The brochure on Yosemite they hand you at the entrance gives horrifying yet darkly humorous warnings about bears (“Keep food within arm's reach, in a food locker, a bear-resistant canister, or hard-sided hotel room.”) and mountain lions (“Pick up children so they look larger. Attacks are rare, but if you are attacked, fight back.”) But after a good night's sleep in one of the last remaining rooms in nearby Groveland, we discovered the real danger to us was forest fires. If we hadn't seen the line of fire trucks just outside of town, driven past scorched trees and through billowing smoke, a road-side Smokey Bear was holding up a sign with the hazard level marked “High” each day of our visit there.
Though the popular trails can be teeming, Rich was happy to find that taking a side trail, or indeed, any in the high country quickly thinned crowds to a mere handful. The hike to Sentinel Dome was one such and afforded 360-degree views including some of the park's biggest stars: El Capitán, Lower and Upper Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, and Clouds Rest. Man, this place is awesome! ...and I mean that in the truest sense of the word, or as Eddie Izzard puts it, “1000 hot dogs awesome.” Eavesdropping on a big family, the rock climbers in the bunch were regaling their audience with stories of how long it took to find a free climb route up The Nose of El Capitán – 14 years! Evidently, climbers tackling the 3000-ft granite monolith sleep in bivouac sacks anchored to the rock face and wake every couple of hours in the night to put balm on their fingers in an attempt to regrow the skin. Yikes!
Taft Point is an overlook that requires a measure of courage itself. What may look like narrow cracks in the wide expanse of granite are actually deep fissures you can actually see drop down to the valley floor 3500 ft below. You can walk right up to the edge – although crawling is a much, much safer option - to look over the side, at least until the vertigo gets the better of you. A family of Spaniards – I suppose we were visiting in August – were giving their mother panic attacks with their antics. ¡Hostia!
It is, arguably though, a better view than at Glacier Point, which is where all of the coach buses and RVs seem to empty out. Good spot for people-watching. I saw a Japanese tourist taking dozens of photos with a giant lens, which I know a friend once paid $1000 just to rent, then whip out his iPhone for a selfie. Seriously?! We did get to speak to a retired ranger/fire crew boss about the forest fires, and he also shared his ax to grind about another agency – the U.S. Forest Service, which allows logging and mining on the land it manages.
The Mariposa Grove was closed for restoration so we stopped into the Tuolumne Grove to see the giant sequoias. Related to the coastal redwoods we saw in Muir Woods, these titans are even more impressive. Sequoiadendron giganteum, growing up to 85 m (~279 ft) in height and 8 m (~26 ft) in diameter, is the largest living thing in the world. There was one in the grove with an old picture of someone driving a coach and horses through the gap in the bottom! You can crawl through a tunnel created by the hollowed trunk of another felled giant sequoia. Rich took the opportunity to do a Bran Stark impression engulfed in its gnarled roots.
Though the popular trails can be teeming, Rich was happy to find that taking a side trail, or indeed, any in the high country quickly thinned crowds to a mere handful. The hike to Sentinel Dome was one such and afforded 360-degree views including some of the park's biggest stars: El Capitán, Lower and Upper Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, and Clouds Rest. Man, this place is awesome! ...and I mean that in the truest sense of the word, or as Eddie Izzard puts it, “1000 hot dogs awesome.” Eavesdropping on a big family, the rock climbers in the bunch were regaling their audience with stories of how long it took to find a free climb route up The Nose of El Capitán – 14 years! Evidently, climbers tackling the 3000-ft granite monolith sleep in bivouac sacks anchored to the rock face and wake every couple of hours in the night to put balm on their fingers in an attempt to regrow the skin. Yikes!
Taft Point is an overlook that requires a measure of courage itself. What may look like narrow cracks in the wide expanse of granite are actually deep fissures you can actually see drop down to the valley floor 3500 ft below. You can walk right up to the edge – although crawling is a much, much safer option - to look over the side, at least until the vertigo gets the better of you. A family of Spaniards – I suppose we were visiting in August – were giving their mother panic attacks with their antics. ¡Hostia!
It is, arguably though, a better view than at Glacier Point, which is where all of the coach buses and RVs seem to empty out. Good spot for people-watching. I saw a Japanese tourist taking dozens of photos with a giant lens, which I know a friend once paid $1000 just to rent, then whip out his iPhone for a selfie. Seriously?! We did get to speak to a retired ranger/fire crew boss about the forest fires, and he also shared his ax to grind about another agency – the U.S. Forest Service, which allows logging and mining on the land it manages.
The Mariposa Grove was closed for restoration so we stopped into the Tuolumne Grove to see the giant sequoias. Related to the coastal redwoods we saw in Muir Woods, these titans are even more impressive. Sequoiadendron giganteum, growing up to 85 m (~279 ft) in height and 8 m (~26 ft) in diameter, is the largest living thing in the world. There was one in the grove with an old picture of someone driving a coach and horses through the gap in the bottom! You can crawl through a tunnel created by the hollowed trunk of another felled giant sequoia. Rich took the opportunity to do a Bran Stark impression engulfed in its gnarled roots.
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