
Um ok we'll go with that

Here we had our first view of the Half Dome; this has been my laptop screen saver for sooooo long and now I finally got to see it! It was unbelievable.
Loads of photos later we made our way back to the bus. 
However that did not go to plan. 
Sarah took a tumble and sprained her ankle really badly!! 
At least Sarah fell doing something exciting; hiking in Yosemite. 
No offence Colin but a curb isn't cool. 
A massive group effort then to help out and carry Sarah back to the bus. 
Felt so bad for her but hat off to her dealt with it like a boss.

Sentinel Dome
Photo Credit: Sarah Jackson
Up to Glacier point and here we spilt off into groups depending on what we wanted to see and do that day. I had sneakily put 'Walk the Panorama & Mist trail' on our bucket list without consulting Emily so we had to do that; so Joe, Colin & Sofia joined us for the challenge and the longest hike of our lives! 
We had to meet back at the bus on the valley floor at 5:30 which gave us 5 hours to complete the hike; 12 miles apparently. Those Yosemite miles are all lies though!

Me & Em & The Half Dome

Sofia & Joe inside what was left of a tree
Note that when we arrived in Yosemite we got a booklet full of maps and trails and info on the park. One particular section on Mountain Lions caught my eye. 

"If you see a lion, do not run or crouch down. Instead shout, wave and throw stones. Attacks are rare, but if you are attacked, fight back"

Brilliant. 
So we set off, awaiting to be attacked by lions and bears and plague-ridden squirrels. 
We actually wanted to see a bear, just not on the same path as us. 
Alas, no bear the whole trail. 
So we concocted the perfect bear attack story to tell the group when (or if) we got back / blame any incident on a bear:

Emily fell over ... because she was being chased by a bear ;) 
See, makes everything more exciting. 

Sofia was bitten on the back of her head .... by a bear ;) 

Pretty sure Emily fell again, chasing off the same bear ;) 

The rest of us tried to fight off the bears, clothes were torn, things got bloody and we all had our share of cuts and bruises. Lucky to have survived tbh. 

A couple hours later we reached Illouette falls so we stopped for lunch and a dip in the river. 
It was boiling on the trail but we were glad it was all downhill (so we were told)
#lies

Concocting our bear attack plan ;) 
Photo Credit: Sofia Eriksson

                     




                                               


































After crossing the bridge it was all uphill
FML
It was so steep and hot.
Dehydrated and sweating like crazy we trekked on and on. Time kept slipping away and the worry if we'd actually get back in time started to sink in. 
But for now the main worry was our survival, there were no water pumps on route and supplies were drying up. We were hot and tired and tbh if a lion attacked me i'd have let it.
On we went and Sofia was starting to feel the effects of dehydration. Sharing what water we had left we helped her back to life! We hadn't quite got the stage of 'every man for himself'

Calves were on fire but we kept going and eventually the path started to even out and start going down.
THANK THE LORD
We finally reached the top of Nevada Falls and the river looked amazing but we were running out of time to get down so had to give going for a dip a miss :(
Wasn't too fussed though, because if I'd have gone downstream & over the falls I quite possibly / most likely would have died. Good times.
Instead we stood near the cliff edge and admired the view; marvellous
Colin was cray and lay down taking pictures over the edge!

Em, Me, Colin, Sofia & Joe 

Nevada Falls
More steep paths down & drinking up the last of our water supplies we arrived at Vernal Falls at 4pm.
The water taunting us; we trekked on. 
The waterfalls were so impressive and beautiful; but literally zero chance of survival if you fell off!!

Our final decent and we still had loads to go. With no fresh water in sight we accepted death.
 Soon to be squirrel food.
About 15 minutes from the bottom we found a fountain of water! We were saved!!
But also very very late. 
Powerwalking to the public bus we got on and realised we had loads of stops before making to to the group bus. Bugger. 
30 minutes late we made it, and still in one piece. 
The bear made us late ;) 

We were ready to reenact our great bear attack when the rest of the group pipes up to inform us that they actually saw a bear; a real one! It didn't attack them so our story is still better I guess ;)
Sarah was now on crutches though after a visit to the doctors :( 
We can say she got attacked by a bear too though. 

At camp it was my team to cook dinner; beef tacos which were amazing if I do say so myself :) Messy but so good! 
No cleaning for us tonight so we settled in around the fire and took in the scenery, drank some beers, played some songs and just relaxed. 
Was actually so nice having a break from social media and wifi and just enjoying what was around us and the company we were in.


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