yosemite

this morning we woke up in dublin, ca, just to the east of oakland, and headed east. after a breakfast at ihop. and do i mean east! luckily we were able to stop at a roadside stand in the san joachim valley to buy some delicious blueberries and cherries to fortify us. taking a number of highways, because apparently californians do not believe in east/west roads, we finally made the approach up to yosemite national park. while it was not nearly as bad as yesterday or the day before, this road was literally switchback after switchback as we gained 7000 feet in elevation in practically no time at all. thankfully, we did make it safely to the park. and for the record the entire way there, until we were almost on top of the park, the scenery was much like the picture above, although usually without the lake. i think this lake (name unknown) was caused by a dam, simply because it looks so surreal and out of place in this particular spot. there were a lot of people out on it and for good reason--it was getting above 90 degrees.
the first place we went in yosemite was to the eponymously named village by the falls. of course, this was also where the most pedestrian and auto congestion was. anyway, we stopped for a while to see the falls, taking the picture from a ways away to get most of it in the pic. this waterfall is the highest in north america, falling over 2400 feet. it does do it in two legs--this picture really only captures the top half. i then proceeded to walk to the bottom of the lower falls and climbed some limestone boulders until i was spitting distance from the falls. i sat there for quite a while, until i was practically drenched and freezing to boot, and decided that i didn't want to catch pneumonia.

by the time we were finished looking at the falls it was getting towards late afternoon, and we knew that we still had a two hour drive through the park before reaching our destination: a little town called lee vining on the east side of the park. thankfully, this drive was not particularly twisty, and it was actually quite enjoyable. we saw some more snow, and also such funny things as this icy sign by the side of the road--this being the very end of june. of course, much of the park is between 8000 and 10000 feet, so that helps to explain this phenomenon. at least the roads were open. we also got to take pictures of our first up close giant sequoia tree, which is kind of like a cousin of the coastal redwoods we saw yesterday, and have many characteristics in common. of course, these are not the biggest--those would be in sequoia national monument--and not as big as the redwoods either. nonetheless, they were still impressive.


our next stop on the tioga road through the park, much of which looked like the picture at the bottom of this post, was out olmstead point, where we had fantastic views of the second thing the park is known for--its granite faces. about 8 or so of them are famous enough to be landmarks, including the most famous--el capitan and halfdome. it was fun to get to see so much of it. it's really quite strange: there are these trees which literally seem to be growing out of giant rocks. of course, these rocks weren't always like this. they have been smoothed by both water and glaciers, making many of them easily hikeable today, as you can see.

by the time we left the park, and then the forest around the park, and got to lee vining, it was past 7, and we stopped at a place called nicely's for dinner. then it was on to our bed and breakfast, a nice place called the hess house, just off of main street in lee vining. i'm actually kind of excited to see more of what is immediately around here--its only 6000 feet, so it is certainly warmer, but there is also some sort of strange lake, probably volcanic. tune in tomorrow for more details.