Photos


We got a backcountry permit to do a three night backpacking trip through Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, which is part of Yosemite National Park. We had been sewing our own camping gear, including:

• Andrew's backpack
• Andrew's hat and mittens
• Tarp and net tent underneath the tarp
• Two person camping quilt

The first night of camping was at a campground near the trailhead. We took a shuttle and arrived at the campground near dusk. We set up the tarp and cooked dinner, but the tiny usb flashlights I had brought kept turning off after a minute or so, which made cooking challenging. Then the fork/spoon combination utensil broke. And the mosquitoes were hungry.

In the middle of the night, I woke up to sleet hitting the tarp and I immediately realized that while I had put sealant on the seams of the tarp, I had forgotten to seal the lifter patches. I was able to go back to sleep, but I expected to be wet in the morning as water dripped through the stitching. Fortunately, it stayed cold enough that the sleet never melted, so we stayed dry.

Our planned hike started at the rim of the canyon, down into it, and then back out the other side. The whole morning was quite cold and when we stopped for lunch we sat on a log shivering due to high winds. As we descended further in the afternoon and dropped in altitude, it was amazing how much the weather improved. It was downright balmy after a few hours, which was lucky because I had been looking the whole time for a good spot to propose. Finally, we came to stream in between two beautiful mountains and I asked her to marry me. She said yes and we both cried.

After another night camping on the way down, we finally reach the valley at the bottom. We had hardly seen anyone the entire two days we'd been hiking, but in the valley there were some people in a semi-official looking camp. We swam in a river to get the sweat off and then set our alarms for sunrise because the final day would be the hardest, climbing back out of the canyon and we could tell it was going to be a hot day, so we wanted to get an early start.

It was so steep on the way out. Our packs were lighter due to having eaten all of our food, but they still felt like anvils. Putting one foot in front of the other, we made it out just as the heat of the day was setting in, an adventure to never be forgotten.