Day 11 Yosemite National Park
Trip Start
May 16, 2008
1
14
22
Trip End
Jun 03, 2008
Where I stayed
Yosemite National Park,
California,
United States
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
We drove up to Yosemite Valley, stopping at the the viewpoint at the end of the tunnel that is on the road that comes in from the Wawona end. It was already busy with busloads of Japanese tourists. Why is it they are unable to be in a photo without doing a strange pose or the V for victory sign? There was a fair bit of cloud in the Valley so not a great photo and no sign of the Half Dome (it never appeared all day)
Now I know we live on Skye and have scenery coming out of our ears but Yosemite - well, it is leagues above that, wayyyyy above that
Driving in the wet in the Park
! We carried on into the valley and parked in the All Day parking and made our way to the visitors centre. We got a good map and seen that Tioga and Glacier roads were both shut.
We decided to start with the Yosemite Falls. We walked along to the Lower Yosemite Falls which has a paved track up to it. Loads and loads of tourists there, took our photos and thought, right let's go to the Upper Falls. It was about 10 a.m. by now.
We walked to Camp 4 and started the trail up to Upper Yosemite Falls. The quickly turned into a series of switchbacks, each very steep before zigging back in the next, we were buggered very quickly! It took an awful lot of zig zagging and vertical climbing (and lots of stops on corners - we didn't care if people overtook us!) to first reach Columbia Rock. We had to stop for a rest, in fact Catriona had to stop - full stop! Well we had gone this far, was determined to get to the Upper Fall. So I abandoned her there (I'm sure she'll be fine) and carried on. The next set of switchbacks were sand, and they were a REAL grueler!
It took about 15 minutes to reach the Upper Falls viewpoint
First view from Tunnel viewpoint
. Result! Lots of photos, Catriona appeared, she too was damned if she was going to go all this way and not make it! We had another rest and then started on up the train a bit further. By this time the View/Pain ratio was diminishing so we called a halt before the next set of evil looking switchbacks and made our way back down. We smiled and thought "suckers" every time we passed others who were making their way up! We arrived back down at Camp 4 about 1 pm. Off we trudged to Degnan's Deli for some lunch, sandwiches and some meat and cheese, delish!
So, we almost killed ourselves on our first hike. Let's go and do an easier one. We jumped on the bus and went to the Mirror Lake trail. The trail was a lot easier but had a lot more people. At the end when we reached the lake it was a bit more peaceful. There were loads of ground squirrels running about. With the help of a few nuts we had (tsk, no feeding the wildlife but they're so cute!) we got some good photos. We took the back trail on our return which had next to no people on it, at times you could stop and hear NOTHING, it was great. Did I mention how amazing Yosemite looks? Probably.
We got back off the trail and bus back to Dengan's and had a pizza
Bridalveil Falls
. We left the valley about 6 pm. With aching feet but well satisfied with our day. On the way back we took the road up to Glacier Point. At points were driving through clouds with snow on either side! We got to the viewpoint, unfortunately all we could view was clouds! Clouds everywhere. There was a couple of glimpses of the other side of the valley but they soon went.
We gave up and drove back to the Wawona. Got back about 8pm. We stripped off and changed. It was time for a drink. Tonight's tipple was a bottle of Kunde Estate viognier wine. We drank it down in the parlour along with a hot drink (topped up out of our hipflask of course). I edited/downloaded the hundreds of photos from today.
And so ended probably the most energetic day we have ever had!
