Footsteps

 

 Half Mile Plunge [1:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The difference between Yosemite National Park on a weekday and a weekend?  Parking.  A Saturday visit to Yosemite Valley meant grabbing any available parking spot and using the frequent shuttle buses to get around the park.  The lower Valley is a higher traffic area to begin with -offering river rafting, horseback riding, cycling and fishing as well as camping and lodging.  One way to avoid the crowds is to focus on the more challenging trails.  An even better idea is to plan your visit for weekdays.

We found a less-trafficked route to Yosemite Falls.  One of the Park’s more popular attractions, the Falls drop a dramatic 2420 feet in total -almost half a mile!  Water flow is estimated at a powerful 2400 gallons/second (9000 liters/second).

From Yosemite Creek in the high country, water surges over the Upper Fall and through the Middle Cascades before a final plunge over the Lower Fall.   From here it roars on into the Merced River, a stampede of water molecules sweeping along anything within its path.  The violent rumbling fills the ears and vibrates up the feet in late June.  But, in summer?  Yosemite Falls fades to a gentle mist that gives no hint of its escalated springtime flow.

Tags: Hiking, Yosemite National Park, Yosemite National Park by Heather Dugan
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 Unknown Trails [2:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The thrills of an unknown trail:  fresh challenges, beauty in unexpected places and the compression of our scattered focus into more absorbent moments.  It’s how many of us aim to live until deadlines pile up and lagging stamina buries our gratitude.  But stubborn gratitude can grow even stronger in the dark places…  we go forward with eyes wide open, not wanting to miss any of the blessings in our finite lives.

We sat with my Grandma Wanda yesterday, summoning favorite memories in her room at the care center.  She’s been rushed to the hospital three times this month and has declared it “dumb” to go back again if they can’t fix anything.  She knows she won’t be returning to her home this time and that she may not make her 100-year birthday goal.  She’s faced her share of challenges and sometimes created a few for her family with her own “don’t miss a thing” attitude.  Family members knew that if no one volunteered to go with her -to parties, weddings, reunions -she would probably go anyway.

She is the grandma that enabled my neighborhood plays, programs and circuses in childhood.  I’d wait for her visits and Mom’s absence to roll out my latest scheme, and she would quietly cover the managerial details that flew past my creative brain.  She held me and then my children as newborns, and we held each other after the deaths of my parents.

Yesterday she blessed all of us, here and away, name by name.  We’ve been told the obvious -that she is declining rapidly, but her frail body belies her strength of spirit and curiosity.  She wouldn’t mind leaving us now.  She’s tired.  She can’t do many of the things she once enjoyed, but she also doesn’t want to miss any of the joys still within her grasp.

That’s the sense of adventure that keeps one’s feet in motion, one’s heart engaged and life’s beauty within view.  May we all live with that same expectant hope…

*Photo is from this past summer on a trail in Yosemite National Park, California.

Tags: Heart-to-Heart by Heather Dugan
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