#chilnualna

Monday. Shouldn’t expect traffic to be bad at all, right? Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!! We will NEVER again stay in a national park on a holiday weekend. That was the big lesson of the day.

We woke up extra early and grabbed our breakfast to go because today, we were…. *drum roll* whitewater rafting! Okay, yes, lots of people raft down rapids all the time and do just fine, but literally any time the locals would ask what we’re doing this week and we responded with “Rafting down the Merced,” their eyes grew wide and wouldn’t shup up about how impressive that was, this year especially. Apparently this past winter had almost a record snowfall, or at least more than there had been in recent years past, and more snow on the mountains means more water when that snow melts. As a result, the Merced was flowing at about 30,000 CFS (about 10x more than usual according to our guide). Although she also mentioned a couple years ago when it was at 150,000 CFS, at which point the roads are underwater too. Just realize that this was seen as an impressively daring feat, okay?

Yikes, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m just excited. We drove back through the park to get to the meeting spot for rafting. Sunrise is 5:30 and we were driving at 6 so there was a fine mist everywhere, with sunlight shooting through tree branches and onto the road. We drove through Tunnel View again, this time only stopping for a few pictures of the ominously foggy view. Ominous and still beautiful. I wish I looked that good in the morning.

Before we drove around to another exit of the park, we saw a family of deer with fuzzy antlers. Unfortunately, besides a chipmunk, that was the only wildlife we saw. But wow, they were so unfazed. Just trotting across the road and holding up a line of cars, all with their windows down and cameras flashing every three seconds. Unashamedly, yes, I was one of those people.

We got to the meeting spot, GoPro in tow, only to realize we didn’t bring our helmet clip. We have out helmet mount on our ski helmets already, but I figured they would have some with mounts on their own helmets. I was right of course, but none of them had the clip. And why should they? *grumble mumble* This is maybe the third time now that I remembered the GoPro but forgot to bring the appropriate attachment gear. You’d think I’d eventually learn.

Then we all gathered for a terrifying safety talk of all the worst-possible outcomes. There was a 12 year-old kid with his grandmother, and his face wore the exact expression I was feeling inside. The guide should probably have said something like, “You could get your foot trapped on a rock if you fall out of the raft, but don’t worry, that isn’t likely to happen,” but he left that last part out. First-time rafter here and all I was thinking was, “I’m going to die on my anniversary.” That would have been just my luck anyway.

Our guide’s name was Rey. She was the talkative, lively one of all the other guides so I was excited she was ours. We were with another couple of first-time rafters, so the only ones who had any decent experience were Rey and Tom. She stuck Tom and me in the front. We learned the basic commands and ways to row, and then we were off in our little gray paddleboat. We started with Class II rapids right off the bat and were splashed enough in the face by 48F waters to realize this was going to be nothing but fun.

There were a ton of rapids and gulches we went down – I think 15 or so in the 11-mile span of river we went down. Two of them were class IV’s and the way the raft kept turning, I was the one getting hit head-on with every wave. Someone tried to be nice and asked if I wanted to switch and I yelled no real quickly. It was way too much fun.

One of the other rafts in our group was doubled-up on guides so Greg came and hopped in with us, allowing Rey to be our tour guide, telling us about the history of the mountains and the wildlife, along with some crazy stories of her own. She’s homeless by choice and lives in a tent during the summer so she can do nothing but raft. Crazy but respectable. For a minute, I wished I lived the life of a paddling hobo. She also pointed out a landslide that covered the road almost ten years ago, and the “temporary” bridge they put in for people to go around it. And also told us how the California flag has the grizzly bear on it but no grizzlies are actually in California anymore because in the early 1900s, the government had paid people to bring in the heads of grizzlies. So that’s ironic.

We came around a bend and Rey looked at us with crazy eyes and asked if we were okay with possibly flipping the raft and most definitely swimming. Errrrrmm…. But we were all up for it so she kicked Greg out of this seat in the back and took command of the raft. We came down a dip where a swell of water had gathered around a partially-submerged rock, creating a whirlpool-like rapid. We went downstream over it easy enough, but she had us stop right after in a calm area. Then we paddled upstream right into the swell, held it for a few seconds, and we suddenly felt the raft beginning to tip to the front left into the whirlpool. Before I could realize what was happening, the raft was standing straight up and dumping everyone into the river one by one! At this point, I was actually standing up in the raft as it was almost 90 degrees straight up. I saw Tom fall in and for a second, my thought was to just fall in too, but my senses kicked in and said why the f would you do that. So somehow, I actually stayed on. Everyone else but Rey and myself fell off. On the shuttle back to the cars, Tom called her psychotic.

It was one of the most fun things I have ever done in my life and now I have to go back to Texas where it’s super flat and rapid-less. Yaay.

The day couldn’t possibly be matched after that, but we tried. After stopping for Hot Pockets at a gas station, we picked out a few fall hikes we wanted to do and headed into the Valley to get to the trailheads. But that’s exactly what everyone else wanted to do too, and we were stuck in completely immobile traffic for hours. We got out at one point to walk to the base of Bridalveil and stayed a while to wait out the traffic, but clearly that didn’t help. We eventually turned around and left the Valley. We went back through Tunnel View but didn’t stop after seeing all the tourists climbing all over each other for a decent picture.

We ended up stopping near the entrance of the park in Wawona to hike a trail to Chilnualna Falls. That was clearly a little-known hike because no one was there. The road took us through where the locals assumedly lived (along with some vacation rentals perhaps?) We thought we were lost a couple times because the signs for the trailhead disappeared but then yay, we were there! It was a short mile-long hike up to the falls but it was all uphill. It was beautiful when we got there though. The sun was beginning to set so the remaining sunlight was poking through the tree leaves and set a serene mood over the waters. It wasn’t the top of the falls but more like a central point where it stops, pools into a flat bed, and continues down again. The full trip would have been eight miles so we stopped before we could commit. Mountain lions were also known for being in that area, so being out past dark wasn’t a goal of ours.