A Polish Woman at Yosemite - I should have said more

A Polish Woman at Yosemite

“I should have said more.”

Written by Dan McDonald

 

                In my previous blog I wrote about how I wondered after eating dinner at a restaurant in Sausalito if I should have said more.  To be honest I think the occasion probably was fine without my saying much to a person I did not know.  I was glad after the waitress dropped my glass and broke it that I left a note to say to her “Never forget that where you live is beautiful.”  Perhaps that note will leave a better memory of her waiting on a customer than a broken glass.  A few days later my path crossed the path of a Polish woman walking through the Mariposa Sequoia Grove near the south end of Yosemite National Park.  I wish I would have said more to her.  There is one thing for sure, I will think of her when I think of a certain tree in the in Yosemite.  I hope you enjoy the story.

                The Sierra Nevada Mountain Range is a different sort of beauty from the hills and bay and ocean that composes the scenery around San Francisco.  I was staying in a house rented out to tourists in the town of Oakhurst, CA a few miles south of Yosemite National Park and forest.  I started to walk out of the house to make my way to the national park when I saw I had visitors in my yard.  The house was on a hill above the downtown part of the town of Oakhurst, but they were not far from an apartment building.  It was a delightful sight to begin the day.

Deer grazing in the yard

 

                I drove towards the south end of Yosemite.  I decided last year to choose to come to California for a vacation.  Last year I decided I should, if I could, take one special vacation time each year to visit somewhere or do something I had never done.  I made that decision choosing to see the Redwoods and Giant Sequoia trees in California.  This was to be the day I visited the Mariposa Grove and its Giant Sequoia Trees.  I didn’t know but this would also be the day I would cross paths for a couple of minutes with a young lady from Poland.  But perhaps our story hasn’t gotten to that point yet.

                I decided to take the walking hike through the Giant Sequoia Grove, and it proved to be an excellent choice.  I got plenty of exercise.  It was a four hour journey up the hills to a vista at a high point above the Giant Sequoia grove.  Coming downhill was only a two hour walk.  The exact time is dependent on the person walking.  If I remember correctly the bottom point where the journey begins is at around 5000 feet elevation, and the vista is around 6800 feet.  The paths going upwards move gradually up the hills without a lot of steep climbs.  But when you go down the paths are steeper and so you make the trip downhill much quicker than you did going uphill.

                As I entered the Mariposa Grove, guess what I saw?  How about some more deer?

Deer within the Mariposa Grove

 

                There was also an impressive fallen Giant Sequoia tree, which had probably fallen to the ground more than one hundred years ago.  A fallen Giant Sequoia takes a lot of time to show signs of decomposition.  Most moss and fungus leaves Giant Sequoia trees alone because the tree contains a lot of tannic acid.  So here is what a fallen Giant Sequoia tree looks like.

 

A fallen Giant Sequoia Tree that fell more than 100 years ago

 

                A tree still standing might look like this Giant Sequoia named the “Mariposa Sequoia”

 

                How big are the Giant Sequoia trees?  Read about the size of the tree called the “Grizzly Giant” one of the larger Giant Sequoia trees inside Yosemite, but a tree not nearly as old or as large as some of the largest Giant Sequoias in other California groves of Giant Sequoias.

 

                Think of a tree 28 feet across at the base with limbs having a diameter as wide as an NBA center is tall.  I had a photograph that didn’t come out of a modest cabin next to a Giant Sequoia.  The roof of the cabin was shorter than where the first limbs of the Giant Sequoia began above the base of the tree, and the cabin was barely longer than the base was wide.  I did get a photograph of the tree called the “Grizzly Giant”.

 

 

                You can gauge the size of the tree by seeing how wide it is in comparison with the boy and girl standing there when I took the photograph.  Near the middle of the base where the bark looks dark, that is where the tree survived a fire.  Giant Sequoias have bark about a foot thick resistant to heat.  Most old Giant Sequoias have been through many fires.

                It can be astonishing to realize how well Giant Sequoia trees withstand forest fires.  The story of one tree’s resisting the punishment of lightning and fire can be seen in the tree known as the Telescope tree, and this gets me to the story of a young woman from Poland, whose photograph I did not take.

                Where the hike begins, brochures with maps of the grove are available.  They show some of the more famous "named" trees within the grove.  I tried to follow the map but somehow missed the tree known as the Telescope Tree.  I began to backtrack to discover the Telescope Tree.  I wondered if I was going the right direction and was on the right path.  I decided the next people I saw moving towards me, I would ask them what they had last seen so as to know where I was.  I thought I was getting close to the so-called Telescope Tree but wasn’t perfectly sure.

                A probably twenty-something year old blonde was walking and another group was a little ways behind her.  I told her, “I got off track and missed some of the trees I planned to see, what is up that way?”  She said with something of an accent that up ahead was “The Telescope Tree.”  Then she added with an expression of joy, and something close to a command, “You must stand inside of it and look up.”  I was surprised by how she added that I needed to stand inside the tree and look up.  I asked about her accent and where she was from and she told me “Poland.”  I replied that I had met many people from Europe in Yosemite that day.  Then I added, I once flew into Warsaw.  She replied “It is nice.”  I wished her well on her trip and she seemed to look at me as if surely our conversation wasn’t over.  At least that is how I felt.  I could have been misreading things but that was the sense I got.  But we moved on.  I went to the Telescope Tree.

                Here is what the Telescope tree looked like on the outside:

                If you look to the left as you look up to the upper regions of the tree you can see a crack on the side of the tree.  That was made by lightning.  You can see also that the tree is still alive.  I might not have seen any more beside that perspective except for the Polish woman’s insistence that I go inside the tree and look up.  I not only went inside but took a photograph of the sight.

                I took this photograph standing inside the base of the tree looking up.  Lightning and fire had turned this tree to make you feel as if you were looking up at the sky through a telescope.  I have a lot to be thankful for because of a Polish woman’s insistence that I go inside the tree and look up.

                I made my way up the hill and just about the time when I reached the top I saw the young Polish woman one more time.  We greeted one another but I feel like I should have said more.  If nothing else I should have told her how thankful I was that she told me to go inside the tree and look up.  Before I went on my vacation to California I went to a conference with Christians from many different places in the United States.  I would meet people and visit with them, but then as I met and talked with one young man, he asked me if I was on Twitter.  Almost immediately he had my name followed in Twitter and I was following him, and then he would tell me others I could follow and so when I left the conference I was following several people and several people were following me so we could keep in a sort of friendly connection in months ahead.  I wish very much that I had told this young Polish woman how much I appreciated her telling me to go inside and look up from within the tree.

                I realized the second time I saw her that she was not part of the group that was behind her.  She was walking alone.  I imagine that walking alone and seeing the Telescope Tree it was something that she wanted to tell others about.  So when I asked for help with my whereabouts it gave her the opportunity to express a little her joy in experiencing the marvel of the Telescope Tree.  I know that whenever I think of the Telescope Tree I will think of the Polish woman who insisted that I go inside and look up.  I am so grateful that she told me that, and so disappointed that I did not tell her how grateful I was when I did see her.

                From there, with her walking away from me I reached the vista from which one could see a perspective of what was below this particular high point.  Sometimes you see things better from a vista.  Sometimes you see things better looking back.  I felt sad at what I had missed, as I looked across the valley from the vista to which I had climbed.

 

                It had been a wonderful hike.  I know this is a long blog.  But hope you enjoyed my story and the scenery.  Two people walked it alone the day I was there, and I think they might have enjoyed taking a bit of the journey with each other just to speak of what wonderful things they were seeing.  It wasn’t bad alone, but it is even better sharing it with others.