Here's Yosemite... Where's Sam?!?

[waitingman]

Sept. 17 Monday - Yosemite

Up early... what happened to being on a relaxing holiday? Breakfast on the back porch with the other guests, only some of whom we’d met last night – there was a party of four who left immediately after breakfast, but seemed friendly enough. We finally met our hosts, who seem to be ex-hippies done well, so have become Republicans, as is their democratic right I suppose. At least they didn’t seem to be too far to the right. George & Sue were heading back to Yosemite that morning & offered to guide us through to the Visitors Centre where we could figure out the day’s itinerary... we gratefully accepted & met them out front of the Rose after a nice breakfast of pancakes, bacon & eggs & not-bad brewed coffee (We’d decided to leave the Nespresso machine in the car, as it would have been a bit conspicuous & not a little contentious if we were heard to be making our own coffee)

It’s about half an hour's drive to the Yosemite gates from the Rose... & then another half hour through the park to the Valley floor, with its stunning scenery & sundry amenities. Coming ’round a corner about halfway down, we were surprised by the appearance of El Capitan & Half Dome standing out incredibly against the landscape... & we still had another ten minutes or so driving before we got there.



Once we did, we found parking for the day (FREE!!!) & headed over to the ticket office to book for the two hour ‘Valley Floor tour’, which is conducted on an open trailer with bench seats, pulled along by a diesel hybrid truck, with a Park Ranger seated in a little Perspex box facing us & providing information & background in a droll fashion. The Valley was carved out by a glacier thousands of years ago & the Merced River has continued the work since then. The result is a flat valley floor surrounded by granite walls at least a thousand feet high & up to six thousand in the case of Half Dome. El Capitan at the other end of the valley is a massive granite monolith that takes five minutes to drive past & gives you a pain in the neck looking up at... but in a good way





Sentinel Rock, the Three Brothers, the Cathedral... incredible formations & each significantly different. If there was a disappointment it was that the waterfalls were dry, except for Bridal Veil Falls, which had a windblown trickle instead of the thundering cascade I’ve seen photos & footage of. But this was only a minor quibble



After the tour, we had a bite & a drink, then collected the Escape & did some of the tour spots again – especially the lookout called ‘Tunnel View’, which looks down the entire valley to Half Dome at the end & has a great view of nearly all the features from one spot



Then we went through the eponymous tunnel & headed for Glacier Point, which looks across to Half Dome from an opposite ex-glacier wall & straight down in vertigo-inducing steepness to the valley floor where you can see the buildings & car parks as if from a plane... given you’re about six thousand feet up by that point & Half Dome is still higher than that... & the Echo Peaks are, at eleven thousand feet, the only things that were above the glacier all those years ago, so are still craggy instead of having been rounded & smoothed by the ice like Half Dome & the rest of the Valley






North Dome - across the valley from Half Dome, at the 'entrance' to the largely barren glacier valley. Seen from the valley floor

Oh... did I mention the view from Glacier Point was jaw-droppingly stunning?! We had a physical reaction to being there & seeing such an incredible place... even if some of the tourists & hikers sharing it with us weren’t quite as sublime – especially one hiker who was shouting to his friend on his mobile phone, with the speaker on, so everyone around could hear how “F#%kin’ awesome this place is” & how he’s hiked up to it & all the tourists were foreigners... at which point I felt like grabbing his phone & tossing it over the edge

By this time though, it was late in the day & time to head back to the Rose. The sun had set by the time we reached the Valley again, which made finding our way out of the Park a little difficult in some places where directions were vague... & once again Madame Navman was less than helpful at first. However, only one major wrong turn & easily remedied... & we both breathed easier when we found a petrol station to refill the gasping Escape. Straight to Groveland town to see what we could find for dinner. Two Guys & Pizza Pies was the consensus & we got there ten minutes before they closed at 9pm, so we could only get a takeaway. Which was fine. Anything would have been fine by that time. But the pizzas were good, albeit just a little large, but we’re getting used to leaving food on the plate when we reach explosion point

Back at the Rose, George & Sue were still up & eager to hear our adventures & share our awe of the place. They’ve also offered to accommodate us when we reach Wisconsin, as they live about half an hour from House On The Rock – the place we’re going to see. We’ll exchange contact details at breakfast tomorrow

Comments

[paserbyp]

Beautiful shots of Yosemite!