Over the weekend I visited Yosemite National Park to join thousands of others enjoying the great outdoors! What a gorgeous weekend! The weather was wonderful and the scenery was spectacular and the hiking was challenging and awe inspiring!
I started my Sunday with a hike up the Yosemite Falls trail. This hike is marked as “strenuous” and is a 3.6 mile trek up a very steep grade. This climb was relentless! It just kept going up without any flat parts or downhills as a break. The only break came when you would stop to view the falls cascading over the cliff walls. It was a great hike and I made it to the top in good time. I was congratulating myself on my fitness and thanking myself for climbing all those Dipsea Stairs and Coit Tower Stairs when all of a sudden I slipped and tripped! I felt a “snap” and went down! Friends came to the rescue and my ankle was taped up and I was helped down to a shady area to sit and assess the situation. That’s when Jack Keene – Search and Rescue Volunteer appeared to help me out. Jack explained that I could:
- Walk down on my own
- Get some crutches brought up for me to “crutch” down the rest of the steep slope
- Get carried out on a stretcher by a team of fellow search and rescue volunteers.
No Way! I’m not getting carried out of here! And yet….I really couldn’t walk on my own and I couldn’t imagine using crutches to navigate that steep, slippery slope! So the call went in to bring the stretcher! My pride and ego were bruised along with my ankle at this point!
The team of 6 came quickly, loaded me into the stretcher, put a helmet on me and zipped me in a down sleeping bag to stay warm. Off we went! speeding down the hill at quite a clip. We made it down the hill in a very short time. It would have taken me hours to get down that by myself, so I was indeed very grateful to these young men for their assistance and professionalism. I ended up at the medic station in Yosemite where they took X-rays and pronounced nothing broken….whew! Just a very bad ankle sprain! I was so relieved! I really thought I had broken my ankle!
Jack Keene, the young man that was the first responder was a fellow Mill Valley resident and did an excellent job taking care of me! He did everything he could to calm my worries and make sure I was as comfortable as possible while we waited for the team to arrive. I am very grateful for his assistance.
Search and Rescue volunteers are just that….volunteers. They get paid little, if anything for the service they provide. They are on call almost the whole summer. Needing to stay close in the valley in case they get a call to rescue. They get free boarding at a site called “Camp 4” in the Yosemite Valley and they get access to play in the park all day when they aren’t rescuing others. Most of them are avid climbers so can be found bouldering or climbing in their spare time. Talk about men and women who are in phenomenal shape! They carried me out of there like I was a rag doll. Their strength and endurance are truly amazing.
The other thing that was humbling, was all the kind people on the trail. One women offered me her walking sticks to help me walk if I wanted them. Another couple, Martin and Karen, stayed with me the whole time and offered me water, rain gear, food and a sleeping blanket. They even gave me a ride to the Medic Station. Thank you to them for being guardian angels! Other hikers I had met throughout the day passed and offered kind words and encouragement. In a few short hours I felt like I had made a little community of friends, if only for those few hours! Even though it was a bummer that I hurt myself, I also learned how kind and good and selfless people can be. It was, after all, a good experience….and now I have a good story to tell about “that one time I went hiking in Yosemite!”
To learn more about Yosemite Search and Rescue, check out their website at
Also check out their Facebook page at
