For those of you who missed our 29th annual Members Meeting, the weekend was filled with memorable experiences. Royal Robbins entertained over 300 attendees with his tales of climbing adventures. His stories of a daring childhood, especially of jumping freight trains, explained the origins of his affinity for scaling great heights. During his talk, he recalled the first golden age of climbing, which began in Yosemite in the 1950s. The audience posed many questions for Mr. Robbins; one woman asked about if he had any remorse about the anxiety he had caused his mother with his rock climbing excursions.
Not to be outdone, Mother Nature contributed her own excitement to the event, hurrying in a weather front that dropped the temperature over 20 degrees in twenty-four hours! (Although the rain held off for the meeting, we finally got the much-needed precipitation on Sunday with snow dusting the Mariposa Grove). At 4:00 pm, when the aftershocks from a 5.5 magnitude earthquake were felt in the park, we were too immersed in the raffle drawing to feel the earth move. Indeed, our event proved to be so much fun that we didn’t sense any of the seventy quakes that the Sierra experienced over the weekend.
On Sunday, despite the dark clouds looming overheard, I ventured into the Mariposa Grove for a hike up to Wawona Point. My clothing was geared more toward a mild fall day, so when the snow began falling, my gloveless hands quickly turned red. I didn’t mind, however, since walking among the majestic trees with a light snow for company made for a picturesque scene.