When Mike Wexler signed up to help chaperone the middle school trip to Yosemite for their annual science camp he had no idea what an adventure he was stepping into.
I went to Yosemite with Hyde Middle School as a chaperone for their annual science camp with the Yosemite Institute. This is the third time I’ve done it, but it was far different than any of the past time.
It started as we were coming in and came to a halt on 140. We got out to see what was going on and there was a tree across the road (blurry photos included, sorry). We spent about 30 minutes moving the tree enough to open one lane so we could pass. At the same time the bus drivers put chains on the buses. We also saw several small rock falls many of which required us to drive around by going around them into the oncoming traffic lane. A few were very small rocks and we just went over them.
There was apparently also a sign on the road going in that said, “travel not advised.”
We stopped again about 1/2 mile from Curry Village because of an accident that was being cleared from the road. Another 30+ minute delay.
Our rotation was supposed to be staying at Crane Flats, but the road to Crane Flats was close, so they found us some tent cabins in Boys Town. We rushed to unload our gear and get to dinner before the dining hall closed (yes we succeeded). Then we went back to our cabins and within 5 minutes the power went out (That was Sunday night, to the best of my knowledge, its still out).
Monday morning and we had a chaperones meeting in the dining hall. It turns out that the instructors can’t make it down from El Portal because the road is closed. So we let the kids work on journals, socialize and/or play cards or other games. After a while we get some organized, group activities. Around 11:00 am the weather clears up a bit and we go outside for some snow play in the meadow. While the meadow is normally closed, there is enough snow where a bunch of 8th graders aren’t going to damage the fragile ecosystem.
Afterwards we have lunch. At the end of lunch, the YI staff call another chaperones meeting and announce that we are to evacuate in half and hour (1:30 PM). We spend about an hour getting all our gear together (yes, 2:00 PM) and a few minutes later the buses arrive and we start loading them.
We then notice that the Yosemite buses are a bit smaller and we can’t put a whole rotation on one bus like we did on the way up, we have to reorganize things and figure out who is were. We finally form up the convoy and leave about 3:00 PM.
The convoy reach El Cap and we are told we need we are late for our convoy and have to wait for the next ranger/plow led convoy for about 1 1/2 hours. After a while I convince the teachers, YI staff, ranger and bus drivers (reluctantly) that it would be a good idea to let the kids of the buses to play a while while waiting for the convoy to start. After about 20 minutes of snow play we load up the kids and wait a while longer. Finally the convoy starts (not sure how many were in it but there were at least 6 (full, 57 person) buses, a plow, a ranger, and 10 cars). So much for LA Times report of only 200 people being evacuated.
We ran into several, unexplained delays on the way out but didn’t see any terrible conditions (lots of snow, but with a plow in front of us, no chance to accumulate on road). Much of the road was only cleared for travel in one direction at a time.
The park buses took us to Riverbank (between Oakdale and Modesto) for some reason (Oakdale would have made more sense) where we met our buses at a Burger King at about 9:00 PM. At which point we had 150+ starving 8th graders). We had the boys transfer all the gear from the park buses to our buses while the girls got in line (yeah, not fair, but we needed a very quick way to break into shifts). By 10:30 PM everybody was fed and loaded on the buses and heading back to Cupertino. We arrived in cupertino at about 12:15 AM and the parents swooped in like locusts to collect their kids and the accompanying gear. Within 10 minutes the vast majority of them were gone. By 1:00 AM the parking lot was empty and the Great Yosemite Evacuation of 2011 was just a memory.
Be sure to check out the rest of Mike’s photos of his Yosemite adventure on Flickr.
Photos and commentary by Mike Wexler.