Yosemite National Park

One of America's Great Natural Wonders






As you enter Yosemite Valley, one of your first treats is to be near the foot of El Capitan





"Glamping" (aka "Glamour Camping") at Curry Village, inside Yosemite National Park.  Platformed, heated, beds (one queen, 2 twins), sheets and blankets.  Curry Village has limited internet access (easily overwhelmed), a market, and a place to eat and even order pizza.  These old bones don't want to do the hard ground anymore.  




That green box you see at the front left of the tent is a "bear locker".  You MUST put ALL food inside that.  It has a latch, so bears cannot get into it but you DO NOT want to have any food of any kind in your tent.  A bear could rip through that tent like we'd go through one-ply toilet paper.  If you are caught with food in your tent you will be cited and fined and ejected from the park.  Every year bears are killed because they exhibit aggressive behavior and that behavior is almost always due to humans teaching them bad habits like leaving food in cars with open windows.  Bears will climb right through a car window, grab the food and scoot.  They may even tear your window right off the door if they can smell food on the other side of it.  Food, btw, also includes Fluffy.  Dogs, and humans too for that matter, are soft and chewy on the outside and crunchy on the inside to bears.  "Food" includes any item with a scent, regardless of packaging. This may include items that you do not consider food, such as canned goods, bottles, drinks, soaps, cosmetics, toiletries, trash, ice chests (even when empty), and unwashed items used for preparing or eating meals.

This is not a picture I took, it is a file photo from Yosemite, but it shows what a bear is willing to do to investigate a scent that has the potential of being food.





Glacier Point is arrived at by taking a circuitous route around the valley.  The views, though, are amazing.  Not much walking either, if you don't want to.  If you look at the map, Glacier Point is just below the tent sign which is itself just below the "Yosemite Valley" marker.  The way to get to Glacier Point, though, is by west, out of the valley and then taking that southern road that takes you up and over the valley.

One of the views, from Glacier Point:




A view from Glacier Point:






Half Dome, the more conventional angle:







Sentinel Dome is on the road to Glacier Point.  It is probably somewhere between Glacier Point and Bridalveil Falls, on the map.  2.2 miles each way from the parking lot.  You actually hike around to the other side of it to go up it.  Going up isn't as bad as it looks, it's relatively short once you are at the foot of it.  Final elevation = 8100'.  The result is an absolutely breathtaking 360 degree panoramic view of Yosemite Valley.







Views from the top of Sentinel Dome:


Yosemite Falls









Yosemite Valley, from the top of Sentinel Dome.  The camera just can't grab the full majesty of it like the way the eyes and mind do.  That is El Capitan on the right side of the pic.





That night, we stayed in Groveland, had a very nice meal of tapas (small dishes) and had a beer in the oldest, continuously operating bar in California, the Iron Door Saloon.  Those are dollar bills hanging from the ceiling.




The next day, we hiked to Wapoma Falls, at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir (northwest part of the park on the map).  It was 2.7 miles one way from the parking lot to the falls.  Beautiful!  Hetch Hetchy provides the water to San Francisco.  It also provides renewable hydroelectric power for the City and to SF hospitals.


Hetch Hetchy





After a magnificent tri-tip steak lunch in Sonora (it had to be half a cow), we headed back to the bay area, but I wasn't done yet.  The night before, I showed my friend the video of my skydive over Lake Taupo in New Zealand, to see how she'd react.  She thought it looked like great fun.  What she didn't know is that I booked us to go to iFly, in Union City, the next afternoon.  She wondered why I headed south instead of north towards SF, but she thought I was just taking an alternative route, to avoid traffic.  Then, I pulled into the parking lot and she got really confused.   Heheheheh.






A very busy few days (Tuesday - Thursday).  It's good to be the king.







bob



.

Great shots, Bob. I particularly like the one of Nevada Falls and Liberty Cap taken from Glacier Point. The water flow for the falls looks pretty good now, but it will be a far different story at the end of summer.

Another interesting spot off the trail to Sentinel Dome is Taft Point. It's an easy hike and gets to yet more spectacular views of the valley.

We've always been in the campgrounds, and I've never stayed at the tent cabins in Curry Village. I think they redid them in recent years after some were taken out due to rockfall and the old ones were found to harbor mice in the walls when there were a few cases of hantavirus. The new ones are probably quite nice.

Thanks for the photos. I know the park really, really well, and it's always a pleasure to see it. It's a national treasure -- international, really, since there are always tons of visitors from other countries.

With the warm weather, you wouldn't have had a chance to see this, but here's a video about an interesting phenomenon known as frazil ice that usually happens in March and April, born when the mist from the waterfalls freezes and consolidates in the streams below.

Great shots, Bob. Glad you both had such a good time. Indelible memories, huh?

Sam