The bear went over the mountain

 Despite very much looking forward to the Yosemite part of our trip I was worried about the bear warnings. I had read that you had to be careful about food and that even included hand cream, which the black bears of Yosemite find delicious. Once I got here I thought the warnings were to stop people leaving food around. Bears are, apparently, quite shy and will only steal food when you aren’t looking, unlike the squirrels and birds, who will actually beg. 

The Long Suffering Husband wasn’t looking forward to this part as much as me. He knew that I’d probably make him climb a mountain and he wasn’t wrong. 

As we drove into the park we thought we saw lots of bears on the forest floor but they were only blackened tree stumps from one of the many forest fires. We were, however, greeted by a deer at the welcome centre. 

The LSH has discovered a vlogging tool on his new phone camera and took a video half way up complaining that I’d told him it was just a little walk. This is not at all true. I told him we needed to start early and take lunch. As you walk up towards Vernal Falls there are rainbows everywhere, which even his AI phone camera didn’t do justice to. However, I did catch him telling the vlogging tool that it was worth it. 

We kept going, to the top of the falls and higher, planning to take the John Muir trail down. ‘A decent hike,’ the couple who had just climbed half dome told us while we were eating chips. The snippets of conversation on these kinds of walks are amusing. You discuss walking poles, other walks, how much further, the relationship between drinking enough and having a bladder the size of a pea. You judge the people walking in sandals or sketchers but admire the barefoot walkers. These walks are not peaceful.

“It’s OK,” I told the LSH, who was flagging. “I don’t think we’d see a bear up here anyway. Can you imagine a bear doing this climb? They’re far more sensible.”

He did his best bear impression and we spent the next part of our walk having a pretend bear conversation about deciding to climb half dome for the challenge. 

“Oh no.” I remembered. “There’s the song. The bear went over the mountain. They must climb the song is wrong.”

We didn’t see a bear but I did worry that I’d killed the LSH with the adventure.