The Great Snow Creek Caper, or

My first solo flight out of the nest

Clyde B. Russell

Three or four years after the end of WWII I found myself around 15 or 16 years of age and longing for another family camping trip to Yosemite. It seemed ages since we had been. And I was just beginning to feel like a teenager by now and had a great longing to make Yosemite mine. I wanted to “own” it. The family could not make the trip this Summer. But I felt that I could make the trip alone, so I began totaling up my assets:

 1 canvass-covered, cotton-filled sleeping bag that weighed a ton and needed 1 or two blankets folded up within it to begin to keep someone warm during a Sierra night. A thin cotton ground pad was available if I wanted to carry it.

            1 army-surplus canvas knapsack.

1 frame to hang the knapsack and sleeping bag on and then hang on my back. It was made of three 2” wide plywood sticks formed into a capital “I” shape, and tenuously held together with carpenters' staples.

A few cans of food which Mother could donate, along with a can-opener and an army surplus mess-kit and some matches.

 I must have had a few dollars to prevent arrest for vagrancy.

 Our usual family driving time to Yosemite was about 5 hours so I didn't imagine that it would take more than a day to hitch-hike the journey. And, of course, hitch-hiking in 1948 did not hold the fear or danger that it does today, either for the hitch-hiker or the driver. (Don't try this now-a-days, kids!)

As it began to get dark at the end of my first very long day of hitch-hiking, I was still a long way from Yosemite. The country-side was not inviting for bedding down for the night. Trying to get away from the headlights and noise of the highway meant negotiating a barb-wire fence. The wild grasses on the other side of the fence hid a very rocky ground. The rocks were pointy. All night long.

The next morning I made no attempt at eating by the side of the road, I was so anxious to get away from those pointy rocks! It was late the second day when I finally found myself in Yosemite Valley. It was wonderful, and I was beginning to feel fulfilled! At least I had gotten there! I selected a nice camp spot in a regular campground (first-come-first-served in those days, and it wasn't crowded) and decided to start my history-making hike the next morning,

 But first I had another problem. My pack frame was coming apart! Both joints were breaking. Some merciful, divine, guidance put me in touch with a kindly Park Ranger. He took me into a workshop used by the Rangers to fix things, and let me have the use of some tools and the workbench. There I nailed a couple of plywood patches over the joints, and it finally felt like it was going to hold together!

That night, I would try my hand at camp cooking. At the general store at Camp Curry (today's Curry Village) I bought one potato. I thought I'd make fried potatoes along with my canned whatever (probably corned-beef or pork and beans). I sliced the potato into about the same size slices that I had seen Mother make, and positioned them carefully in the mess-kit's fry-pan, and put it over a small wood fire. Soon they were totally burned on the outside and still raw on the inside, and stuck forever to the fry-pan. I ate my canned-whatever cold. That was my last try at camp cooking.

 Retiring to bed, I found that the ground was much smoother than the night before! Yea!! Smoother but still very hard. So rather early the next morning I was up and had a cold breakfast, and started off for the Snow Creek Falls trail head, and the glory of conquest!

The East end of the Yosemite Valley forks into two beautiful canyons: the Southern fork is the Merced Canyon and is home to Happy Isles, Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls and Little Yosemite Valley. The Northern fork is the Tenaya Canyon. It is home to Mirror Lake and Tenaya Creek which tumbles down from the beautiful Tenaya Lake high up in Tuolumne country. Between these two canyons sits majestic Half Dome with its great face overlooking Mirror Lake.

A mile beyond Mirror Lake into Tenaya canyon is the start of the Snow Creek Falls trail. It breaks away from the canyon trail, and heads North, up the side canyon housing the beautiful Snow Creek Falls, which is a combination of falls and cascades down a steep 3000 foot canyon all its own.

The Snow Creek Falls trail affords some breath taking views of Half Dome across the canyon where it seems close enough to reach out and touch. But what someone forgot to tell me was that it is the steepest trail out of Yosemite Valley. Steeper than the Mist Trail, the Yosemite Falls trail, and even the Four-Mile Trail to Glacier Point! I'm thinking now that perhaps this was not the trail for my first conquest on the glory road to manhood!

 So what I quickly found out, was that climbing hurts!! I'd been robbed! Nobody had ever told me that you had to be “in shape” for mountain climbing. I had not been physically active as a youth since I had had Rheumatic Fever as a child, and had always been excused from gym at school, and told not to be physically active!

Within the first half-mile upward, I was totally dead! My leg muscles were complaining bitterly! I didn't mind stopping every few steps to catch my breath, but I'd never had my legs hurt like this! After a few moments reflection, I decided that I had been seriously misled. This was not fun! Carefully and painfully, I hobbled down that half-mile of switchbacks, and then the additional couple of miles to a camping spot in the valley, found a nice hard spot on the ground, rolled out my sleeping bag, and stretched out on it to nurse my seriously wounded body and pride.

 But after a while I got to thinking. What would I tell the folks at home? Would I confess to my shame and embarrassment that I couldn't do it? Would I lie? Hmmmm. A problem, indeed!

As the evening drew on, I began to feel a little better, and not hurt quite so much. I thought that perhaps if I might get some extra help from Heavenly Father, that maybe I could do it after all. So I humbled myself, and prayed, asking for His help, and....forgiveness for being so cocky!.

The next morning I was up early again for another try! It was rough going but this time I knew what to expect. Those leg muscles were calling me vile names all the way, but I tried to sooth them with stories of ultimate conquest and great glory! I'm sure that I set two records: for slowness of the ascent and for the number of times stopped to rest heart and lungs. But with Heavenly Father's loving encouragement I was able to keep going up and over the canyon rim and finally to wobble to the intersection of the trail with the Tioga Pass Road. Roads sometimes have cars, and one of them mercifully stopped and let me start my journey home: back from the great wars of glory, only slightly wounded in body and pride!

And thus came to a conclusion The Great Snow Creek Caper in the life of the young Clyde B., late-blooming teenager wannabe. The moral of this adventure is that Heavenly Father wants us to succeed, and if we let him help us with our lives, that they will turn out better - even if through painful lessons!