Yosemite Park/Last day in America
Continuing South in California, we stopped at Ft Bragg and I spent the afternoon climbing on the rocks checking out all the great tidal pools. Despite it being closer to high tide than low tide I still managed to find some crabs, starfish and other unknown sea creatures. Perfect sunny day and loads of fun, I forgot how much I enjoy that stuff.
Yosemite Park.
First day we drove in the South entrance of the park and hiked around an old grove of sequoia trees, which are even bigger than the redwoods. There’s not that many left in this particular forest but that just makes them stand out more on the trail.
Second day, Half Dome. Half Dome is one of the granite peaks in the Yosemite valley, 8800 feet above sea level. We decided to hike it. It’s 15 miles round trip, with 4800ft of elevation gain. The hiking guide describes it as “extremely strenuous” and it doesn’t lie. Mainly it’s steep, with a small level part in the middle, but as you go on it gets steeper and there is less oxygen in the air. Then, when you get above the tree-line it gets even steeper, basically a staircase winding back and forth up the granite face. When you can’t breath anymore you come to a minor summit (where the weenies stop) and are faced with an almost vertical ascent up the final rock face, assisted by cables and boards laid across as steps. Without that assistance, you could very easily fall thousands of feet to your demise. With the assistance, you pull yourself up to the next step, and then gather up the energy to continue.
If/when you reach the summit, the view is stupendous. Mountains in every direction and a 5000ft drop off down to the valley floor all around you. It is one of the best views I’ve ever seen.The whole thing took around 10 hours to get up and down, and I’ve never been that exhausted before.
So in summary, the mountain kicked my ass, but at least I got a great view out of it and the pictures to prove it. The perfect weather in California continued, and I slept very well that night.
As I’m posting this, I’m in San Francisco. Spent the day here checking out the city, walked out on the golden gate bridge, rode the cable car… Cool city, wish I had more than just today to check it out. My flight to Tokyo is tomorrow and I’m just about ready for it. This is the “real” starting point of my trip. As for tonight, I’m relaxing and enjoying some great beers here and savoring people speaking english everywhere.
Next time I post on here it’ll be from Japan….
Tags: Travel, USA
Adam
Yosemite Park… is it open yet? They close this park for winter, don’t they? When I visited the USA this April, we planned to drive from LA to Vegas through Yosemite Park, but it turned out that the park is closed, so we had to drive another way. The next year we’re planning the USA trip national parks only.
Oh it’lll be open now