In Felton, this time with Rýzls.

Kids were issued pumpkins, hence I don't have to take them to a pumpkin farm.

Tom, at last, did not get the strep-throat, however by the end of the week, Lisa caught his illness. Complaints about scratchy throat did not worry me this time; I reckoned it would take the same course as it did with Tom — and so it did. Including the precise weekend timing, making us take turns baby-sitting the whimpering child and accompanying the healthy one.

Lisa got, fortunately, better again by the next weekend (when, for a change, Hippo went down), and she could invite herself along with Tom to a sleepover at Bryce's. My kids hitherto never slept out of their home without their parents or grand-parents, thus it was a test of sorts. Rumiko and Bryce live practically around the corner, and in the case of some emergency it would not be a problem to pick the children up and transport home. I thought that I would get nervous in the absence of my "babies", but instead I fell like a log in my bed and slept till luxurious eight o'clock. I would perhaps have lasted even longer, but we had a trip arranged with Ryzls, and I had to jump up and go get my kids. Rumiko looked altogether sane and declared, how interesting it is about more kids being less taxing on her attention than one child — and of course — juniors were peacefully playing in the living room and weren't moved by the arrival of their boring mother. Still we had to get on with our weekend program.

Rýzl's Andrejka was ill again, and thus all expedition participants managed to fit in our bus. Míša and I in the front, grandma and grandpa in the the middle, with Tom, Lisa and Anička in the back seat. We visited the redwood loop, entered general Fremont's tree, and even caught a ride on the steam train. It looked dramatic for a moment; the ticket seller running out on the platform trying to assess whether there was still room for seven people on the train; it surprised me that it was so popular. Only in time I realized that October has come and thus everything is Halloween-themed, with pumpkins, ghosts and trick-or-treats. On particular bonus: included in the ticket was a voucher for the hill-top train loop pumpkin patch — this meant that they GOT their pumpkins and I'm NOT OBLIGED to take them somewhere else (e.g. to another crowd-filled pumpkin patch in the valley).

North Peak is an incredible photo-op.

Our expedition over Shamrock Lake. (photo Vendula)

We had a lunch at a Thai restaurant. Sabieng in Santa Cruz had burned out; fortunately they have a subsidiary in Scotts Valley. Ryzl's grandma and grandpa surprised me, for they actually liked our favorite food and tried out everything we ordered. They also coped well with our kids addressing them in a familiar form, calling them granny and gramps. Perhaps I should start to explain the principles of formal address to them. Our kids practically never encounter any Czech person requiring formal address — and so they could not get accustomed to this grammatic concept.

On Sunday I took Tom and our bikes and we rode to YMCA. I began liking the idea of riding a bicycle to the gym — I can take a gravel trail by percolation ponds and then sneak through small residential roads; these three miles take less than twenty minutes. It's fifteen minutes by car, for you get to wait on multiple traffic lights. If I take a car, then I "have to" pedal for a half hour on some infernal contraption, gazing onto a wall (OK, not quite a wall, but at an array of TVs with incorrectly set-up aspect rates, where everybody looks like a fatso), while riding a bike happens outdoors. Bottom line, on my bike saves me about twenty minutes of my time. This, of course, is only true when I'm not riding with Tom, who's after all somewhat slower — and also if I don't get a flat tire. Which is exactly what happened on this one trip, hence I had to push my bicycle for the last half mile (the most sensible and fastest option at the moment).

During this week, great theoretical preparations began for the upcoming weekend. It had been two years since we took a girls-only hiking trip to Yosemite; we did not manage to repeat it the following year, thus, this one. We were somewhat tense regarding weather: first snow had fallen in the mountains at the beginning of October (up to a foot in places), and we were anxious about where it would turn — whether it would work out like previous years, when it got warmer again after this first storm.

Mono Lake.

Half Dome from Olmstead Point.

The weather began to look promising, but the originally agreed five members lost Eva by her going down with sinus inflammation. Still there were four of us (our previous team grew by Jana), and we continued on with the original schedule. On Friday evening we all got together at Vendula's place, congratulating each other on having everything well packed, and how we would fit in our car; soon we were rushing toward Sierra. It had turned hot and dry in the Valley again, but when I entered our clearing, my subaru's wheels slipped nastily — what I took for a dirt road in the darkness was, in fact, mud. The grass was wet, too, and in the end I was glad to have brought a tent, although for time reasons (midnight was approaching) I would have preferred just rolling out my sleeping bag on a mat and laying down.

We prepared our breakfast at the entrance to the Park — there's a table with benches, restrooms and drinking water, hence a total luxury. The most important point of our schedule followed: to drive past Tioga Pass and occupy a site at one of the the few available public campgrounds. The one at Saddlebag Lake was closed — which did not surprise us much, given the relatively extensive remnants of snow there. We had to return to the highway 120 and find our place somewhat lower, in a camp at Ellery Lake. We even tried to pay to the local troll, who said that he'd come around in the evening, and thus we left him to his fate and ventured back to Saddlebag, where our first hike started.

Although a walk in Twenty Lake Basin stays practically horizontal, I was wheezing like a steam engine. It puzzled me, but later uncle Google advised me that we were trotting at ten thousand feet (three thousand meters) of elevation. After all, we live at sea leave and it's not without penalty when one dares to enter these dizzy heights. Fortunately for me, Bára was also plagued by heavy breathing, and so I wasn't the only one obstacle to our progress. Besides, Twenty Lake Basin is breathtaking (pun intended) for everybody, and it was well worth it. In one moment we totally lost the trail, but it was no problem, as we always kept North Peak to our left (the one that keep reappearing in our photo gallery) and Saddlebag Lake behind us, and we could always find our bearing and turn back.

Jana pushing a rock.

Under an arch at Indian Rock. (photo Vendula)

In the moment when we spotted our trail in the valley below, we could choose — either continue to Lundy Canyon and waterfalls, or turn back. However, Jana and Bára had never in their lives seen Mono Lake, and they wanted to fit an excursion to this lake within the same afternoon — and they voted for returning.

Thus we drove down from the mountains; a beautiful autumn with golden leaves had broken out in the Eastern Sierra Nevada. We stopped at a gas station to buy firewood, and then took a stroll along Mono Lake. Sunset was approaching and the lake was surrounded by photographers awaiting just the right combination of light — still I think they never got anything more out of it than we did — later the sun crawled behind some clouds and the show was over.

Back at our campsite, dawn jackets were on order; good that we got our fire going. The girls were roasting sausages; I don't care much for them (certainly not after hiking at three kilometers, and having ingested several cereal bars), and thus I cooked rice. Given the prevailing temperatures we mulled all our wine that we had brought along; one has to get warm somehow. Moon was shining like crazy (although, as Sid had pointed out, our congress was too late: two days after full moon) and we tried to sing in canon (luckily the campground is located near a creek and hopefully we did not outshout its roar — either way no one came to hush us up — even the cashing troll did not show).

Half Dome in its full beauty. (photo Jana)

Climbers can be seen on full scale picture!

In the morning we were the last occupants of the camp who got up and packed — but we had a whole day ahead of us and only an eight mile trip to North Dome planned, so we slowly brewed lots of coffee and tea and soups, finishing our supplies. Bára tried once again paying for our stay, and the troll said again he'd be around in a moment. He came just as we were getting in our car and arguing whether to try again paying him on our way past his motor-home. On special request by Jana, we also stopped at Olmstead Point, from which the Half Dome looks like a boob.

On our way to North Dome we found a nest of king mushrooms, leaving them sitting in the grass for now and continuing to Indian Rock, which features an arch. From Indian Rock we could see the north face of Half Dome — it never shows on pictures how huge this piece of rock really is. It started to dawn on me why Vendula cursed her forgotten binoculars so much. Her husband Pavel was supposed to be on the North Face with Peter at the very moment — and the chance that we would spot them with a naked eye was nil.

Beginning with Porcupine Creek, one actually DESCENDS to the North Dome, and it was a fun stretch of the hike to cover — although the bald tops of Yosemite domes is typically covered by a layer of a very fine gravel, which has a very fitting nickname cat litter and on which one slides like crazy. Furthermore, from Indian Rock one can see the whole bare top of the rock, but in the moment when you get there, you notice that North Dome is still farther and lower.

Eventually we had conquered this "summit" by descending to it — and had a picnic with a view to the imposing Half Dome North Face. The sun shifted so that the formerly monolithic wall transformed into a maze of flakes, ledges and cracks, and Vendula began to rejoice that she was be able to spot the boys in a zoomed-up snapshot by her own camera. I shot some more pictures just by my eye, convinced nothing would come of it — but after an inspection back at home I found them, too!

Harvest. (photo Bára)

Winter is coming, we need to get our wood supply ready!

On our way back my mood worsened considerably — I started to feel that even with these shoes I would get blisters, and despite band-aids I did not enjoy walking. Eventually I walked a lot of extra yards in the forest — although mushroom-hunting is not a passion of mine by any stretch of the word, I could not leave those rare specimens there. We had found lots of other mushrooms as well; eventually I forbade the girls to re-enter the forest and collect those that were too much covered in mud.
Having taken pictures of the boys on Half Dome, and high quality mushroom-hunting harvest, and having accumulated miles in our legs, we were happy to drive home again — our trip had exceeded our expectations. Followed a dinner in a Mexican buffet in Oakdale, splitting up mushrooms and our gear among us at Kovars — and I was back home shortly after eleven p.m.

On Monday I was to clean and process the mushrooms — together with the usual chores connected with school and household, and with unpacking and drying my things from the weekend. And since I have been going out on trips without my family lately, they all arrived to their own stage of tripping urge. This we were ready to fix by planning an expedition to gather wood — and so I also had to organize and pack for the upcoming weekend.

During this season we would, together with our friends, rent an apartment at Kirkwood, the aforementioned "cottage". Kirkwood consists of Kirkwood Inn (a roadside diner) on highway 88, and a ski resort with many lifts, one sports bar, one lodge (really an over-priced hotel) and a whole village of apartments that people either own and use themselves, or rent out. Kirkwood is cut off from the rest of civilization; electricity is being produced locally for the whole resort in huge diesel generators, for which they ask steep prices. There's an electric heating in the cottage — and a fireplace, which only accepts wood. One can buy firewood (for about two hundred and fifty dollars) — but then you have to haul it (i.e. pay for transport or rent a pickup truck and drive it up yourself), hence the overall cost is on the order of multiple hundreds of dollars. Or you can buy a permit at the ranger station for thirty bucks, and cut and collect your own wood in the forest.

Bára holding a log, Martin cutting, Pavel splitting, Hippo carrying wood to the kids, who load the car.

Tom wanted to try cutting with a chain saw.

Naturally, if you broke it down to people-hours, it would perhaps come out more expensive — but then again it was a nice trip. Martin owns on chain saw, we borrowed the other one from Tony. Hippo picked up Michael's large axe, wedges and a sledge hammer; we gathered our hand saws and little axes, and big plastic trays for carrying wood, and coordinated a Saturday start. Kovars and Bára with Martin took a detour to the rangers for the permit, we followed with our kids about an hour later directly to Kirkwood.

A lunch at Pine Grove delayed us — we normally don't eat hamburgers, but picturing a Giant Burger at a suspect-looking hole-in-the-wall, my mouth is getting wet even now. We were late only fifteen minutes compared to the rest of the expedition at the cottage, so the plan succeeded. Others were stretching and carrying stuff and finishing their cold sandwiches (for they did not stop for lunch anywhere); we decided to delay everything some more by taking care of our season lift passes. We had purchased these back in April, for a discount price — however, the resort requires a risk waiver signature before the placard is actually issued. So Hippo and I ventured to the administrative wing of the resort to seek out the allegedly open office there. It was quite open, literally, with a ladder propping the open door, and the matching bucket of paint on the floor and all furnishings removed. No good for issuing passes. We got back into the lodge and finally spotted a live person, actually a couple of age about twenty, who admitted to issuing passes, and asked whether there still was a sign one the door saying that their office was momentarily relocated to the lodge (which we could not confirm nor deny — we simply had not noticed).

We underwrote to ski by the rules and never ever want anything (like season pass price refund, or suing them), and then the machine hummed and spat our our passes. Well, our worries about choosing the right pictures turned out misplaced — the machine ignores the aspect rate and so our faces are 50% wider than in reality. Hippo is happy because in reality he looks much slimmer than on the picture, and he can claim that he lost all that weight recently. I'm not sure that I will ever dare to show this picture to anyone.
Then I asked for an arm band to go with the placard — skiing with the pass hanging on a loop around your neck is so impractical, you get smacked by the placard in your face and strangled by the loop — and when you stick it behind your jacket, you must take it out every time you want to use the lift, which is a hassle — especially when it snows wetly. The chap said that they don't sell the armbands, but that they had found an old one while cleaning up the office, and they would give it to me.

Kids in the car — Lisa resorted to playing or reading a book, Tom kept on helping.

Last log — the wood storage is full! (photo Vendula)

Thus I returned to the cottage in a good mood; Pavel did not manage to spoil it by claiming the chap did not succumb to my youthful charms, as I was telling myself, instead he was trying to quickly get rid of an old annoying hag. It's great to have good friends like this!

But the fun was over for we needed to do something. We jumped in our cars and soon we scrounged the woods, looking among dead trees for suitable candidates to fill our wood storage. Kids were issued bags and told to gather pine cones; Pavel and Martin had started their respective chain saws, we took turns trying our powers in splitting hard round logs into smaller pieces and our endurance in carrying it to the cars. The had to be loaded in the forest and unloaded into the storage under stairs.

We put in a few full loads, and when the darkness fell, we sat down at Kirkwood Inn to a beer and a dinner. That is, without the whimpering Martin, who went unsocially to bed, but it was his loss as he had no beer, then. We fell to our sleeping bags by nine o'clock and most of the participants slept like logs. Tommy and Hippo squirmed a lot and kept waking me up by rustling with their sleeping bags, until I could not take it anymore and had to move next door, risking Martin's snoring.

By dawn I could half asleep, hear the kids rummage around and my Hippo berating them. When I finally opened my eyes, Lisa was sitting on a chair, watching me intently. Still, it was half past eight, which I consider a success (normally my offspring wakes me no later than by seven). We ate breakfast and hurried into the woods again. At first Martin put Tony's saw out of service, but then we caught some rhythm and things went smoothly from that point on. Lisa more played than helped, but Tom lasted in arranging logs in the cars, trying the chain saw (held by Martin) and generally making himself useful. I strongly forbade the kids to touch the large axes, so when I returned from one round of unloading the wood at Kirkwood, Tom reported to "have cut himself, but only with the SMALL axe, mom" — it's great when they follow your orders, is it not!

Afternoon at Kirkwood Lake.

We have to leave now to get home at reasonable time.

Fortunately the thumb cut happened during my absence; I might have freaked out. This way I arrived to a thumb already band-aided and a talkative child, hence it was clear that it was no no big deal. Vendula and I got delayed while unloading the wood — we packed lunch for everybody, including a few beers, so that the expedition would not get distracted by having to drive over to the cottage — and eating in the woods was decidedly more pleasant than in a dark, cold single bedroom apartment. I don't remember when exactly we finished the last log, but all went like planned — I was arranging last pieces of wood like the last components of a jigsaw puzzle; I hope that when somebody gets to undo it, (s)he will be no less careful and precise, for it can all fall on his/her head.

Tom had packed along his fishing pole and kept asking for a chance to fish — and so we stopped for a moment at a beautiful Kirkwood Lake. Tom was casting for a while, our Lisa the duck was splashing, and then selected the least resistant member of the expedition, Pavel, whom she kept provoking until she almost got tossed into the lake (Pavel is soft and did not finish the deed — but Lisa used unfair means — e.g. she screamed that mom would be mad if she got wet). Time had come to say goodbye, and we lingered at the lakeside for a little longer, but then too had to head home. On the way we tested a new Thai restaurant in Martell — it passed, and thus we gained a new dinner spot for our returns from skiing.

Bottom line — a very successful trip: we got a full wood storage, were issued season passes (we won't need to stand in brutal lines at the beginning of the season), we had spent a beautiful weekend in the mountains, and the children, without being asked, declared that they had enjoyed it. I think that I will never cease to be fascinated by the fact that all juniors need is releasing them in the woods and they are just happy there — not needing any extra entertainment.