September 4, 2012

A Guest Blog From California's Sierra Nevada

Molly Bloom, Digital Copy Editor at MSLO would like to share the following travel blog from a recent hiking trip.

I get a lot of attention just for having grown up in New York City.  The standard comment is:  “A real New Yorker -- how unusual!”  I am aware (and proud) that New York is the center of the universe, but what I do not lose sight of is that life exists outside the city.  My hometown can be overwhelming, overstimulating, filthy, humid, depressing, and a whole bunch of other unsavory, hyperbolic adjectives that, when combined, make me want to clutch my head and scream and run for the proverbial hills, which I do, as often as I can.

This time around, my escape took place in California's Sierra Nevada.  I actually worked in Yosemite National Park for two summers, in 2000 and 2002.  Most visitors stay in Yosemite Valley, toward the western side of the park; I went to the less-trampled eastern side, where I had been a camp helper at Merced Lake High Sierra Camp, 13.1 miles from the nearest road, via the shortest route; no electricity; supplies brought in by mule train.  There are five such camps in a 50-mile loop and they provide tent cabins and hot meals for hikers that come through.  My boyfriend, Jonathan, and I introduced his father to a few High Camps this year.  Afterward I spent a few days with my old friend Ben, who worked at Merced Lake, too.  Ben was working at Rock Creek Lodge in Inyo National Forest and said I could crash there while getting my hike on.

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