Facing my fears at Yosemite

Let's hop in our DeLoreans and go back a bit—before I went to Petrified Forest, before Joshua Tree. I want to tell you about a specific trail at Yosemite. One I didn't mention in my original Yosemite post. I didn't want to come off as if I didn't wholly love Yosemite, because I did. But this was a park where I had to face one of my most severe and impractical fears.

I'm sure a lot of people face their fears in the National Parks. But I feel like those fears are generally related to heights. My fear was (and is) bugs. I personally feel like I have made great strides with this fear, before I even set foot in Yosemite. I used to be so afraid of bugs that they took a serious toll on my relationship with mother nature. But, now it's mainly the buzzing, stinging bugs that still make me squeal. Yes, squeal. Or, in this case, actually scream.

On our second day in Yosemite, we decided to hike a trail up to "Inspiration Point." It is actually a very long trail out and back, but it has various points along the way, and Inspiration Point is the first one. Our goal was to make it to that point, then head back. We weren't in for an incredibly long hike, because we still wanted to see other parts of the park that day. I don't even think we had made it half a mile into the trail before the bugs became a problem for me. 

A while into the trail I realized it was a specific kind of blooming bush that these particular bugs were attracted to. Any time I was near that bush I could hear the buzzing. They were swarming with bumble bees and other large, buzzing things that I couldn't identify. "Swarming" may be a slight exaggeration, but there were a lot. And these bugs weren't just going about their business, they were extremely territorial. I swear I was chased down by a bumble bee more than once.

If it weren't me experiencing this fear, I would probably laugh at how silly it is. But in the moment, the fear is very real for me. Whenever I heard that buzzing too close to me, I would literally break into a run, with my big hiking backpack bouncing around on my back. It probably looked quite comical, but while it was happening, I really didn't care how I looked. My dad would try to warn me over my loud, unabashed sobs that if I ran, I could risk twisting my ankle on the very rocky and uneven trail, then I would really have nowhere to go.

When we stopped for a water break (far away from any sort of bee bush), my dad looked up bumble bees on his phone in an attempt to calm me down. He was convinced that they didn't sting at all. Not only do they sting, but we found out that if they do sting, they will sting repeatedly. And that the males will chase you down, and generally use any sort of scare tactic to protect the females. I told you they were really chasing me! And that doesn't even speak to the threat of the bugs I couldn't identify. Clearly, that didn't set my mind at ease.

The more we hiked, the more I thought, I've come this far; I can't give up now. I was determined to reach Inspiration Point, and when we did, I've got to admit: it wasn't worth it. People always seem to say that if you just face your fear head on, you won't be so scared anymore. But I think that trail made me even more afraid of bugs. I felt like I couldn't escape them the whole way up. And I still had to go all the way back down. Plus, this point didn't seem too inspirational. I can't speak to what the payoff is like at the very top of the trail, but I didn't even understand why this was considered a stopping point. There was a better view about a third of the way in. This was the view from the Inspiration Point:

Can you see the tension in my face? I was not looking forward to the trip back down. And, honestly, after the hike up I'd had, I was thinking it had better be worth it. But there were trees blocking any kind of view. This was the view from what we later found out was "Old Inspiration Point" about a third of the way to Inspiration Point:

Much more inspirational, don't you think? If we had stopped there, I would have saved myself a lot of energy. And I don't just mean from the running away. The actual anxiety of being surrounded by my fear left me physically exhausted. When I made it to the bottom of the trail (several minutes before the rest of my group, due to the running and screaming), I just walked over to Tunnel View and sat there staring at the park's beauty, thankful to be off that trail.