Yosemite National Park
It’s the end of the first week of August and also the end of my second week’s stay in California on an (extended) business trip. Last weekend I was lucky enough to head into San Francisco and hopefully I’ll get a chance to blog about that another time, but today was reserved for a totally different type of activity…a trip to Yosemite National Park.
A three hour road trip each way, it’s a serious investment both in time and petrol, but it definitely is worth it. Yosemite is the star of some of my favorite (The Last of the Mohicans) and not so favourite (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) movies, but even having seen it on the big screen, nothing compares to the immense scale of the park and the various peaks. It was such a vast space, that unfortunately we (my work colleague doesn’t want to be named, so let’s just call him Rick Danger) didn’t get a chance to see all of it but that’s because we made the newbie mistake of hoping out of the car at every view point and also deciding to head off on a 2.6 mile hike before having second thoughts just after half way and turning back.
The first of the peaks you come across is “El Capitan” which is the cliff face that Kirk is climbing at the start of Star Trek V (which Spook flies up in his rocket pack) and across from it is the Bridesveil Falls. The waterfall is only a short walk from the car park and the mist rolling off it was just what was called for on a sweltering day as on the previous day I’d deluded myself into thinking that I’d finally gotten used to the Californian weather.
After getting up close to the falls, Ricky Danger floated the idea of hiking over to El Capitan’s bridge. This sounded like a good idea, but about 40 minutes later we turned back, beaten by the heat and lack of condition. One highlight of that trek included a competition to see who could trick the other into believing that bears were in the woods. The fact that I found a large branch “to aid my walking style” and also started to worry about the empty bar wrapper I had in my pocket probably means that Rick won. After getting back to the car park, I left my trusty bear whacker at the edge of the trail for the next fool hardy traveller to come across.
From there we travelled further into the park to the meadows, where I learned that the Park Rangers manage the grass by burning it. This is also how they manage the forest, so your guess is as good as mine for how they manage the bears and mountain lions :) We found parking near to Yosemite Village, and promptly missed the shuttle bus. Rather than wait for the next one, we decided to head off into the village and have a look around. The village store was well stocked with loads of momento’s but be warned that they are on the pricey side and the little store at the park entrance sells a more limited stock but at 20% to 30% saving. Close to the village store are a number of visitor centres, museums, cafes and art shops as well as a recreated native amaerican village.
We’d again missed the shuttle bus so tried to drive on to the Half Dome, took a wrong turn and ended up being diverted into grid lock. Which leads me on to my next pro tip: take the shuttle bus! The road system is two lanes of a one way system and at the top end of the valley, one lane is reserved for the shuttle buses, so they fly around whilst the cars are stuck bumper to bumper. As the day was drawing to an end, and all we’d eaten was a couple of granola bars, we decided it was best to turn tail and head back to the East Bay area.