Once off the freeway, the terrain began to resemble Michigan, with farms and rolling green hills. Not a palm tree in sight. We drove at least an hour through this countryside to arrive at our campground in Columbia, CA. Our pull-through lot is more like a pull along side as we have a large hill on one side of us. We actually like it – very private.
After checking in with the office this morning (they were closed when we arrived yesterday) we drove 1 ½ hrs. to Yosemite. This national park is at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, but we still drove up to an elevation of over 5,000 ft. I’ve heard several family members describe “The Road to Hana” in Hawaii and how treacherous it is. We’ve never been on it, but we can’t imagine it is any more twisty and curvy and drop –off cliff hugging than we drove today. The good part about being the driver is you have to concentrate so hard on the road you can hardly glance up. But the passenger (me) is almost compelled to look over the edge at every turn. We would have NEVER done this drive in our RV. There were signs saying to turn off your vehicle’s air conditioning, presumable to save wear and tear or prevent overheating. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I am continually amazed and in awe of the engineering minds and hard-working laborers who carve these roads in these mountains.
Our scary drive was rewarded almost immediately after entering the park by the sight of a beautiful waterfall. Yosemite is filled with them – a distinctive feature. A little further down brought us to Bridalveil Falls where a short path promised a “vista point”. Nowhere did the sign say you would get wet! This fall was a raging flow. If you have been to Niagara Falls and taken the Maid of the Mist boat ride under the falls, you will know what I mean. But at least there, they give you a rain poncho to wear. The mist from the fall was like a spring shower – I was hesitant to take a picture for fear my phone would get soaked like we were! All the falls were gushing. Our info sheet said some of them dwindle to a trickle or dry up completely by the end of summer, but spring releases all the melting snow and ice.
Speaking of snow and ice – there were two roads that we were not able to travel on because they were still closed due to snow. We did not get to Glacier Point or the Tioga Road, which runs east and west across the park.
It is a 24-mile drive from where we entered the park to the valley floor. Most of the drive was pine trees with the immense granite rock formations behind.
Have any of you driven to Pittsburgh, where you emerge from a tunnel and the city is RIGHT there? Or driven north on I-75 entering Ohio from Kentucky when you crest a hill and the skyline of Cincinnati is RIGHT there? Take that and double or triple the WOW factor and you will know what we experienced when we came through a tunnel and the valley opened up RIGHT in front of us. I know the pictures can’t possibly reproduce that feeling so just trust me on this one. You have El Capitan, the largest sheer monolith of granite in the world on your left and the Half Dome on your right. The Half Dome is probably the most recognizable symbol of Yosemite. Breathtaking! (I found another descriptive word! I hesitate to use it because I was saving it for what I imagine the Grand Tetons to be, but it so appropriately conveys what we saw.)
We are seeing first-hand that there is nothing man-made or created that equals the beauty of The Creator’s handiwork.
Through the orientation film at the visitor’s center we learned Yosemite is called “The Grand Cathedral”. In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant, which preserved Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Sequoia Grove. Due to the efforts of John Muir, the boundaries were enlarged and his lasting legacy is Yosemite National Park.
We also saw pictures of the damage bears can do to vehicles when food has been left in cars and people are off hiking. Unbelievable! Windows and doors literally torn off.
The park has a free shuttle service, but we had already driven around the park enough on our own that we didn’t ride it. We had a choice to make. We didn’t have enough time to leisurely bike a trail in the valley or see some giant sequoias. Since we are not going to get to Sequoia National Park, we opted to see the magnificent trees. There are 3 different sections in the park where sequoias are concentrated. One area where you could see the trees from your car was a 1 ½ drive to the opposite end of the park. Another was a 4-mile hike. The area we chose was a two-mile hike. A tour bus was parked in the lot and everyone we passed on their way up was speaking French. The forest was filled with tall pine trees and I wondered how the grove of sequoias at the bottom was going to be any different. Hah! Once we saw the huge circumference, the unusual bark, and the towering height, we realized the difference. These trees are over 1,000 years old.
As I learned at Bryce Canyon, what goes down must come up. Whereas on the way down we held hands and chatted freely, we walked in silence (better to hear the chirping birds) on the way up. Mike was a good 15 ft. in front of me, making it difficult to hold hands! The one time we broke the silence I said, “I’m surprised we haven’t seen any wild animals”, to which Mike said, “Thank God”. I had forgotten we did learn at the visitor’s center that a bear can run 25 miles an hour!
Although inaudible to anyone else, our calves and thighs were screaming. The hike back up was only 60 feet less of an elevation change that when we climbed Diamond Head in Hawaii in Feb. Ninety - five percent of the climb up was shaded. You have to be thankful for the little things. . .
We saw several acres of obviously burned, charred tree trunks. When we asked a ranger, she said there was an unintentional fire back in 2009.
We have been blessed with beautiful weather and today was no exception. We have not had any rain (good for us, probably bad for the farmers) other than one day on the road.
Pictures today are: entrance to park; our first waterfall; Bridalveil Falls; a calmer view of Bridalveil from a distance; the view of the valley; view of the valley without Mike and I obstructing it. El Capitan is on the left and far down on the right is the Half Dome; Yosemite Falls, one of the world’s tallest waterfalls; the Half Dome; Mike taking a picture of a waterfall; El Capitan; the top of a sequoia; me at the base of the sequoia; Mike at the base of a sequoia in which a tunnel was carved for people to walk through.
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