Christina Green-Wilson

BCM Experience

This was my year, the year to finally go on BCM. I was supposed to have gone three years ago but prior commitments prevented that from happening. August 2nd 2009 BCM called my name. Initially I didn’t know what I was getting myself into until after the first day of hiking. Day 1 we met our leaders; Liz, Hester and Iris. We began packing out items and getting our hiking gear ready. While on the road to Yosemite, the anticipation was killing me. The eagerness of Never been camping took its toll on me; I was ready, well so I Thought. We made it to Yosemite and met up with our other leader Allison. After that, we went to one of the local camp grounds and set up camp. We learned how to set up tents and make sure our food was safe and secure in the bear canisters.

That night was the worst night to sleep. It seemed like every 30minutes someone was hollering bear! A bear actually came next to our tent but I was too sleepy to even be scared. The next morning, Liz told us how the bear got into a couple of our bear canisters which one of them was mines! I forgot to lock the canister back. We all got up and began repacking our clothes and things into the backpacks they provided. It was hard work trying to reorganize everything we brought. We had to leave a lot of our things in the van. We loaded the van and were on our way to start the hike. The first day was so awful; everyone was out of shape and tired. I kid you not I cried like 5 times that day. We hiked a total of 6.5 miles that day and I was the leader in charge.

We finally made it to may lake and I was so relieved! We set up camp and got ready for the next day. Day two approached and we received disappointing news. We were told that day one was our toughest day but now day two was going to be even harder. Luckily it was not as hard as I expected because we all decided that day three would be the hardest of them all because we would hike 8 miles to get to may lake.

Day three we hikes all the way to may lake. The scenery was so beautiful. It looked like something off of a post card. Day four it started to really snow! I was amazed and cold at the same time! One of our leaders Allison told it would get colder so we decided to pack up and hike out. We did just that and were so happy we were done hiking! The leaders decided to take us around Yosemite to see all the historical sites. We had seen half dome and a waterfall. We also saw a movie about how Yosemite came to be. That night, we stayed at Allison’s house. While we were there, we cleaned up all our gear and separated our clothes from BCM’s clothes. It felt good to finally sleep in a warm house.

That night everyone reflected upon our adventures of that week and what we learned and what we would take home morally from the trip. The next day we went to the cabins they told us we would stay at after our trip was over. We got there and it was nothing we expected. We thought it was cabins but in fact it was a house with lots of beds.  We dealt with it. We all took showers which felt like the best thing that happen to mankind! After that we went to the celebratory dinner and ate BBQ which was so good until the bees came in and attacked. That, we gave our leaders awards and they gave use rewards in return. The park ranger Allison gave us badges and told us now we are real junior park rangers! This was exciting because none of the BCM trips every received this award.  I will never forget my trip to may lake because it has taught me love the earth more. I also learn to never judge a book by its cover. I believe that everyone in the world should go see Yosemite because it is such a beautiful and live changing place to come encounter with.

Christina Green-Wilson