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Expedition
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Ten amazing young people from both Detroit and the Boys and Girls Club of Harbor City (near Los Angeles) joined Barb Miranda, Mandy Vance, and Jose Herrera for WildLink Expedition VII. After an acclimation day in Curry Village, the expedition team departed for a nine-mile hike from Lukens Lake trailhead on Tioga Pass down to Yosemite Valley, via the Yosemite Falls trail. Some treacherous snowy terrain and one challenging creek crossing later, we arrived at our first camp just on the other side of “No Name Creek”, as dubbed by our group. Several of us spent the night out under the stars on a slab of granite near our camp, where glacial erratics and Ahwahneechee pounding holes kept us company. After our Leave No Trace skits the following morning, we quickly broke camp and completed the next two miles of our hike, which led us to yet another cold creek crossing, Blue Jay Creek this time. Not far beyond it, we found a beautiful high granite area where we pitched our camp for the next two nights. Our time there was spent doing a stream biomonitoring project; a map and compass orienteering lesson; a thrilling dayhike to the top of Yosemite Falls and Yosemite Point; a raucous singing session under the stars that included Christmas carols in Spanish, French and German; some wonderful talks and laughter shared; and hours and hours wrapped up in a very special sort of Sierra beauty. 
As our time drew to a close, we all woke up at the outrageously early hour of 4am Friday morning to start our 5 mile hike out. By 5:30 we were on our way, and made our way down the steep and beautiful Yosemite Falls trail in time for plenty of goodbyes before we all went our separate ways. You couldn’t call Expedition 7 anything less than a complete success!
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