The average American is so divorced from nature that they can spend a whole day without getting any of it on them. That’s me. I am an average American. Even less promising, I am a suburban American. The only time I went camping was back in 1991. After that week out in the rough, I was more than content to permanently retire back to the artificial world that humankind had built for itself, with climate-controlled indoor spaces, gas-fueled cars and glass screens that hold my attention from morning to night. I am hardly alone in being about as hardy as a Ritz cracker. After all, you’re probably reading these words on a phone right now, while sitting indoors. You layabout.

That collective need for comfort, a kind based in nearly total isolation from nature, is the very reason that nature is dying right now. In fact, the people in charge of this country would very much like to accelerate the divorce between man and Earth. Take our national park system, long a crown jewel of government-led conservation. Right now, that system is being starved of assets, supervised by barbarians at the gate, and may potentially be sold off to help us comfortable folk continue to tap-tap-tap our way to extinction. You’ve probably read the headlines about all of this, as I have. But do you really GET what those words mean? What they portend? Do I? How can you and I understand what these lands mean to body and soul if we don’t really know them?

Drew Magary hangs out at a swimming hole along the Merced River at Yosemite National Park on June 20, 2025.

Drew Magary assembles his tent at his campsite at Camp 4 in Yosemite Valley at Yosemite National Park on June 19, 2025.

Drew Magary poses to take some photos at the Vernal Fall footbridge while walking the Mist Trail at Yosemite National Park on June 20, 2025.

This is why SFGATE has decided that I should travel to Yosemite National Park, just a few hours’ drive outside San Francisco. They want me to see Yosemite with my own eyes for the first time, and to see if it’s already been desecrated beyond the point of no return: litter everywhere, mountains on fire, scientists cleaning toilets, etc. They also want to see if I still suck at camping. So let’s gear up and get out there.

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Securing an authorized campsite at Yosemite requires you to be quick with your fingers if you want to snag a reservation online. Spots become available at 7 a.m. sharp and are gone seconds thereafter. It’s not unlike trying to get a reservation at Four Kings, only without spicy Dungeness crab as your reward. Miraculously, we’ve managed to score a reservation at Camp 4, which I’m told is one of the more hotly desired sites the park has to offer. I’ll be sure to brag about it online once we get back.

We get in the car and begin the drive from downtown San Francisco, passing through a long, flat stretch of almond tree groves before entering the Sierra Nevada foothills, all golden and smooth in the late afternoon sun. Like they’d been molded by divine hands. Just before the entrance to the park, we pass by a few more last-chance supply outlets that sell cordwood, fishing supplies and other outdoor essentials. There’s also a Rivian dealership.

A line of cars waits to get inside Yosemite National Park just outside the entrance of the park on Highway 140 on June 21, 2025.

Because today is Juneteenth, entrance to the park is gratis, which means we don’t need to wait in line at the gate. They wave us right in, and Yosemite’s majesty makes itself known in an instant. Ponderosa pine trees as tall as high-rises, with puzzle bark that makes me oddly hungry for brownies. Stately trees lining the cliff edges above, as if they’d been deliberately planted there. A tree burnt ashen white in a past wildfire and now standing as its own grave marker, its dead branches sticking out to make it look like a hat stand. Rock climbers out bouldering, with crash pads strapped to their backs. The sheer face of El Capitan off in the distance. And, best of all, the sight of Yosemite Falls spraying water from such a great height (nearly 2,500 feet) that the runoff breaks up into a rainbow-tinged mist while in free fall. The second I see these falls, I want to go to them. I want to go everywhere in this park, and right now.

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But first, we have to unload all of our s—t.

Drew Magary wheels his personal items to his campsite at Camp 4 in Yosemite Valley at Yosemite National Park on June 19, 2025.

Drew Magary brings camping items to his campsite at Camp 4 in Yosemite Valley at Yosemite National Park on June 19, 2025.

We pull into the parking lot for Camp 4 and seek out our assigned site among a throng of fellow campers, both serious and deeply casual. Hundreds of us are here, along with all of the creature comforts we lugged into Yosemite with us: groceries, coffee makers, laptops and all other manner of technological blasphemy. Each campsite has its own fire pit, with a flip-over grate for easy cooking. Nearby is a low-slung building with toilets and a communal utility sink with a NO BATHING sign posted directly above it. We won’t need to hang a bear bag for this trip, because Yosemite provides on-site bear boxes for campers to lock away all potential bear food, toothpaste included. Across the street is a welcome lodge with a Starbucks. I’m teetering on the precipice of glamping here, but am unbothered by it. If you had told me I could bring an inflatable queen bed with me here, I would’ve taken you up on the offer. In my world, almost camping and actual camping are identical pursuits.

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With that in mind, I begin prepping my little parcel of land to be as comfortable as possible. I set up my tent, getting........

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