Yosemite National Park!

Continuing on this awesome summer of travel I just got back from a trip to Yosemite National Park in California. This trip was definitely out of the norm for me. For a long time Jess has been telling me about her Dad wanting to climb the Half Dome and finally this past January their family committed to doing it and kindly invited me along for the ride. Usually I plan my trips to the hilt but basically all I had to do for this trip was show up in California on a plane. I honestly had no clue what to expect which was both thrilling and terrifying. My flights out were on time and I arrived in Sacramento with just enough time to grab lunch before the Smith’s arrived. As soon as they did we headed over to pick up our awesome Dodge Caravan and were on our way. Since Yosemite is about 4 hours from the airport we stopped in Lathrop, CA for the night.

View of Lake Tahoe from the planeAfter a good night’s sleep we were up bright and early on our way to the park and went through various scenery and elevation changes. Sacramento was flatter than piss on a platter. Highway 120 out of Lathrop was lined with groves of almond trees and grape vines. We continued on into some barren foothills full of pasture land. Then we started our elevation climb and quickly found ourselves in the mountains. Finally we emerged into Yosemite! This park is so huge that it takes an hour to get from the entrance station to the Valley (the hub of the park). We drove through thick forests with sheets of snow still on the ground and then saw vast acres that had been burned. Our first pull off was of Cascade Falls which was roaring! There was also a great view of the valley. We then descended to the Valley floor and stopped at Bridalveil Falls. There was a short hike to the falls and as we got closer there was a fine mist in the air. It quickly turned into a full on shower as the final section of the trail was underwater! I love this picture.Making our way back to the car we stopped to air dry and tried to catch sight of some climbers on El Capitan. El Capitan is a 3,000-foot vertical rock formation. Once considered impossible to climb, El Capitan is now the standard for big-wall climbing. It was first climbed in 1958 over 18 months with a total of 47 climbing days. In 1960 it was done in 7 continuous days. Nowadays speed climbing is done on El Cap and the current record is just over 2.5 hours!Further up the road another attraction is the Swinging Bridge which has a great view of Yosemite Falls. We made our way to our home base for the next few days, Curry Village. After eating lunch and checking in to our awesome tent cabins we set out to hike Mirror Lake. It is meant to be a loop trail but due to a recent rockslide it is now just out and back. It mostly followed the river up to the lake which seemed more like a pond. Because we flout all rules we went beyond the posted closed sign to catch a glimpse of the rock slide. It’s amazing the damage these things do. It looked like a tornado had gone through. The trail quickly became impassable to we turned around and strolled back.I had just enough time before dinner to hop on the shuttle bus to the Ahwahnee Hotel. I have been reading a series of novels by Nevada Barr about a woman park ranger named Anna Pigeon and the most recent one I read took place in Yosemite at the Ahwahnee. I love the books because I’ve been to many of the parks she writes about and it’s so cool to actually be in the setting of a story.
Plus the setting is absolutely stunning. FYI the entire hotel is fireproof. What looks like redwood is actually cement that was poured into wood molds and then painted to look like wood. I never would have guessed!
The night’s ranger program at the amphitheater told us all about Half Dome and Yosemite Falls which was awesome because these are the main attractions we were there to see. And the amphitheater sat right in the shadow of Half Dome.