Lenette loved Yosemite and the High Country. It was she who first introduced me to the idea that we ought to take the older groups on backpacking trips to Yosemite and the High Sierras. Our first group to visit Yosemite and the High Country was the first group of boys and girls to backpack for a week in the High Country. Our proud hikers were told this by the rangers at the Yosemite. We were entirely alone for a week. Except for a ranger on horseback, there was not a soul in sight.
Hiking in the mid-fifties, we also ran into the Curry Family enjoying their yearly sojourn into the High Country. We were told it was the first time anyone was in the back country with them. Our entry into the pristine high country may have been the beginning of what was to come… Having to make reservations to camp in specific sites. That wasn’t our world then, but it’s the world of today.
Lenette came to Yosemite when she was four with her father, who would bring a trailer he built. They would stay most of the summer, and she and her father climbed most of the falls. She loved her time in the valley. She thought, even then, it was where she wanted to work and live her life.
I also found heaven in Yosemite and the High Country. In fact, when we began looking for locations for Camp Shasta the Yosemite area was the first place we looked. It would have taken a miracle. Although we believed in miracles, it was not meant to be. Still, every year, we visited Yosemite Valley.
