Camping in Yosemite with Little Ones

So planning this trip, I had never been to Yosemite, but I'd been camping several times. I'd been backpacking in the mountains of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, in the woods of Michigan and Pennsylvania, in the deserts and canyons of Arizona, on the coast of California, and on a mountain side in Death Valley in the middle of a wind storm. I'd been camping as a child, a single, as a girl friend, as a wife, as a mom. I'd never been camping with BEARS!

Now I know that as long as I follow the rules BEARS are just as scared of me as I am of them... That isn't what my irrational mommy mind understands, though.

We recently got back from a trip to the Housekeeping Camp in Yosemite Valley. It cost us almost $90 a night to inhale campfire smoke in a three-cement walled, one-canvas sided cabin, covered in dust and sprinkled with rain that came through the holes in our canvas roof. (Reminiscent of the scene in Parent Trap where the twins get to know each other during a rainstorm when their cabin leaks like a sieve). Anyways, it was called a "camp", so I should have known better. I was fine dealing with the dust and rain, specially since the view of the Upper Yosemite Falls was spectacular (and spring is when it is gushing!) and our neighboring campers were all great fun. But I had trouble with 2 things: temperature and bears.

First temp: Why was this a problem? It wasn't that cold in Yosemite in May - never got below freezing - however, I was trying to keep my toddler warm, the one who refuses to wear gloves or keep a hat or coat on. I could at least get him to come cuddle with me periodically to warm up his frozen hands and cheeks. I kept the baby warm easy enough - just bundled him up and carried him around.

Then there was the issue of night. My older son slept in long johns under his footed-fleece pajamas in the bed with my husband. My younger son is now sleeping in his own room in a crib. There was no way we were going to get both boys to fall asleep in the same bed. We put the younger one down first and started him out in the tent-cabin in a pack-n-play. The first night we put him in this hilarious snow suit. He looked like the state puff marshmallow man. He couldn't move his arms or legs and he was miserable, but warm - perhaps too warm (it is designed for cold MidWest winters!) The next night I put him in a onesie, with a full-body jumper over it, socks on, in two fleece sleep sacks. He could kind-of move... Both nights I ended up taking him in bed with me (well, if you can call it bed - it was a cot, just big enough to fit me on it - but I can't complain, my mom took the top bunk and it was even skinnier). The last night we were there (and I was sleeping so poorly, there was almost no third night), I put him in one sleep sack and wrapped him in a small down comforter and had him sleep with his dad and brother. That was the best option. Third times a charm.

Second issue, though, was the fear of bears (and the required work to keep them out of your campsite). We had to put everything that had ever touched or been associated with food in a dusty, dirty, spider-filled bear bin. Supposedly there were tons of them around, we should have no problem. OK - they don't think about the 2 baby hikers we brought, two car seats (YES - car seats must be removed from the car and put in the open to prevent bears from breaking in to your car!), the backpacks, the baby wipes, the sippy cups, and on and on and on. My poor mom spent the majority of our trip picking up any trail mix or fish crackers my son dropped on the ground up so the bears wouldn't come after them. No bears visited our camp, though. YEAH, Mom!

First night I didn't fall asleep until hours after I started trying because I was freaked out by the bears. Somewhere around 2 in the morning, my mom heard someone shout "Bear!" and then I awoke to hear the ranger shoot off his gun to scare the bear off. Turns out the momma and cub were attempting to get into the dumpster nearby our bathroom. Yikes! Several of our neighboring campers got warnings about not locking their bear boxes properly. I was a little hopeful that they'd forget again so the bear would get their food and not my chubby little baby! (I know - paranoid!)

I got a little more relaxed the following night (and fell asleep pretty quickly - probably cause I didn't sleep the night before). Then for some reason, night #3 was crazy. Maybe it was because I finally got to sleep long enough to reach the dreaming phase? I haven't been getting to that point for a while - try 5 months at least... Ha! Anyways, I heard the rangers (or was it a bear, as I feared) trying to open every garbage can and bear bin all around the campground. No one was calling out "Bear" like they were supposed to. Why were they letting this bear roam our campsite and not DOING something about it!? Eventually I fell asleep amidst these troubling thoughts and soon I was experiencing this horrible dream that a bear's head was scrounging hungrily into our tent at our feet and I was kicking at it, trying to push it out. No one else was waking up and noticing it - not my mom, not my husband, not my boys... and I COULDN'T SAY A WORD! It was horrible. I just kept kicking and wrestling and praying that it wouldn't get to my babies. Finally, I must have gotten past the immobilized part of sleep and I was able to speak so I let out a "ARRRARRRH"! It scared my poor mom out of her sleep, but I was finally able to relax and fall back asleep, knowing that I could scream for help in case a bear snuck into our tent. Ha!