Just cooked and eaten breakfast and writing this in the sun overlooking Camp 4 in Yosemite National Park. I like Camp 4 because there are no cars or RVs (it’s a walk-in campsite) and everyone shares the camp space. Last night I met 2 Germans, finishing a 4 month world tour and a Swede who appears to be cycling across America! Fortunately, English was the language for the evening. Another bonus of Camp4 is that you are in earshot of the 5th highest waterfall in the world (2500 ft). The omnipresent roaring and crashing of water in the background is actually rather soothing.
2 Nights ago I decided to camp ‘wild’. Various officials and camp rangers told me that until 1st May you can camp anywhere in the National Forrest (outside the National Park) without a permit (or a campfire). The 2 reservations I had a bout this were:
- Being attacked by locals in a ‘Deliverance’ / ‘Wolf Creek’ style.
- Being eaten by bears (as camping wild you don’t have the ‘bear-proof’ metal food boxes they all talk about up here).
When I asked officials about this I got a couple of replies that I think basically amounted to the same thing. I’ll translate for you:
(in American country accent)
“Well now. There haven’t been any problems here but I live 13 miles away and we’ve had bears going through our trash. I think you’ll be ok but I don’t want to say so and then something happen to you.”
AND
“Hey buddy. You put a cover over your bike and metal boxes [containing the food] and they [the bears] won’t even notice. Now, it’s the cougars and snakes I’d watch out for. The only good snake is a dead snake…”
TRANSLATES TO:
‘I think you’ll be ok but legally (and for my own piece of mind) I don’t want to tell you to do it just in case you do get attacked.”
Well I’d come here for an adventure so an adventure I was going to have. So off I motored and found a beautiful spot off a dirt track a few miles away from the paved roads. Trying to put thoughts of ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Wolf Creek’ behind me I set up camp, cooked, ate, drank a few beers and generally enjoyed my first evening in the wild. Before going to bed I put the remains of my food in my hard luggage on my bike and covered the whole lot with my bike cover. I also turn my bike alarm on. The thinking behind this was that if a bear starts rummaging around the bike the ‘pre-alarm’ will beep, giving me time to arm myself and then if the bear persists for 10 seconds and the ‘actual’ alarm goes off it will either scare the bear off or I will burst from my tent and… well I hadn’t really thought much further than bursting from the tent.
One other thing I didn’t know about Yosemite was that it gets cold here at night. Really cold (zero deg C). Anyway sleep eventually came, occasionally woken by the cold or a strange noise. Then, I may have dreamt it but the bike ‘pre-alarm’ beeped. I sat bolt upright. Heart thumping at about 180 bpm. In the dark, miles away from any civilization with MY F*CKING BIKE BEING TAMPERED WITH BY SOMEONE OR SOMETHING! In 10 seconds time if that full bike alarm goes off I’m going to have to get up and do something. Oh God. Oh Sh*t, Oh F*ck, etc.
At that moment it then became painfully obvious that whatever I originally had in mind for a heroic battle with bear, cougar or gap-toothed inbred was replaced by sitting motionless in my tent, sh*tting myself (not literally mind). By the time I’d be able to unzip and un-hook the tent door and crawled out whatever it was out there would have had time to chuckle to themselves as they deliver a punishing blow to the back of my head! Not much of a fight really.
Anyway, after what seemed like hours the proper alarm didn’t go off and the final battle did not have to be played out.
Was there something out there or did I just dream it? However, I survived my first night camping alone in the wild and all in all rather enjoyed it.
The Swede (cycling across America) camps by the side of the road all the time and he hasn’t had any serious problems. So I’ve decided I’m going to toughen up and do a lot more of it.
Right, off to climb to the top of that waterfall now.
Become a fan
Subscribe to this blog