The valley we hiked up (Tuolome canyon along the north shore of Hetch Hetchy reservoir) was full of late summer wildflowers: purple, pink, white, and yellow, like so many stars. The blossoms were vivid even when the stalks seemed completely dried out, and they apparently still held enough nectar to attract bees.
It took us about five hours to hike the six miles to Rancheria Falls. I'm sure Charlie could have made better time, but he was very considerate of my limits. I was determined to make it, too, although I was certainly worn out by the time we got to our campsite.
As soon as we got there, we shed our clothes and went skinny dipping in the river. That water was cold. I have never taken such pleasure in goose bumps.
We continued naked the rest of our stay there, which included a visit from the rangers and, later as we cooked dinner, from two bears. The first bear seemed the older and larger of the two. She seemed little affected by our banging pots and pans together, but when Charlie and I chucked a few stones at her, she ambled off. Almost immediately, a younger, smaller bear appeared. Noise did not affect him in the least. In fact, it seemed to attract his attention, as if he were thinking, "Well, they wouldn't be making all that noise if they didn't have something good to eat." My ability to throw at a target is not very good, but that turned out to be an advantage. Rocks that landed on the ground near this bear seemed to go unnoticed. But if my aim was wild and my missle careemed off a slab of granite near him or went smashing through a manzanita bush beside him, that was sufficiently unpredictable to throw a scare into him, and he loped off (to make mischief at the next campsite 100 yards or so away).
You may wonder how I felt, utterly naked, chucking mis-aimed stones at an animal that easily weighed twice what I did, and who was certainly better equipped for doing me damage that I was for doing any to him. I'll tell you. I felt odd. Somewhat farcical. Throwing stones seemed just plain rude. After all, the bears live there; I was just a one-day visitor. And if either bear had been undeterred, they would have had our dinner easily. Our tactics, which were inexpert at best, seemed paltry. That they worked seemed almost like cheating.
But I ate dinner anyway, and enjoyed it.
That night, Charlie and I engaged in passionate lovemaking. For a person who radiates calm and equilibrium, he can certainly generate the wild abandon of a crazed weasel when he wants to. And he bites. I was almost alarmed, but I was enjoying myself, too. When we finally finished, my body was utterly sapped, but my mind was abuzz with impressions. Fortunately, my body won out and I was able to fall rather deeply asleep.
Between midnight and dawn (a time one author has called "peel-grunt"), I woke to the sound of a terrific racket being raised by the camp downstream of ours. It was obvious they were in the midst of fending off a nocturnal raid by the persistent bears. "You know what that means," I said to Charlie, who had also awakened. "Huh?" he said sleepily. "It means we're next," I said. "Huh," he said, and went back to sleep. I was full of unformed fears and concerns. What would the bear do if it came into our camp at night? What would we do?
After several anxious moments, I had a kind of insight. Perhaps the bear wasn't going to leave the other camp and come to ours. Perhaps it had already been to our camp and found nothing interesting. In that case, it wouldn't be back. Bears are frugal in their scavenging. Since there was no way of telling these two realities apart, I decided to pick the one that gave me comfort, and went back to sleep.
We had the campground to ourselves most of the following morning, and spent much of it frolicking in the river's pools, small rapids, and waterfalls. We packed up around noon, and, still nude, began hiking back out. We got almost two-thirds of the way back before we started encountering day hikers and decided to put some clothes on. Although both hiking in and hiking out happened about the same time of day and under almost identical weather, hiking out seemed much cooler. Was it because I shed more heat with less clothing? (I did wear a red bandana to match my red boot laces. After all, it is our ability to accessorize that separates us from the animals.)
All the time, Charlie was quite pleasant: cheerful, patient (though he must have gotten bored several times waiting for me), and helpful, offering hints and suggestions, but never treating me like a nincompoop or a liability. I know I was slowing down the last mile and a half. I kept willing my stride to be longer, and it kept shortening anyway.
I thought I would be sore from head to toe the next day, but surprisingly I wasn't. I got a few blisters, most of them minor, and some sore neck muscles, but on the whole the experience left me quite hale. I had enough fun on this trip to want to do it again--but next time, with lighter equipment!