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4.20.03

Surprise, surprise; guess who finally went to the April Expedition. Me, I am so happy but yet sad that Houston could not made it for this expedition. It has being a really crazy week, everything was under suspense; the weather also helped to make things a bit complicated; with the sun turning in to snow it was hard to have everything on schedule. But at the end most of the tasks were on time. The students from Bakersfield West, Reseda and Crenshaw High Schools arrived on a Sunday afternoon. I can see from their eyes that most of them were surprised to see such beautiful place like Yosemite. Since most of these students having being living in big cities, they haven't seen any place like Yosemite. We (Jocelyn and me) showed them their cabins and tried to make things pleasant, given that they had a long ride from LA and Bakersfield.

Next day (Monday) the group and I took a small walk in the Yosemite Valley with Kristin Malone a Yosemite Institute instructor; we hiked and as we went along the hike we did some team building activities. We stared with the “name” activity, the purpose of this activity is to get to know the name of the members of the group, and it was really interested how we got to know our name –by our day of birth. In this activity someone special was introduce into our group–Pinkie. Pinkie is a 9-inch doll made out of cotton cloth that really needs to be washed. After the whole group was introduce to each other we continued our hike in Yosemite Valley, soon after we had another team activity called “The Acid River”; this activity is about crossing from one side of this invisible acid river to the other, the group had to cross this river with only two steps, it is a really hard activity if you do not think as a group. After our two activities, we headed back to Curry Village were the group stayed. Before Jocelyn and I left them free and really for dinner we gave them a small talk of what is to expect from the adventure they were about to embark.

Tuesday came and with that day bad news came too. Kristen, our instructor could not come with us for the expedition, so we had another Instructor as a guide. That morning we made sure that the group was ready to head out into the wilderness. Well, all of us were really and we headed to the Longs to meet our bus that was going to take us to Hite’s Coves–out expedition route. As we arrived on the foothills of Hite’s Cove we met Giorgio, our new YI instructor. We hiked up in our first hill, which was a sign that this hike was going to be “nice” hike. With the Giorgio as our leader we took off for our 4.5-mile hike.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday passed and everyone was ready go back to “civilization”. After cooking in the woods, doing our personal duties in the woods and trying to adapt to the woods, some people were really tired of being in the woods. We hiked back to the freeway so we can meet our bus. For some odd reason the hike back felt shorter. We arrived to Curry Village and everyone headed to their cabins and probably to the showers. Well that’s what I did; I could feel the dirt in my skin.

On Friday morning Giorgio took as to the “Spider Caves”, that was another team challenge. This activity is one of the toughest challenges that a group can face. With the caves being pitch and rocks sticking everywhere, we went in. After almost two hours of cruising throw the caves we finally made it out side, we took a group picture and headed back to curry village, were their cars where ready for them to leave Yosemite.

I would be lying if I say that I do not miss the guys, it was an incredible week that I would never forget unless my memory get even worst then what it is now. I hope that this internship with WildLink and Yosemite Institute gives me more then what I barging for.

"Lots of minds for a small world" - José