Sundaying and Everydaying in Yosemite - from A Tour of Old Village

"On Sundays several things happened. First, the family did not work. We usually went to Chapel, conveniently located between the Studio and my bedroom/tent, or had a Sunday School session with someone in the Village, and then we went Sundaying. Sometimes in church Uncle would fall asleep and when that happened I would pat his knee to wake him. Breakfast was served after church and since that was Mrs. Bishop’s day off we did the preparations ourselves. Uncle made the biggest, fluffiest pancakes I ever had and they always smelled of buttermilk and something exotic and special that I never could quite catch. I would watch him put together the ingredients but he always managed to keep me from seeing what exactly he did. It was his ‘secret recipe,’ he said. Uncle liked his maple syrup to be hot and so did I. At breakfast we made a toast, lifting our glasses of orange juice, the appropriate drink for a White Feather family, he would say, “Happy Days,” reminding us that each day was a special place in time to fill with memories and interesting discoveries.

Sundays were a different kind of fun than the rest of the week because we always went someplace. We packed up a luncheon and headed out to someplace wonderful,like Glacier Point, with everyone who wanted to come in tow. There was always a group of us, hiking and laughing and joking and sometimes listening to stories when we could get Uncle to tell us about one of his adventures or talk about something else.

Uncle did not brag, and for the most part I heard the astonishing stories of his various adventures from other people, for instance I had heard many of these from Dr. Grandma before she died.

Aunt AEtheline told us stories when Uncle was not around, like the one about the Stanford Rush. We always remembered that her stories could be very different from the one that Uncle would tell, if we asked him. A lot of this really was perspective; things do look different to each of us.

One of our first Sunday journeys, so early that it was only the three of us kids and Uncle was to Mt. Watkins. It was my first real climb up the walls of the Valley. We packed a nice lunch with sandwiches cut from fresh baked bread and thick slivers of beef, cooked long and slow over the camp fire the night before. Uncle had a recipe for beef he had learned from an old cook up in the Yukon that included berries and whole peppers and fresh herbs, rubbed in well and left to steep. To that he added the thinnest possible slivers of an onion, so thin you could see light through them. Then Uncle would put just the merest increment of salt right on the onion. We wrapped them up in napkins and tucked them into our knapsacks along with bottles of water or juice. Sometimes, if we were going someplace where we could fish, we took the makings for our favorite way to cook trout. That was seasonings and a lemon. We took the almost still wiggling trout and seasoned them inside and out, wrapping them carefully in leaves and putting them right on the coals. Uncle taught us all about the kinds of leaves to use but the Miwok had also been very good with pointers.

Everything tasted wonderful on Sundays.

It was a long hike up the cliff to the very top of Mt. Watkins that first time, and sometimes I had to listen hard for the Silence but when we arrived at the top and could look down at the Valley beneath us it was like we had found heaven.

We climbed every peak and place in Yosemite. We went up the back of Half Dome the first time when I was eight, and when I was nine we were going up carrying camera equipment on our backs.

One of our climbs up the back of Half Dome was recorded for the National Geographic. Uncle walked out on a tiny ledge about half way up to get us at an angle as we climbed the ropes. He caught my eye while he was snapping the photo and smiled at me as I continued to climb.

Reaching the top of Half Dome was like standing on the top of the Earth. We knew that glaciers had created the dome and the Valley itself and as we sat there catching our breath and feeling the beads of sweat dry in the sun Uncle would talk about the ideas people had had in the past about how the Earth had come into being. Everything about the world fascinated Uncle and when he talked about theories and about what we now thought was true he would remind us to always, always question what we accepted as true. .

On the way back down we would think about dinner because after that much climbing we were already hungry. Even being hungry was more fun in Yosemite."

 1924 High Trip of the Sierra Club to Mr. Lylle,  That is Grace in the hat.  I'm standing back and looking forward.  Great trip that year.

  This one reminded Grandfather of the photos he took during his time in the Yukon! Again, this is Mt. Lylle, 1924, same Sierra Club Trip.