The WOFOYO Podcast
The WOFOYO Podcast
C-Dub's Yosemite Journey Part 2: Spiritual Trail Mix: Faith, Fire, and Finding Your Way
The wilderness speaks if we're willing to listen, offering profound spiritual lessons through ancient sequoias, challenging hikes, and the beauty of creation.
• Mariposa Grove's giant sequoias teach that sometimes God uses different vehicles to get us where we need to go
• Creation praises its maker perfectly—the glory of God is seen in things fully alive and fulfilling their purpose
• Sequoia seeds require intense fire to open—our faith often needs crisis to be tested and proven
• Small irritations like blisters and technology failures can derail us if not properly addressed
• The descent from Cloud's Rest was harder than the climb—sometimes coming down requires more careful navigation than going up
• Finding solutions rather than focusing on problems helps overcome life's challenges
• Being a blessing to at least one person each day brings unexpected joy and fulfillment
• When you're in the right place, doing the right thing, for the right reason, there's no better place to be
https://wofoyo.org/ #wofoyo
Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of the Wofo Yo podcast. We are going to be continuing our discussion we had in our last episode where we were talking about some lessons learned in my experience over in Yosemite National Park. Be a couple of weeks ago. By the time you're listening to this episode, day one was a booger, ended up doing the Yosemite Valley loop and ended up doing about 23 miles on that and was talking about having a blister on the ball of my foot. And sometimes it's the little irritations that when you're trying to fulfill God's purpose in your life that can derail you if you're not careful and the best way to go about it, how we concluded our last discussion you, if you're not careful, and the best way to go about it, and how we concluded our last discussion was to address it, get it taken care of in the lord. So, without any further ado, we're going to keep on keeping on well fo yo. So day two man went over and, uh, mariposa grove, giant sequoias. Man, there were some lessons in there, the redwoods, you know, you always said that the wind has a voice. And uh, I sent you a thing a while back where one of the early church fathers had said the exact same thing, why he went out to the wilderness when being a bishop was too much for him. Wow, I'm going to go out in the wilderness. Here the wind has a voice. And then, once he was refreshed, he came back and ministered successfully many, many years after that. But the voice, man, when you're sleeping in them tents, let me tell you, you can hear that wind a lot better through them redwoods than and you can hear them a whole bunch through. You can hear that wind a whole bunch through the sequoias as well. So go to Mariposa Grove and I was only able to do about three quarters, not because I wasn't able to make the hike, although I was still nursing that blister and found out I had a little muscle thing on my other foot and all that but they had had a tree fall shut down the trail about three quarters of the way through it, so I had to turn around and it cut about a mile and a half off of what I was intending on doing. But anyway, um, I heard something interesting as big as these trees are. These trees were not as wide as your truck is long, but they are. They were some of them as my Tacoma. That's big trees. I mean redwoods are tall, they're big trees, but these sequoias are huge. That being said, their root system. I heard this and I go oh, that'll preach all day long as you're just marveling at these trees that go past the time of Christ, some of them, you go huh, the guy one of the tour guides. He goes.
Speaker 1:This used to be one of the most popular places to drive in the park up to the Mariposa Grove. He says now we do it a shuttle because we have found out that although they have extensive routes, a lot of them will still stay somewhat close to the ground and network. And he said they will. Um, I said the, the car traffic, the automobile traffic, was actually harming the routes. So we use the shuttle and so you're getting shuttled at whatever. It was a mile or whatever mile and a half to took a couple minutes, uh, to get to the actual growth and it's picking you up about every 10.
Speaker 1:And I've got thinking about that. It's almost like the Lord saying you know, the vehicle I used to get you there in the past ain't the vehicle I'm using now, ever since COVID folks. You know we've talked about that a time or two what he used to get you there in the past. Ain't the V? He's going to get you there.
Speaker 1:You could always walk Right, but that would add an extra two miles to what I was planning. I actually had an extra four and I'm like, nah, uh, I said we want to take it easy Cause I had a bigger hike plan. But I said we want to take it easy because I had a bigger hike plan. But no, there was a lot of humility developed in that, because the Lord's saying I'm going to get you there. I'm going to get you there my way and you're not going to be as self-sufficient as you think. I'm going to get you there where I've called you to be. I'm going to get you there. I'm going to get you there where I've called you to be. I'm going to get you there, but I'm going to get you there my way, not the way I did it in the past.
Speaker 2:You know what's interesting? You mentioned four miles when you're humping the PCT or the AT Appalachian Trail trail, uh, humping two, three or four miles out of the way to to go into town and resupply or to eat or something like that. No big thing I mean, that's just. Oh well, I'm going to hit this town so I can resupply us four miles off trail, so that's four miles there and four miles back. Um, but for for through hikers, guys who are walking those distances and ain't no thing. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:Um, another great thing about getting out and doing a little bit more and and and walking and hiking and stuff like that is, those things that you considered obstacles before aren't obstacles anymore. You know, a mile ain't nothing but a number. We were in the desert. I would tell my guys oh sorry, it's hot today, it's going to be this, or it's going to be 120, or it's going to be whatever. You know I said, man, it ain't that temperature ain't nothing but a number on a thermometer, that's all it is. And once you start seeing it that way, you won't be near as hot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a. I will say this there was a time constraint dynamic Because, as I was mentioning before, we were expecting storms to roll in and what I didn't want to be is around some of the tallest trees on planet Earth when lightning is hitting. That was also a consideration. When you're nursing something and I was nursing that day that two miles turning into four extra miles I'm like, oh boy, yeah, we played it safe. I ain't going to lie. Oc Dub played it safe. That's a good call.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the things I sent you a message about this was I was looking at it and none of those trees failed to praise their maker. You can have your production, you can have your production, you can have your shouting and hollering, you can have all this other stuff, but I'm telling you we fail, in comparison, to praise our maker like those trees did. That's one of the reasons I love getting out in nature. The earth is going to sing the praises of its creator. I'm trying to remember who you used to read say the quote the glory of God is a man fully alive.
Speaker 2:Irenaeus, however you want to say it, the glory of God, is man fully alive?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this creation was fully alive, doing what it was supposed to do. It also let me know that by doing what it was supposed to do, it was praising God. So maybe the biggest way we can praise our maker is to just do what we're supposed to be doing, rather than result to all the theatrics. Yeah, simply do what we're supposed to be doing, be be obedient, you know? Um, I, I think about. I think about how these things, these trees, and this coniferous forest that you're in what you also see is a lot of these trees die and they rot and they get replaced, right, except this is a hundred and thousand year cycle where we think of what are we doing this week?
Speaker 2:It's very interesting to me to think about a tree that was starting off the time Jesus was walking the face of the earth, the time Jesus was walking the face of the earth. When you're thinking about what's going on in Jerusalem in the first century, in the first couple decades of the modern era, and I try to think of what's going on in our neck of the woods at that time, well, literally there's some trees that are starting to grow that we're going to get familiar with 2,000 years later. Oftentimes I fail to put timelines together, but I think it's very interesting when we start looking at what's going on in, you know, in the time of Moses, what's going on in other parts of the planet at the same time, very, very interesting. So to me it's a very interesting concept to think that you're walking amongst trees that were growing during the time Jesus walked face to earth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I hit another grove the next day day, but uh, I ain't gonna even really talk about it. It was neat you could get up closer, you know, but it was a much smaller grove of sequoias but they had something that was really interesting. I took a picture of one of the cones, yeah, and it's longer than my foot and I'm a size 12 and it's significantly longer than my foot. However, in this other grove they had a thing said it takes 90,000 seeds of a sequoia to equal a pound. When Jesus talks about you know, the faith is a mustard seed. This is the about. You know, the faith is a mustard seed. This is the same concept. You know, the out East it was a mustard seed. Over over here in the in the West man, we got some the faith of a Sequoia tree. Yeah, also, one of the things about the Redwoods and Sequoias is one of the things that has to happen for them to open up, open up. A lot of times it's fire. I was hoping you'd bring that up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you don't just go out and plant sequoia seeds. No, it takes for that pine cone to do anything. It takes intense, intense heat. So basically it takes a disaster because you've got to have a fire. You've got to have a forest fire for these things to take off. So yeah, to me that's very interesting. What we think is devastating is actually birthing or giving life. How many?
Speaker 1:times, do you not know that your faith is worth anything until the crisis hits and it's tested? Yeah, yeah, oh. But once you make it through that, yeah, then they can't shake you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it wasn't the water that brought the life, it's the fire that brought the life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and then use the water to heal. Right, there's a man I had to preach. I'm serious.
Speaker 2:Do some digging on pine trees and how they come to be. It is extremely interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is a trial by fire, literally. One of the interesting things about that too is when I was walking the thing the first day on that valley loop, I saw a black bear close, swimming across the Merced River. Well, there you go, buddy, keep on. Black bear to me wasn't near as intimidating as some grizzlies over in Grand Tetons. You're like oh yeah, you're different, but no, blackberry just minding his own business. I saw two during the trip. One I took a back road was trying to take me to this trail, and I'm just like no, this ain't, this is a bad nav, this is the lord. Like nope, I'm like uh-uh, and uh went, took a longer route to get to to the thing and there was one run across a road, but the the burning of the redwoods leaves stumps out there, whether it's in a meadow or in the forest, and you could have a black bear in that sucker, because they look exactly like it's the exact same burnt black as a black bear. And so no, it was. You go, man, these things have the perfect camouflage Went and did a drive from that grove up to a place called Glacier Point and took a photo.
Speaker 1:Everybody liked the photo and I'd taken one the previous or earlier. The first thing of that tunnel view of the sun coming through, and had taking that photo, but you have a view from Glacier Point all the way down in the valley, but it's a drive to get there and it's a windy drive, but, man, it is something to behold. It's one of the more beautiful things I've seen. It's something to behold. It's one of the more beautiful things I've seen, except for it just looked different than what it did last day.
Speaker 1:So I found out, though, that where I was staying look it up, you know to navigate back and seeing all this beautiful scenery, and I actually took a 30 minute nap in the car because it's raining and then the sun came out, and so you had the clouds and that, that, that dynamic of how the clouds can bring out certain colors in the sky. You know where it's not just blue, but you got a little bit of the yellows. Maybe it wasn't so late as to have the orange, but there's just these different shades of blue and gray and yellow and white and all this stuff. So it was great scenery, but I found out that, even though the drive is an hour away, I was only 0.8 miles from my. It was directly below that point Right. Which is the lesson is, sometimes you got to go the long way around.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you got to take the scenic route.
Speaker 1:Yep, because the other option was a 12 mile there and back on something called the four-mile trail to get to Glacier Point. And there were some folks that had come up and had just done that and then they got caught in the rain on the way back down and they're like this is not fun because it's granite man. There's a lot of granite there and granite is slick when it's wet. So, yeah, saw a couple other things, saw where they dammed up this place Day after that. Saw where they dammed up a place called Hetch. Hetchy.
Speaker 1:Had a lot of mixed feelings about that, because this was the other pristine place in Yosemite, because this was the other pristine place in Yosemite, and so after it became a park and a guy named John Muir was highly responsible for getting this thing. John Muir is an interesting guy. He believed that God revealed himself and he's a Christian, he said. But it was the glory of God to reveal himself through his creation to his people. He said that there should be wild places. The John Muir Trail is another popular trail. Matter of fact, the Mist Trail was closed down and you had to take the John Muir Trail if you were going to go up Half Dome. They had some renovations underway.
Speaker 1:I will say this the folks at Yosemite did one heck of a job of managing it. It's one of those places that, if you did not manage it, people would die and people die there all the time. But with the kind of things that can go wrong if that place was not managed especially with the amount of people that are there bad things could happen. But they had a highly controversial. It reminded me of being from Illinois, even though I live in Missouri. Being from Illinois even though I live in Missouri. You had the earthquake of 1906, and the city, and then subsequent fires in San Francisco and the city of San Francisco sued for rights to the water source and they ended up damming up the Hetch. Hetchy Valley, sacred to Native Americans. John Muir was a big champion, had several kinds of wildlife that were unique to it. He's dammed it up.
Speaker 1:So here's the thing you don't want to see anybody die, but at the same time, how many eggs are you going to break to make the omelet? Like I said, I have really mixed feelings about that, because I understand how precious human life can be, but at the same time, how big do your cities need to get? Yeah, I think about being growing up in Illinois, and one of the dynamics that wasn't near as prevalent when you and I were growing up was how much Chicago determined what happened in the rest of the state, as compared to now. And you know, and really for what? What does San Francisco become Right? Is it an epitome of righteousness? You know, and here's the thing, that grace was extended. What have you done with it? You know, and at what price? Are you going to cannibalize the rest of the state or cannibalize what's right in nature, just so you can grow your city larger? Man, it just reeked of the tower of Babel.
Speaker 2:And Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone, this TV show. Of course he's always championing and putting in plugs for different causes. There was a very interesting dig in one of the episodes where John Dutton is governor of the state of Montana and he's got this. Piper Periboh is the actress's name.
Speaker 1:She's this hippie environmentalist, environmental activist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's an environmental activist and she's out there on the ranch. He's kind of hired her to be that's a safe word he's hired her. He put her to use, put her to use, hired her to advise him on these things. But anyway, it's a very interesting dynamic interaction where I think the interaction was actually between her and Monica Casey's wife. But anyway and I could be wrong I remember the gist of it but not the exact details.
Speaker 2:But the idea was they're having this dialogue and they're looking out across the ranch and all these acreage and everything and all these acreage and everything, and of course the environmentalist is saying how this is just bad. You know, this is just bad. And you know the other character says well, you know, look at your cities and tell me which one looks more like this land did 100 years ago, this ranch or your big city. Because the environmentalists would tell you that. You know, they know what they're talking about. The folks who live in the cities know what they're talking about. These are people you need to listen to because they're educated. But yet the big cities don't look anything like the land did 100 years ago. No, and that's there's. There should be a certain level of common sense there. Um, in that, uh, you know, and I think that's what the particular episode, that particular scene was trying to kind of put out there and say, hey, the people who you say are destroying the land are actually preserving it.
Speaker 1:Yes, Exactly, she was also in Coyote Ugly, I believe yeah she was Dancing on bars.
Speaker 2:Horrible, just horrible. Terrible thing. Her daddy was just disappointed. Yeah, so ashamed had to work in a toll booth to hide from her.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that brings us to the last day and, like I said, I went several places but I had really mixed feelings about Hetch, hetchy and just that whole dynamic and just I'm not a city person. That being said, uh, you know, later that day why don't I just take up a drive real quick. It's 40 minutes. Um, I'll face down the dragon that that's been haunting me, the hike that I want to do, because I'm doing it tomorrow. You know the weather was clearing up and all that, and drove up there.
Speaker 1:Man, there's this thing called Tioga Road. That sucker ain't no joke. That is curvy. You're driving on the side of the mountains. It is every stereotypical drive through a national park that you might have seen back in the day. This is it. Have both hands on the wheel, pay attention. Don't have nothing playing on your on your radio or nothing Definitely looking down on your phone, cause you can launch yourself off the side of a mountain for real. Right before we get to this, this insert, to this trailhead, about a mile from it, there's a place called Olmsted Point, named after one of the architects. Named after the architect, yep, and so it's Olmsted, illinois, same thing.
Speaker 2:Probably the same guy, the same Olmsted, that designed the gardens at Biltmore Estate, yep.
Speaker 1:Yep, the exact same one. So beautiful view there. But I look and I say, well, this is how I get there and go back. Had trouble sleeping Because this is the thing that's haunting me. This is the hike I said I'm going to do. I know this is going to challenge me and you know what? Couldn't sleep, got up early in the morning, showered, make sure I had everything packed already, pre-packed the night before, and I forgot to do one thing Evidently, with all trails. If you use all trails to navigate to it, you know, on your drive and sync that up with your Apple Maps on your phone, then it'll start you out at the trailhead. If you just use your Apple Maps and don't use it through the app, you won't know where you're going. So when you get to this thing that I was going to call clouds rest, you start out at SOS and now you can't open your app. So you know what ended up? Uh, we're going to do this regardless and if I die, I die.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know and it just number one I probably need to start using some better tech. Probably need to start using a Garmin or just be more proficient, but with that app I have gotten turned around a time or two and it has caused me to know you're off trail.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of hikers use all trails extremely popular app yep and all have the same problem. There's just some, there's just parts of the wilderness where you don't have coverage. Yeah, and we just got a plan for those. Only planning will take care of that.
Speaker 1:To be fair, I did have a map of Yosemite topographical map, did have a compass, did have something to mark up the map with. So I ended up meeting up with some guys from you know. Bottom line is I figured this. You know, I wasn't ever the best athlete, I wasn't bad, but I wasn't ever the best athlete. Even in the Army I did. Okay, I was about a 280-something on my PT test, you know, but I could persevere and I could not quit and I could put one foot in front of the other one more time. It's kind of the lesson I learned doing that first hike, that 23-mile thing, I can keep walking. So start out. And let me tell you, for three of this up and back trail called Cloud's Rest, I kicked the snot out of it. I did. I met up with some guys If it sounds like I'm bragging, just wait because there's some coming Met up with some guys from Virginia, super nice guys, some guys from Virginia, super nice guys, and we kind of pushed each other and the guy said hey, turn around, man. You see, the view and that's always one of my things about hiking is you can hike to pursue the goal or you can hike to get the scenery. I'm not capable of doing both at the same time, so if I'm pushing, pushing, I'm not seeing. I like. Well, I'll catch the pictures on the way down. And there were, the sun was coming up and starting to illuminate the Sierra Nevadas behind me. So you got this thousand foot climb in less than a mile, which was just getting it, getting it, getting it, and, okay, up there took a break, had some jerky trail mix, all that, caught a breath and then you go down a little bit and then you hit. Basically, for about close to four miles you're on this forest floor, maybe closer to three. It's reminiscent of being in any coniferous forest I mentioned before. There's times where here's where the ambush is, there's always the pass, they always smell the same and you always know that there's a spot where everything gets quiet and you're expecting your miles gear to go off and to smell the gunpowder from the blanks and start hearing the shooting, because you just go, this is the ambush site, but that that's the way it was, and but then you have this climb, then you have this other climb and that was the big climb, but. But the next thing you know you're there. And all this apprehension as long as you keep going and keep your balance and everybody talks oh it's so narrow, it's so narrow. It wasn't that narrow. I think the most narrow was one rock was three feet wide, but still the rocks underneath it were eight foot. But you get up there and it's totally worth it, but still the rocks underneath it were eight foot, you know. But you get up there and it's totally worth it. And so this is viewing the valley from the total opposite end of Glacier Point. But man, you're up there, you are in rarefied air when you get to Clouds, rest.
Speaker 1:They've ranked it the best hike. A lot of people have called it the best hike in Yosemite. A lot of your rangers love to do that hike and it says average six to eight hours. I did it Up and back was seven hours 15 minutes, including the breaks, but I did not stop on the way back and it took me longer. The big part is that first climb was a challenge and actually even doing the climb to get up, to go down that last thousand feet of that initial climb, let's put one foot in front of the other, keep on going. Might take about a five second break to let people go through whatever, catch a breath, have a drink of water, you know, and but getting down that initial incline, which would be a decline, the initial climb, that thousand feet, that was a puzzle. That was where. Where do I put? So?
Speaker 1:going up was a challenge, but getting down Sometimes coming down is even harder and it was just a matter of where do I put my feet so that I don't turn my ankle, so that I don't hyperextend my knee, which almost happened a couple times. And the whole thing is, I can't look ahead. I have to look down, which I hate. Looking down. I want to be able to see where I'm going, but it's that constant thing. I can't look ahead. I have to look down, which I hate. Looking down. I want to be able to see where I'm going, but it's that constant thing. You can't do both. You can't enjoy the scenery and get after it. I can't do it at the same time. But eventually got back and I was done.
Speaker 2:You had developed your trail legs. That's the problem. You get out there enough and whatnot. You'll develop your trail legs and you won't be looking down as much. You still got to look down, but not as much.
Speaker 1:I found out that one of my feet if I'm not careful, it was the itty-bitty things, it was tree roots, that'll catch you. I wasn't lifting up my feet high enough bottom line, or didn't see it. So you step on it and it's just that little bit of wobble like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But but getting down, and those guys had moved on without me on the way down and, uh, I actually enjoyed that because I was alone. Everybody thinks the challenge is getting up someplace and sometimes it is sometimes how, how you, how you descend. That could be the real. That was a challenge for me. That was the hardest part and uh, I don't know. I know there are some lessons in that too.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, um, a lot of times, um, a lot of times, when we go in, we go into a situation where there's going uphill and the climb whatever. Um, you have that. Uh, you in the climb, whatever you have that, you have the adrenaline because of the excitement. You know this is new frontier, this is newfound territory, so you kind of have some of that helping you. But coming out on the egress, the exfil, when you're coming out, you're not hyped up anymore and you've got fatigue kicking in. Uh-huh, that's part of the a lot of times. That's where the stumbling comes from, is from fatigue. Your body's not picking your, your feet up like it should. So you do have some things that are kind of working against you on the way out. It's a different set of factors, it requires a different thought process, but the thing is you learn from those things, you adjust and keep moving. The biggest thing is you give yourself a reason not to quit. You just keep going.
Speaker 1:It reminded me of several years ago I remember telling you about this where I had a dream that you and I were sitting around and we were. It was almost like a lab, like a biology or chemistry lab, and we were at these tables and every table they would have this timer and it would work the solution, solve the problem, work the solution. And they were like different puzzles that we would have to do. You know, and and in a way it's kind of what we do with the word uh on the front we're just working out different issues, we're going through a lot of times and if that can help other people work through theirs. But I just thought about that dream the whole time down work the solution. There's a solution here. How do you get down Work the solution. And we think about that.
Speaker 1:When I said, man, I kicked the snot out of it. Yeah, up there, yeah smoked it, coming back halfway doing good. And then I think I texted you. I said that favor was returned on that last quarter. It smoked me, man, but the Lord already let me know we're going to be all right.
Speaker 2:We're in such a we're in a society now that likes to find a problem with every solution oh, man, more than it does trying to find the solution to every problem. And so we've got to break that cycle, we've got to change that way of thinking and work the solution out. That can be hard to do because, man, you're fighting against society, you're fighting against everything. But just find a reason not to quit.
Speaker 1:Just keep going have one other thing, because I flew back and you know the day was done, but I was quickly reminded of this. Um, the lord put it on my heart. I know this sounds awful simple Try and be a blessing to at least one person when you're out there One person per day. And that bought a lot of fulfillment, whether it was buying somebody a cup of coffee that wasn't expecting it, whether it was just sharing some food on the trail, paying somebody a compliment that's out there trying to get it, you know, same time be a blessing to somebody. And so just being able to do that for one person in a day bought me joy, good deal. And at the same time, after that hike was done, I was never more ready to get away from people. Yeah, like I said, I was able to get with God. Wasn't able to get alone. Yeah, and still it was what needed to happen.
Speaker 1:Oh, and then, the day we were recording this, I got a call talking about letting me know my days off were changed. I got an extra day off. So I usually work Sundays and I get a call. Dude has no idea, old brother Lawrence. Nolan, we've interviewed what you doing Sunday. I said well, he called me on Tuesday. He said could you fill in for me so I fly back and do all that? And ended up sharing some message with his folks over in Murfreesboro today and I love ministering there, but I was also ready to go.
Speaker 1:But just one of those things that lets you know God's got you, you're in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. God's got you, you're in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. And for those of you out there in podcast land, let me tell you, when you know that you're in the right place, doing the right thing, doing what the Lord wants you to do, especially if you're doing it for the right reason, ain't no better, ain't no better place to be on planet earth? Amen, hey everybody, thanks for listening. We Amen.