After 3 days at San francisco, I set up towards Yosemite and its famous granit cliffs attracting climbers from all over the world.

INSTATENEOUS COMBUSTION

Just landed at SF, I pick up my back pack at the airport and notice a big hole in my front pocket. Part of my pharmacy case has been burnt. I don’t really get it. What if it took fire inside the plane? A few days later, I realized: my survival matches! There not there anymore. During the transport, the friction must have set them off! Regarding their size, it did make some damage!

MUMMY BEAR

I established a bivi at the beginning of half dome to to an early night start (the access to half dome is controlled with permits that you have to book 6 month in advance or hope to win one at the lottery in the valley). I couldn’t sleep well knowing that I had to wake up in the next 4 hours. All of a sudden, I hear noises that are getting closer really quick. By the time I grab my headlamp, there already by me. Two baby bears and their mum got scared when I turned on my lamp. By instinct, the babies climbed up the closest tree and the mother hide behind a boulder, no further than 10m from me. Slowly, the babies down climb the trees and start climbing on the next one! They are full of energy and  I’m scared that they would com check me out. Two minutes later, the family is back together, heading for new adventures.

DADDY BEAR

Once landed at the bottom of half dome, you have to stash your Base gears, go look around to make sure that there isn’t any rangers in the area. Making my way back, I now come across big daddy that s wandering around. I observe him and then continue my progression. Even if I know that black bears aren’t really dangerous but every single meeting brings is quota of adrenaline!

THE SICK BEAR

I established my camp close to the river, at the center of the valley. All my food, soap, lip balm etc was secured in bear-proof boxes at the nearby campground. During the day, I would leave my backpack hidden under trees. Regularly when I would come back to it, there was traces of life around.  The last one around must have been sick: he torn open my pocket and ate some medicine pills and malaria pills!

POWER RANGER

Yosemite’s valley is a unique place in USA having nice and high vertical cliffs, well appreciated by base jumpers. But Base jumping has been prohibited ever since it started. As a national park, there are rangers on duty they are pretty serious about the law. They are armed and now how to use a tazer!

Their favorite target are Base jumpers, maybe cause they don’t listen to them, whatever the law says. So when you come to Yosemite to jump, you d better be a bit paranoiac and organise it to the best. Generally, there is a ground crew that check the landing. The jumping happens at dawn or dusk and at the full moon.

I was lucky during my stay, I could take advantage of  the full moon and realize my first night jump, an unforgettable experience. Plus I escaped the power rangers incognito, or almost.

CLOSE CALL

Last day and last jump for me. Four of us are jumping half dome. The sun is setting, our ground crew gives us the clear call. The 2 first go for some aerials, tim and me go for a long tracking jump (skydiving position that makes you go forward) up to the bottom. We pull above the landing and a few seconds later we are running to hide behind trees. Everything went well, we all split up and an hour or so later, I met me comrade on the parking lot. They explained me that there was a call for us. The whole valley was full of rangers, on foot, on bike and horses, looking for us (sometimes they even have night googles!). I didn’t get the text and lucky me I came across nobody on my way out! The next day they have to go get their gears stashed somewhere behind boulders.

Jump Video / code = cruise

The two weeks went quite fast in the valley. I am now at Lodi, a world re known drop zone (=skydiving center) for being the cheapest of the world. The atmosphere is really nice, late back and international. The skydivers (lots of latinos) stay there from 2 weeks up to a few months. Like in many drop zone, every commodity is there. You can camp, jump and party basically. The setting often reminds me of Mad Max. It’s generally hangars roughly improvised where you are not scared to spill you coffee! There is random stuff a bit everywhere like sofas, gears, food, BBQ, hamacs etc. It’s not too far from hippies communities just hanging out getting high!

I stayed there 3 days trying to get in touch with local base jumpers to go jump one of the insanely big antennas right by the drop zone.