Unplug & Don’t Be Loud
Yosemite: Hodgdon Meadow
Ryan and I hiked up to Upper Yosemite Fall this past weekend. The 3.6 mile, 2,700 feet elevation gain was what we had to encounter to reach the 6,900+ feet waterfall (The third tallest in North America. The tallest in CA.)
It took us a little over an hour and a half to reach the top. We were pushing it, passing by many groups going up at a slower pace. After we reached the top, we walked towards the lookout point and decided to explore more. We veered away from the rest of the hikers, in search for a quieter area to sit, relax, and eat our lunch.
We followed a path towards the sound of the waterfall. We hiked just a little more and found a nice flat spot with two small pools of water right before going over the edge. Perfect.
No one was around. We picked a spot to dipped our head in the frozen water to cool off, unpacked our lunch, and rested our legs after the strenuous accent.
After what seemed to be only a few minutes, we were met by a large group of young German tourists, I’ll refer to them as the “German bros.” They quickly came near us, inspected the water, and immediately (in German) dared each other to jump in the freezing pool of water.
Now, I’m all about goofing off and daring your friends to do stupid things, but the thing that really annoyed me with this situation, is that these bros were so freaking loud! They were loud in a place that people generally go to experience the open, quiet, peaceful surroundings of what the outdoors offer.
Ryan and I experienced a similar situation last weekend when camping at Pt. Reyes. We were 100 yards away from a Boy Scout troop. Damn, those 13 year olds were so annoyingly loud. The main thing that “got my goat” was that the Boy Scout troop leader apparently didn’t mind because he didn’t say anything to them. Lame.
Here’s the thing. When in nature, with others also enjoying the beauty of the slowness, the quietness, the awesomeness, please be respectful of those around you and don’t be loud! It’s not like the German bros were needing to compete with a HVAC unit right next to us that made talking/hearing at a normal level difficult. Why so loud?
