DAY 4 : KINGS CANYON, CALIFORNIA TO FRESNO, CALIFORNIA

Matt had originally planned for the group to stay in Kings Canyon for three days. It turned out that the winter of 1995 had the second-highest snowfall ever recorded in the Sierra Mountains. All the peaks were still covered and summit hikes were impossible. Being the last week in May, Matt had determined that snow would not be a problem in the park this late in the season – but he was very wrong. The trio was camped at Grant’s Grove, a campground nearly 7,000 feet high at the western edge of King’s Canyon. They all decided to take a road trip 26 miles to Cedar Grove, a campground over 3,000 feet lower, down at the bottom of the canyon. The trio is met with breath taking scenery on the descent. Angular, fluted columns of granite descend into the dark, roaring waters of a swollen King’s River. The vast bands of coniferous trees, hugging the steep slopes, give way to solid, glittering spires of rock covered in ice and snow. Sunrays illuminate the majestic ridges of ice and windblown rock that form the continental divide.

After stopping at a waterfall, they drive all the way to Cedar Grove. A downpour comes out of nowhere and the three wait in the car until it subsides. They decided to take a 2 mile hike on a trail that circles Zumalt meadow. Jae decides to use up his film early in the hike – taking pictures of stupid deer eating grass. Later, they will all wish Jae had not taken those pictures. Matt brags how he could take on any bear and bash its brains in with a rock after poking out its eyes with a stick. Jim and Jae think this is a lot of bullshit but Matt assures them otherwise. Hiking next to a sheer granite cliff, Jim spots a gigantic, brown bear running up a mound of rocks. Matt has been singing loud Star-Trek songs and the bear is high-tailing it out of their sight. Jim yells, “bear!” Jae looks confused and Matt looks right at Jim – sees the fear in his eyes – and sprints down the trail back towards the car. So much for heroic bear wrestling stories. After the adrenaline pumped trio returns to the car, they are hit with yet another downpour. Little do they know that back in Grant’s Grove the temperature dropped to 28 degrees from 59 degrees in less than five minutes and that a tower of clouds rising 70,000 feet high into the stratosphere has descend right on top of them. On the drive up they are first hit with torrential rain, as they ascend out of the valley the rain turns to hail, and then to sleet. They were only 6 miles from Grant’s Grove when the snow came. Matt is following a small truck, using it as a plow for about a mile. Then they turn a corner in the road and see about 10 cars strewn across the road, like flies stuck in Vaseline. About 3 inches of slush and snow make the road impassible. It is snowing harder and the temperature is dropping. Options are limited, they could try to barrel up the road and spin all over the place or stay put. They decide to stay put. Matt immediately concerns himself with a survival situation. He plugs in the cellular phone but they are too far from any relay towers and no signal is available. So much for the cellular phone. They left the cooler and all their clothes in the tent. But wait! Jim’s little red bag – full of socks and underwear is in the trunk along with a twelve pack of red-dog beer. Matt realizes that layers of Jim’s underwear can be worn as a hat and the socks as gloves. The beer can be bartered for more valuable items in case of an overnight entrapment in the snow. Jim begins to panic and writes a bunch of post-cards to loved ones – telling them that he is going to die. Jae feeds off of Jim’s panic and Matt, in his nervous state, drinks a half-gallon of water, forcing him to go pee for several minutes out in the cold snow. Three hours go by and it stops snowing. A group of people congregates in the middle of the makesift parking-lot in the road. Talk about the Donner Party, a group of pioneers who were caught in the Sierra Mountains over the winter and resorted to eating one-another to survive, puts everyone on edge. Finally, a plow arrives and tafter a lot of commotion, the road is cleared. A train of cars starts up the one-lane plow wake to make the 5 mile trip to Grant’s Grove. After about a quarter mile, all the cars stop. A Winnebago has caught itself in the snow and is holding up everyone. Ten minutes later they are on the move again. They arrive at their campsite – or rather the REMAINS of their campsite. About 2 inches of hail and another couples of inches of snow and slush cover the site. The tent is soaking we, as are the sleeping bags, the stove, and some clothes. The cooler was impounded by a Ranger while were gone, along with a bottle of Dr. Pepper. It turns out that if you leave a cooler at a campsite, it will attract bears and that’s not good in a national park. They meet a young, cute ranger who informs them that they can only pick up their cooler before 5 and it is now 5: 14. But she decides to get our cooler anyway. She waives the 25 dollar fee, gives Jae a lecture on Bears and People (Matt was too steamed to attend) and returns the cooler. The tent, the bags, and everything are thrown into the car in a haphazard fashion. Everyone is cold, wet, and determined to get down out of the mountains and into the warm San Joaquin Valley. Matt hauls ass – going 70 mph down a winding road, and in one hour they are 67 miles away and 6,00 feet lower than Kings Canyon in sunny Fresno, California. The famished trio gorges themselves at the first Taco Bell they see. Matt eats two Burrito Supremes and two Soft Taco Supremes (a huge amount). Jim and Jae eat correspondingly outlandish proportions. A hotel room is rented, and everything is laid out to dry in the empty parking lot. All three are delighted to be warm, fed, and most of all – alive. After watching the latter half of the movie “Guarding Tess” all three fall asleep – Jae and Matt on the floor with their sleeping bags – and Jim in the bed. Matt bangs his head on the air conditioner several times during the night as he rolls over. What a f*&%ing day.

DAY 3: BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA TO KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK

Matt wakes up feeling fine, but Jae and Jim do not. The previous day had exacted a high price on them both – especially Jim. Jim’s got a splitting sinus headache and is fighting a wave of persistent nausea - he cannot even down a strawberry at Denny’s that morning. Jim decides to be a man and make the trip up to King’s Canyon National Park despite his illness. Bakersfield is a city situated in the vast, sunny expanse of the San Joaquin Valley, at the southern tip of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the highest mountain range in the continental US. Driving north into the town of Visalia, Jim seems to be doing OK. However, Jae the navigator insists that we take a right turn and take highway 254 straight into Kings Canyon from the south. Matt agrees and they begin a long journey up the western slopes of the Sierra Mountains. The road winds back and forth, quickly climbing over 5,000 feet above the valley floor. Matt remarks on the remote isolation of this road, and comments on the huge thunderclouds rising up over the trees. Jim is not doing well and he asks Matt to stop the car. Matt is a little skeptical and is determined to find out how sick Jim really is. Jim gives him a good idea by remarking that if you can rate your intensity of nausea on a scale from 1 to 5, 5 being the knowledge that you will puke in 10 seconds, he is a solid 4. Matt tries to go another 10 miles, but is stopped by both Jim and Jae. Jae is carsick and he pukes on the side of the road. Jim goes into the bushes, sticks his finger down his throat and kicks up his gut big time. Matt is slightly concerned, being on a road at high elevation out in the middle of a huge forest. To top it off there are no other cars on this road and the weather situation is grim. Matt floors it the rest of the way into King’s Canyon. Finally, the exhausted trio arrives, two without the contents of their stomachs. Matt proceeds to single handedly assemble camp, assembling the tent, starting the stove, and unpacking the car. It turns out that Matt is the only one interested in any dinner. Jim and Jae go into their sleeping bags to recover from the hellacious drive up. The weather worsens as large cumulonimbus clouds skirt the edge of the park and rain falls sporadically. Matt decides to eat 2 bratwurst sausages that Jae prepared by boiling them in a vat of Red Dog beer. Matt will pay for this high-fat meal the next day in the restroom. All three boys go to bed exhausted and overwhelmed at a long day.

DAY 2: JOSHUA TREE CALIFORNIA TO BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA

The Joshua Trio wakes up with the sun at 6 in the morning. After a paltry breakfast, they start on the road to Los Angeles. A Burger King stop is made in Yucca Valley – where Jim fumbles to put in his contact lenses and Matt shaves off the mean beard he has grown over the past week. The road to Los Angeles starts out beautifully. The road drops off to the south, heading toward Palm Springs, California. The horizon is dominated by Mount Jacinto (over 11,000 feet high), and high winds are encountered in the valley, which is dotted with a constellation of huge, white windmills that spin giant, three-pronged, turbo-prop blades. The scenery soon changes as oak and grass chaparral gives way to the concrete moonscapes we call Los Angeles.

After traveling through the city, and getting on I-5 north, the trio arrives at Six flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, about 20 miles north of Los Angeles. The first roller coaster, called the Flashback, was a lesson in acceleration for all three travelers. Matt left with numb knuckles, Jim with a disoriented stumble, and Jae with a hysterical laugh. The Viper, skying 188 feet into the sky and reaching 70 mph, is first ridden by Matt and Jae, then ridden by a courageous Jim twice in a row. Jae claims that Jim could not stop yelling, “Nelly, I’m coming for you!” during the long trip to the top of the coaster track. The Batman, a roller coaster that lets your feet hang out, the Revolution, the colossus, the Pscyclone, and the Ninja are all ridden. At around 6 pm, the three leave the park with pleasant memories, pictures with Daffy Duck, and very discontent stomachs intent on seeking revenge on their masters. After driving an hour and a half to Bakersfield the exhausted group stays in an Econolodge hotel room after a satisfying dinner at Wendy’s.

DAY 1: PHOENIX, ARIZONA TO JOSHUA TREE, CALIFORNIA

Jim and Matt come up from Tucson on Thursday morning, while Jae waits until Saturday morning to make the trip from Tucson to Phoenix on account of a wedding he wants to attend. The trip from Phoenix to Joshua tree will be done at night, as the scenery is boring and the daytime temperatures are high. Saturday at 12 midnight Jim and Matt wake from a brief nap and proceed to Jae’s house. Despite getting lost, they eventually locate Jae’s house. In the driveway they are greeted by Jae’s entire family – one family member, worried that the car is old, remarked “Look – it’s a Honda” in reference to the Maroon 1984 Honda Accord that Matt hopes can bring them 2,000 miles up to Seattle and beyond. After a detour across Phoenix, the trio stops at a Fry’s Grocery store and loads up on soda, cookies, and other snack food. Matt drives the first 100 miles out of Phoenix, and Jim takes over at the I-10 rest stop. However, Matt neglected to pick up his Keebler fudge stripe cookies off the driver’s seat and Jim gets a big chocolate stain on is tuckuses – earning his honorific title of “chocolate – ass.” While Jae attempts to sleep in the back seat, Matt languishes in a semi-conscious state until the first rays of sun streak across the eastern sky, bathing the southern California desert in a soft pink glow.

The three traveling companions drive up into the southern end of Joshua Tree National Park only to find an abandoned Ranger station. Traveling north into the park, the Joshua Trio (Matt, Jim, and Jae) drive past the sloping alluvial fans into the windswept expanse of the Pinto Basin. After photographing each other in somber U2 poses, like those seen in the Joshua Tree album, the three settle into the car to sleep. However, Matt wakes from a restful sleep with a gigantic turd churning between his cheeks. He must relieve himself. He is agog that no toilet paper is around – he grabs the most makeshift thing he can find – a plastic bag. Like Jim, Matt soon earns the nickname “Plastic-bag-ass.” The day in Joshua Tree is spent climbing angular, granite cliffs in the wonderland of rocks, and exploring the tremendous vistas that adorn the northern end of the park. After choosing a campsite in a secluded corner of the park, Matt and Jae try to sleep in the tent, which is constantly being buffeted by high winds – Jim has chosen a shaded boulder to take his afternoon nap on. Soon the temperature in the tent begins to rise, prompting Matt and Jae to go find Jim. Jim is found, and he tells how he saw two hungry crows eat the entire bag of O’Boises potato chips that Jae left, anchored by a log, on the picnic table. Dinner is hot dogs ($3.69 per pack) roasted over charcoal. Matt eats too many and has to drink many quarts of water to equalize his salt balance.