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Left-to-Right:
Stella, Jane, Dan, Sonia, King, Sarah, Amanda, and Robert.
Jane ("I don't do dirt":-) Rollins, helped to shuttle us up to Toulumne Meadows, then drove
back to Mammoth Lakes to spend time reading, shopping, and hanging out in the jacuzzi at the
motel with her sister Rachel.
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Final preparations. Dan and King drove the 40+ miles to White Wolf to drop off King's van.
Stella took charge of final go/no-go decisions and everything (including, I believe about 20 pounds of dried mangoes)
was packed by the time King and Dan returned. Here we are trying on the backpacks and getting ready to go.
There was a lot of re-packing because we had to put the food into "bear canisters." These are a
great invention -- if a bear
gets your food, it could ruin your trip.
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Dan Rollins, At age 48, is "fit es a fiddle," able to leap tall buildings in a single bound,
but still the "old man" on this hike.
Dan organized the trip after Robert mentioned remembering how much fun he'd had 10 years earlier.
Before the hike, Dan and Robert went to Dan's 30th High School reunion (in Park City, Utah) and
from there, directly to the Mammoth Lakes "staging area."
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Sonia Rollins, King's youngest daughter (Dan's niece).
Quite a bit cuter than a button,,, Always with the smile!
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Amanda Rollins, Dan's daughter.
A great shot after she caught a fish -- she proudly recalls that she caught, gutted, boned,
fried, and ate it herself. But she let Stella eat the head.
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Stella Rollins, King's wife (Dan's sister-in-law).
Sunning herself at "Paradise Waterslide," gives new depth to the term
Babe-o-licious :-)
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Sarah Rollins, King's older daughter, (Dan's niece)
A photgenic 12-year-old lass if ever there was one. She just loved the freezed-dried
"Blueberry cobbler" (aka "toxic waste")
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King Rollins, Dan's younger brother.
King is a great trail companion -- he always has an opinion or a
(just slightly wacky) idea to discuss.
Plus, he's the only one who could catch fish with any consistency (hehe)
King is physically fit (to a fault :-). When the going got tough -- on the last days
we had 3500 feet of gain -- he would hurry to the top, drop his pack and come back
to lighten the load for somebody else.
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Robert Rollins, Dan's son.
He is just back from a semester of "CalPoly at Sea" where got to see such exotic places as
Vladivostok, Korea, Saipan, Midway Island. The T-shirt is not for sale.
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The old man...
Occassionaly, getting into and out of that pack was a bit of a chore.
Although he was still suffering from a badly scraped palm from a dirt-biking incident
at Park City, Utah, he never complained. Well, hardly ever.
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Another shot of Sonia... see what I mean? Here we are at the falls at "Paradise Waterslide"
She is smiling because (there is some dispute about this) her backpack was filled helium balloons.
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Amanda and Sarah.
Just days after we returned from the backpack trip, Amanda would leave for Ohio
to start her Freshman year of college.
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A couple of hours after striking out from the trail head, we reached a break in the trees,
revealing this meadow, so we decided to "do lunch." We saw a black snake (not pictured).
Then the girls decided they needed privacy so they waded across the Toulumne River
(maybe there's a gas station over there?)
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The Falls at Glen Alden
(I think... one astonishingly beautiful waterfall begins to look like another after a while...)
The girls took a refreshing swim while we set up camp.
Glen Alden is a "High Sierra Camp" and "city wimps" can get to it by riding pack mules.
There are lots of camp sites and semi-permanent tents (you can even buy supplies there), but we
found a campsite that was not too close to the main area.
This first night was the last time we saw people in any large numbers. Two guys from
San Francisco dropped by our campsite and we talked about yoga for a while.
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King, a Doctor of Chiropractic, gives Robert an adjustment.
From experience, I know that if your pack is riding badly, you can end up with painful
tension in your shoulders and upper back -- with lingering problems for weeks. This trip, I
did not suffer any back pain, and I think I owe a big Thanks! to Dr. King for his ministrations.
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Since I (Dan) had been busy with the car shutte, I had not done a careful re-packing of my
backpack -- and it was WAY TOO heavy.
At Glen Alden, I took everything out and saw what an idiot
I am... Incredibly, I had packed an EXTRA PAIR OF LEVIS, several extra t-shirts, spare underwear
and even a bath towel. What a fool!
Any experienced backpacker knows that you can actually get by with just the shirt on your back
and a pair of swimming trunks and one stick of chewing gum. So I lightened my load.
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Sonia, oh, yeh, and a stunning waterfall (it may be California Falls or Le Conte Falls)
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One of several Rattlesnakes!!! we saw. They would typically be right out in the
trail sunning themselves, and quietly move away when we approached. But occasionally, you can come around
a bend in the trail and be startled by the distinctive shisshshshshshSHSH!SH!SH! sound of the serpent's
high-speed rattle... your foot poised one step away from its deadly fangs. There is something
deeply instinctive about that warning and it gets the adenaline pumping in millisenconds.
King says he saw six rattlers altogether, "...and that was 6 too many." I only regret not
screwing up the courage to grab one and make a breakfast of fried rattlesnake.
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About the Trails in Yosemite
Back in the 1930's (during the Great Depression) a series of CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) projects
were undertaken to create and improve the trails in Yosemite. The Toulumne River Trail was
built with thousands of hours of back-breaking labor by hundreds of men. Some parts of this
trail are simply amazing. Here, see how the trail has been raised above the high-water mark
and made level by careful placement of tons of rocks -- all moved manually and fitted together
by hand. Yep, sections like these have lasted SEVENTY YEARS.
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In MANY places, the entire trail is composed of hand-fitted stones like this.
This is part of the trail descending from the Muir Gorge overlook. In places, the trail
was hewn out of the cliff wall, then the trail itself "paved" with hand-fitted stones to improve
the footing of what would otherwise be a dangerous passage.
This manually-fitting of stones is surely a lost art... My mind is well and truly boggled.
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About Waterwheels
One of the awesome sights on this trail is Waterwheel Falls... but WHAT is a "waterwheel?"
Pictured is a small waterwheel. As the water cascades over the granite, it occasionally hits a
boulder in such a way that it starts a swirling action. Some rocks and gravel get trapped in
the vortex and
as they rub against the granite, they carve a bit of it away, then get thrown out. Eventually a
heavy-enough rock, made of a harder material, will get trapped and just keep swirling... carving away
a circular indentation. Rinse and repeat -- hour after hour, day after day, year after year --
for 10,000 years.
Since the river runs across raw swaths of glacier-smoothed granite for long stretches, you can
see this phenomena all along the trail. At Waterwheel Falls, there are some very large such
holes... and at Muir Gorge (where the water has carved away 2000 feet of granite), you can see
ancient "half-waterwheels" -- far above the water line -- big enough to drive a bus through.
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Amanda and Stella, at Pate Valley. Note that the trail sign indicates we
have hiked for 21 miles (there are about 10 miles to go).
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The last glacier pulled back from Yosemite some 10,000 years ago. The ice of a glacier moves slowly
and the rock/ice interface is like Gods' Sandpaper smoothing the granite beneath.
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Another waterfall (without Sonia :-)
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More glacier-smoothed granite.
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Hetch Hetchee, from the viewpoint of our final-day trail camp.
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Below Muir Gorge
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A pool below a waterfall. Yes, you can jump right in!
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Robert seems to think the water here is a bit on the chilly side.
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Stella with her lightweight pack (hehe) pauses to look at some scenery.
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Wet Sarah and some scenery.
If they placed "Scenic Viewpoint" signs along the trail, you could surely travel from
Toulumne Meadows to White Wolf by jumping from one sign to the next!
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Robert and some scenery -- glacier-smoothed and water-carved granite seen from above Muir Gorge.
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A lovely pool where we spent two days (read on!) King is fishing.
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Here is the wide-angle view from the bottom. Water cascades across glass-smooth
granite and rushes in a torrent into the pool at the bottom. The water level was higher
and the river swifter this year than in the statewide drought of ten years ago.
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There is a boulder in the middle of the pool that is perfect for sunbathing.
Here, Amanda is shouting and posturing because she has caught a fish!! (her first ever!).
I once jumped off that large rock and swam underwater toward the granite slope.
When I figured I was about there,I surfaced... only to find that I had hardly moved! In fact, I'd
been pushed back all the way to the boulder. The water is quite swift, but it is slowed by the
water in the pool, so there is no danger of being swept downstream.
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That rock in the foreground is the "diving board" The water is not as cold as it is farther upstream
and although it is breath-takingly, bone-chillingly, way cold... you can get used to it fairly quickly.
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The bottom of the waterslide.
As the river rushes into the pool, it creates a wall of water
and a tremendous splume of whitewater. At first you think you'd need to be crazy to go in there
but the pool calms the water and with a few strokes, you can swim to the sunbathing rock or at least
work your way out of the fast stuff.
I think that is my (Dan's) arm. I was the first one to try it... cautiously, from a few yards up
the slope. It was scary to slide into that vortice, but it ultimately proved to be (relatively) safe.
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A view showing the middle of the waterslide, in all of it's turbulent glory.
The granite is literally as smooth as glass (if you stay in the middle). The only questions was
"What about those bumps? Couldn't somebody get hurt flying over them?"
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The top.
Above the waterslide area, there was a pool about 6-feet deep and above that, this waterfall.
At the top of the picture, that looks like Amanda and Sarah discussing...
"You go first"
"No, that's ok, you go first"
"Thanks, but I'd hate to deprive you of the glory...",
"No, really, it's OK..." :-)
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Robert conquers the waterfall!
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It looks like Amanda lost (won?) the argument.
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Another one takes the plunge!
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Amanda, R U crazy?!?!
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A view looking down from the top.
Yep, you'd be INSANE to slide down that!
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Sarah examining the wild water at the bottom.
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Sonia dives into the pool at the top!
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Early tries. A few of us used a "sit-upon" and slid down the "short version" of the waterslide.
One problem is that near the edges, the granite is not quite as "smooth as glass." There is some
lichens and/or "hard moss" that can scrape your fanny.
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There is some disagreement about who first decided to risk the waterslide
from the top (Here is Robert partway down with King right behind him.)
All I know is that after swimming for a while, I towled off (with my multi-purpose T-shirt),
and walked back to the campsite to read a chapter of my novel (Tom Clancy's latest -- incidently,
you can burn the pages you've read to lighten the load) and when I came back, everybody was sliding
down from the top like it was nothin'!!!!
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Action Sequence #1: Stella swings into action at the top.
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Action Sequence #2: Stella partway down.
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King, trying to recall if he paid his life insurance premium...
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King, proving that you do "catch air" over those big bumps.
-- A Pultizer Prize-worthy action shot, taken by Dan (if I do say so myself).
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Another great whitewater action shot (I don't know who it is in the water.) BTW, do
you recognize the semicircular granite formation in the foreground?
I hope you have read everything on this page... There will be a quiz.
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Yes, your humble narrator (Dan) did, indeed, join the fun.
When you hit the "jumps" you can get turned around and end up taking the rest of the
trip facing backwards.
....Like that.
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Detail view. I'm pretty sure I'll need this proof at some point in the future.
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Eventually another group of hikers came in and we shared the place. Some of them
slid down -- but I seriously doubt that they would have if we had not been
doing it when they came.
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Sarah in the whitewater!
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Sonia taking the little slide.... and having GREAT FUN!!!!!
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