“Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System.”
I looked it up, finally, after forty years of using the acronym for the busses that go in and out of the park.
“The park.” That is how locals refer to Yosemite. Be cool if we could too! I mean, that might save me, like, sixty keystrokes a day over the next weeks as I write about the place, yay!
I know. I am being silly.
In the park, there is another bus system that has “Shuttle” in the title. It is free. Some of the busses in the shuttle system get to pretty far places in the big park, but most do the “Valley Loop.”
All these busses and lines share the same stops in certain places in the valley…
“The valley.” that is ho locals refer to Yosemite Valley. It is where the hotels, housing, park management, and all that stuff is. Compared to the whole of Yosemite National Park though, it is tiny. Hardly five miles long and a mile wide in the busy part, and maybe ten miles long in all?
I was, on this trip, planning only to camp in the valley. It is relatively flat. It has many hidden nooks. There is plenty of shelter both natural and man-made. Food and water, should I need them, are easy there. Emergency services and the company of others are in the valley too. It is extremely temperate there too. I knew all the micro-climates. I would have many choices.
It was a low risk plan by design.
I simply did not know what my physical capabilities were. I have said it before. I will say it again. I say it here. I was in recovery after damage. My blood tests showed anemia. I had been deluged by irritating rashes on my skin. High cholesterol. Edge of high blood pressure. Overweight: Again.
Spine damage in multiple places as well.
Walking, my regular exercise, had been tough in the Fresno heat, but I had been still attacking it. Four weeks of genuinelly dedicated of training walking, in fact. Often not far. But always essaying a walk, every day and night for weeks.
With my reflective umbrella and wet t-shirt turban, I could stay pretty comfortable even when the weather report said 115 degrees Fahrenheit. I did come back in from that one commenting that it was strikingly hot out there! It reminded me of one time in Death Valley many years ago.
So I had toughened up, and I went to Yosemite prepared for brutal heat like that.
Instead, I got rained on almost every day, at some time of the day or night, for a week.
That is The Outside Kinda Life tho, I tell ya.
I was not prepared for rain at the beginning. But I was able to adapt my gear, so by the end, I minded the rain not at all. I vowed I would enjoy it, and enjoy it I did. I walked right up hill and into a looming storm. I sought the rain out.
What a change.
At sixteen years old in that same part of the park, I got chased off the mountain by rain.
Admittedly, that old July storm as much more dangerous than the July storm I was in this time. It turned to snow that fell all night after cold rain that fell for two days and a night. I was deeply impressed by that dangerous experience, so I always had some plan in the event it ever got that bad, that fast, and that surprisingly ever again.
As comfortable and effective a good tent is, I cannot stand to carry one on my back for any distance at all. I love the simplicity of: Drop my pack, pull out the stuff sack with my bedroll, roll it out, sit down, change clothes to clean if needed, stuff all gear in one end of my long sack, slip into my bag, sleep.
Insects? I have repellent and a face net. I have long pants and sleeves.
Rain? First, the umbrella. the sack alone can handle a few light drops. Second, a small tarp. This can be tossed over the feet end, but if it remains there too long, might initiate condensation. But when it is really cold and not that humid, that will work. Otherwise I have to string a line and hang at least one corner so as to give somewhere for my breath to go besides condense on the inside of my water barrier.
I have learned what might seem subtle lessons though troubled trials.
That was my sleep and rain system. It was limited. It required skill. But it all weighed about five pounds, including my light down sleeping bag and dropcloth.
There is a secret.
I bet that most nights I am way more comfortable, warmer, and drier than anyone in any backpacking tent. At five pounds, I accomplish what they do at fifteen.
If you ask, I will tell you the secret.
But back to the topic of our post: The Bus Ride Up In The YARTS Bus
See what i did there? I do that with all my titles now. They call it “Newspaper Capitalization.” You capitalize all the words. In the older style, “little” words are not capitalized; as in, “The Bus Ride Up in the YARTS Bus.”
I tried both. I decided I liked the simplicity of the News style. I adopted it. It works best for shorter headers. I will say that. If the title grows sentence long, the old style is less intrusive.
It is so odd I did not get the driver’s name!
That is so unlike me, for we chatted the whole way. It was not a busy run, the Thursday morning. New fancy bus with two deck open huge starboard bay for… wheeled things? But why so tall? Not enough vertical dimension for two decks, yes. looks like that. But that design gave a real curbside luxury loadup for wheel chairs.
It was a new solution. Rather cool bus that way.
Only one row of seats up top to port behind that open bay…. six doubles to port and to starboard asymmetrical. Five doubles and a single? I do not recall it perfectly. It was an odd design. Twitchy brakes. Turning radius was perhaps six inches less than the other buses. The driver commented how this bus was like that. A pain. Had to quite often be raised and lowered to get corners with gutters and driveways.
I moved from my port window seat to up front. Many drivers are chatty. This one was.
It turned out we had firefighting in common. It was fun to learn that city fire department brothers held us timbermen in high esteem, for we always thought of their kind as the elites.
No. I learned it is because when you fight forest fires, it is for hours, days, weeks. You got to be one tough mutha to fight forest fires. But structure fires rarely require one to get that close to a fire without much more safety equipment than we had. So they admire our great courage, strength, and stamina.
My bus driver told me that. I thought that was sweet. We drove through an area that used to be Forest Service fire personnel barracks. My brother David and I stayed there. This housing was at the edge of a huge burn, but there was no burned mountain to the north and east when we lived there.
Sad and disturbing.
That fire happened after the Forest Service went with outside contractors for firefighting, and, at the same time, ceased forest maintenance operations in the area — forest maintenance operations like clearing underbrush, piling it, and burning it in winter. All that “brushing” used to be done by Forest Service fire fighters because they had the skills to contain fires and they were always on the clock.
I did that kind of work in that exact forest we drove through. My driver liked that I was a timber fire brother. I happen to love fire fighters myself.
Oh, but that shovel, pickaxe, McCloud, or chainsaw all day for days, weeks, months.* Hard on my body. Hardest work I have ever done. It was doing that work I learned what it was like to pass out from exhaustion, for example.
It is not so bad if you see it coming and lay down instead of fall!
I laugh because it hurts to cry. Haha.
By car, the run up 41 from Fresno can take as little as two and a quarter hours. That is driving illegally fast with no traffic in a car with lot of power and superb handling. The bus rides take five. It is a patient style of travel. The route is up for many miles and down for many miles, over and again, through regions that grow ever more evergreen, craggy, and twisted by the road.
When I was driving that road that fast, it was because i was dropping off and picking up workers.
It is a great road, Highway 41 from Fresno to Yosemite.
I did not mind the extra time.
The whole way up, I could not decide which way I was going to turn in the valley when I got there. I decided to “not know,” jazz music style, what I was going to play. I decided to let things be.
I am at my destination.
Wherever I am, I have already arrived.
It is calming.
See? I was blowing out and blowing through just knowing I was heading home. Yosemite belongs to me. Yosemite belongs to anyone and everyone who loves her, of course. I was just talking to my nephew Isaac, David’s son, about that feeling of ownership Yosemite inspires. He feels the same. So do many others. You may not litter, for example, on my lawn! It is like there is a great mother soul there, and she knows her kids.
I really love Yosemite.
She always takes care of me.
I believe that is because the other spirits there who know me and always welcome my passages through the areas they protect. So the word goes out about one of the bright, happy, respectful kids coming by, and they come to check me out, dispelling all darkness, day or night.
I find that so soothing. I always feel that I am one like they who too is a nature spirit guardian. I happen to have a meat puppet I can use while it lasts, and that is really the only difference.
I love that feeling of being transparent.
I figured I would find some cool place to camp that night. It would be out of view. I could relax. And then I would really organize all the stuff I had thrown in my back to get out of town, now.
I was telling my driver how it was for me back then, working in the park but also trying to kike in the park as much as I could. typically, managers would try and schedule workers an early shift on their “Friday,” and a late shift on their “Monday.” I would try to use one of the the three main trails out of the valley and camp up high that way in the seven hours of light I had. The next day was my real travel and exploration day. Sometimes i would be so tired, I could not make it in time for work because I would try to get so far out or up before heading back.
This happened so many times, that cranky I told a manager he was “an asshole” to his face, and I got fired.
In my next job as a firefighter, my bosses were not assholes, and even if they were, they would hardly get mad if I said it. It was good for me to work with people who were tough like me, I learned.
My driver was entirely understanding of all that. I amused him with my candor, I think. I shall get his name. He has that run. I will be on it again in a few days for I am considering now some Tuolumne reconnaissance.
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* A “McCloud is a big-hoe small-rake combo tool invented by a fire fighter, so I heard, whose name was, You guessed it. Great tool. You can make a firebreak fast with them babies!