There’s one road that we’ll deer hunt on, but not bear hunt. It’s too close to the Park to risk turning dogs loose on, so we just don’t. I do know of one spot on it where you can stand in the sun, feel twenty degrees warmer than anywhere else up there, and enjoy a magnificent view of Half Dome and El Capitan, from outside the park.

Dennis always told me that the road went on in. I’ve never gone that far, because when I’m up there, I’m always hunting, and you just don’t want to have to track a wounded deer into a National Park. But on Saturday, I wasn’t hunting. I was following my nose. I knew the road up from Anderson Valley the easy way was blocked, and had been since bear season, so I took a right where otherwise I’d have gone left, and drove up Scott Ridge.

I was thinking that I could always turn left at Crocker Ridge if it was too snowy, but that road was closed too. Sure, I could have backtracked a little and gone down the Long Road, but what the hell. I was there for the journey, not for the destination, and as long as I wasn’t on the north side of a ridge, the road was as clear as summer. Well, close enough anyway.

So I went on up the Tram Road, figuring that if it got hairy, I could always stop and chain up. I went through some patches of snow and ice, thinking that I’d do it each time, but that ol’ Mule never slipped once, so I kept on going. Up and over the Haystack, and into the valley that overlooks the Park. I’d never been in this far before, so when I hit a Y, I stopped and looked at the map. Not a whole lot of road signs up there, you know, and it was getting a little narrow. Not quite Jeep-trail narrow, but the only tracks ahead of me were several days old and from an ATV.

But just when I was really starting to tell myself to just turn around, there it was. One lonely green picnic table, room for about three trucks to park, and the sweetest little waterfall that I’ve ever seen.

The water was flowing, but the falls were surrounded by ice. Ice covered the creek at one point, but out in the open, it was a beautiful clear pool. I’m sure there were trout lurking.

Around the falls, there are several slow seeps, and all of those were completely frozen over. The one across the granite face that must have been a favorite washing spot/gossip central for the Indians 150 years ago was a miniature falls in slow motion.

Eventually I got cold, and wondered just how close I was to the Park. I forded the creek and kept going (and ran into the booby-trapped ice, but that’s a previous story.)

Perhaps not my wisest decision of the day, but it was a good rocky ford. I kept on. It was about the journey, rememeber?