Memories!

Please enjoy a Pendleton employee park memory: Yosemite memories and photos from Greg, who is one of our northern California account managers.

I have procrastinated on this, because it will be tough to pick a single Yosemite memory. I have been going to the park for 40 years, visiting a couple of times per year. I also go as a vendor. Every time, I see something different, even if it’s just a day trip to the Valley to “work" (if you can call it that).

My first trip was a high school backpacking trip, when we watched a mama bear and her two cubs attempt to steal food that we’d stored up in a small pine tree. One of the cubs was sent up the tree to get the pack, but he wasn’t small enough. The tree snapped! Down came the tree and the cub to the ground. We hiked out the next day, 12 miles in the pouring rain.

Over the years I’ve hiked and climbed some of the park’s largest peaks, fly-fished many of the lakes and streams, backcountry skied into the Ostrander Hut and snow camped throughout the park.

I was there a week after the Valley flood of 1997 when they were still pulling campground picnic tables out of the trees. Signs now mark the high water mark along the Merced River six feet over the road.

I was there just after the huge rockfall at Glacier Point covered Happy Isles with an eerie, almost lunar, pulverized granite dust and debris.

I was there when Mel Gibson, Jodi Foster and James Garner filmed the teepee village scenes in the El Capitan Meadow for the remake of Maverick.

After a lifetime of special memories, it’s too hard to choose one.

Your Memories!

Are you ready for your own Yosemite adventures? We’d love to come along with you.

Image: Allie Taylor (@alliemtaylor)

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