Western Adventure Part III

After we viewed the Yosemite Valley from the floor and from the vantage points. We strapped on our boots to get up close and personal with two of the largest and most famous falls in the park: Nevada and Vernal. It is about a five mile hike up to them. This year of course (see record snowfall in earlier blog) getting close to them meant YOU ARE GETTING SOAKED. The Mist Trail follows the Merced River, starting at Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley, past Vernal Fall, viewing the Emerald Pool (it is really a gorgeous Emerald sliding rock area), to Nevada Fall.
Merced river rushes down from the High Sierras, and ends on the floor of Yosemite valley. It was a fun hike that made me squeal as we ventured up very tiny, steep, scarily slick mountainsides to reach the top. We has a mountain top picnic, I put my feet in the water and we enjoyed some sun and then headed back down for a nice dinner of salmon and sweet potato fries!

The rainbows at the falls are amazing!

After we left the National Park we headed North to the High Sierras. There were still folks up there in Sonora county snow-boarding and snowmobiling in June! We got our first hotel: The Christmas Tree Inn. This is a cool place for us to land randomly (there were hardly any hotels with rooms we found) because our first year of marriage The Christmas Tree Inn in Aspen, CO, was the only place to stay when we landed there to snow ski! I thought that was pretty neat.

We got some breathtaking views of the Sierras along our way all the way from the High Sierras to the Mojave Desert in CA. My favorite parts of the journey were seeing Alpine Lakes again and of course, the Aspens. I have pics of me kissing Aspen trees, but I left that one out! I love those things. Aspens in the fall have to be the most marvelous trees in the world. Now, I thought the giant Sequoias were cool, but after being in CO and our memories there Aspens are my favorites. We saw some gorgeous lakes up there: June Lake, Silver Lake, Mammoth Lakes and Mono Lake to name a few that are pictured. The best part of it really was that this portion of our adventure was completely unplanned! We ended up in some cool places just stopping and talking to rangers at ranger stations.

Psalm 50:10 -for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I just kept thinking of this scripture each time I saw this view! This shot of the cattle in the valley is one of J's favorite memories. I have to say, there is something about cattle that is peaceful especially in a scene like this.

You can see a dream cabin I'd like to fix up in these pics...Mt. Whitney just behind it.

Mount Whitney is the highest summit in the contiguous United States with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m).[1] It is located at the boundary between California's Inyo and Tulare counties, just 84.6 miles (136.2 km) west-northwest of the lowest point in North America at Badwater in Death Valley National Park (282 feet (86 m) below sea level).[5] The western slope of the mountain lies within Sequoia National Park and the summit is the southern terminus of the John Muir Trail which runs 211.9 miles (341.0 km) from Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley (where the Mist Trail is). We spent a night at the portal to Mt. Whitney. The campground we stayed in is like a base camp where hikers adjust to the elevation and prepare to summit the mountain in the coming days.

I so enjoyed these panoramas and not cooking or cleaning or wiping anyone for a week. I enjoyed our time of uninterrupted conversation and exploring California together. The 10 year mark is a great time to go on an adventure!

Wild Western Adventure Pt. II

Hetch Hetchy and Bear Encounters

"Hetch Hetchy is a grand landscape garden, one of nature's rarest and most precious mountain temples. As in Yosemite, the sublime rocks of its walls seem to glow with life . . . while birds, bees, and butterflies help the river and waterfalls to stir all the air into music. . . . These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar. . . . Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man." John Muir, "The Yosemite," Century, 1912, pp. 249-62.

John Muir lost his fight, but this place is still gorgeous as a 300ft. deep reservoir Lake for the city of San Francisco's water supply, even though the city is 187 miles away. The pristine water here flows downhill all the way there with nothing but gravity to help it along. There are conservationist working still today to take this water supply away from the city, but it is literally going to take "an act of Congress."

We went to Wapama Falls while we were there. It was like being at the bottom of a ride at Six Flags where you stand on the bridge to get soaked...except, at the bridges over this fall it was a constant soaking of water and there were no dirty strangers around screaming!

One "extra" that really struck me was that at the bottom of a few falls that we saw we could usually find a rainbow in the mist.

On our way to the falls we hiked through a tunnel that was used when the engineers build the railroad and a rail engine strong enough to haul their material to HH to construct the monstrous dam and spillway that is at the end of the lake now.

The Bears--this is the first of five bears that we met! We saw 5 black bears (but some were cinnamon and scraggly looking). Even though a Grizzly is on CA's state flag, they have not seen any there since 1922! The mom and cubs we saw in Sequoia National Park will be in another post. Still, the Black Bear in these shots was HUGE...the largest one we've seen to date! I thought that you might think the bear board found when you register in the campground (how comforting!) interesting. I thought that you might think the bear board found when you register in the campground (how comforting!) interesting. The park keeps track of bear encounters and the monetary damage they cause. They also put up signs on the road where a bear has been recently hit by a vehicle. Unfortunately, one appeared while we were visiting. They have pictures posted all over the park offices/visiting centers of where bears have literally torn through the door frames and windows of cars in one swipe. There was only one night that I did not pay the 20 bucks to sleep in an official campground where I could lock my food up in a bear box. In another post, I will talk more about bear boxes and "campgrounds". Now, keep in mind that b/c all of the snow the park really just "opened" recently to the public!

2011 Wild Western Adventure!

J and I love the WEST! I think that parts of my soul will always be left out there. The first American Dreamers really did have a point when they were allured by myth, adventure, freedom, views, and stories of the Wild West and the excitement that could be found there! We experience that feeling of freedom, anticipation, relaxation, commune with God and each other, every time we get out there. It is going to take a series of posts for me to every get through half of the 340 pics that I took (don't worry, I won't bore you with them all). Still, I want to record out trip for our future remembrances so bear with me! Yosemite, though still not my favorite National Park (Yellowstone and the Tetons as well as Rocky Mtn will always hold that special place) was a place of the most stunning and outlandish vistas I've ever experienced. California is just the coolest state possibly out of them all. We traveled a large portion (over 1k miles) of the Sierra Nevadas (so we didn't stay in the park the whole time) in six days and what I saw was remarkable and so varied. Dessert (the Mojave), fruit groves, rugged wilderness, salt water lakes with rare shrimp, ghost/gold-mining towns steeping with history, alpine pristine lakes, oil drilling, wind farms, cattle up against backdrops that left us speechless, sheep-herding like the old days, wildlife (yes, 5 bears in six days), three national parks within 4 hours, deep canyons (deeper than the Grand Canyon), the world's largest and tallest trees, fresh fruits/veggies abound, amazing outdoorsy folks who love to recycle and eat organic and exercise, and raging rivers! I know folks say that the Amazon river rages (I haven't seen that) but I did see rivers raging on this trip. They are accustomed to 190 inches of snow and they had 340 inches of snow! So, you can imagine that the rivers are over capacity (and occasionally scary) and the waterfalls would soak anyone within a mile radius (more on that later). There were even spontaneous waterfalls all over the rocks and canyons that are not normally there! The downside is that the park is expected to close the valley for flooding this next week--WOW--that was close.

( In case you wonder why it is the way it is--A long time ago, granite formed deep underground. The range started to uplift

4 million years ago, and erosion by glaciers exposed the granite and formed the mountains and cliffs that make up the range. The uplift caused a wide range of elevations and climates in the Sierra.)


The shots of the trees! Aaahhh...it is so peaceful to be among them esp. in the late evening when we were there and the deer were grazing around! It is amazing to think about trees that existed before Christ came.
(http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/mg.htm)
The Mariposa Grove, near Yosemite's South Entrance, contains about 500 mature giant sequoias. Although the oldest giant sequoias may exceed 3,000 years in age, some living specimens of the ancient bristlecone pine (found in the mountains east of Yosemite and at Great Basin National Park in Nevada, among other places) are more than 4,600 years old.
Our pics are of the --
The Grizzly Giant
Diameter at base: 34 feet (10 meters)
Circumference at base: 96 feet (29 meters)
Height: 209 feet (63 meters)
Elevation: 5,700 feet (1,735 meters)
Bark Thickness: 2 feet (61 cm)
Born: 700 B.C.E. (estimated)
You can tell that some of limbs on the tree are bigger than any trees we have around the south!

Perhaps you’ve seen this tree before—in the famous 1899 photograph of U. S Cavalry officers on their horses lined up on top! Also, the Buffalo Soldiers took their photo here.

A couple of the shots are of us at the famed Tunnel View in Yosemite. Tunnel View scenic overlook is a historic site, located adjacent to Wawona Road, with expansive views of Yosemite Valley, El Capitan, Bridalveil Falls, and Half Dome.

Some of the pics are views from Washburn Point. In it you can see Half Dome (the cables were not up to climb it for this year), Nevada and Vernal Falls, and a good spread of Yosemite National Park. These scenes are just TOO big to fit in a camera and I don't really know what I am doing but still they were amazing!

Some of the pics are from Glacier Point: elev 8,000 feet.

Some of the pics are us atop Sentinel Dome! We had to hike through some snow (yes still snow in high elevations there in late June). You can see me going up and then it feels like you arrive and are on top of the world! Mr. Marmot was even there to greet me on my arrival. He stood there for a long time admiring El Capitan while I took his picture! Looking west,we saw down Yosemite Valley and beyond to the Merced River canyon and all the way to Mt. Diablo in the coastal range. To the north we saw Yosemite Valley, including El Capitan and Yosemite Falls.
To the east, we saw Nevada Fall (which we later hike to), Half Dome and Clouds Rest, and an assortment of High Sierra peaks.