The weekend following our Desolation Wilderness trip we took the opportunity to go somewhere that we've always wanted to go, Yosemite! Being a climber, naturally, I've always wanted to go to Yosemite. By any climber's standards it is an ueber-Mecca. Despite the multitude of rock this trip was to be, however, a trip to see the sites. Holly and I had three days, and with three days one can barely scratch the surface of a park as varied and beautiful as Yosemite. We stayed at Tuolumne Meadows campground, which is closest to the eastern entrance of the park near Tioga Pass. Despite staying at Tuolumne we spent most of our time down in the Valley. One thing about Yosemite is that probably every tourist who goes there has already seen countless images of the place. So you'd think that the seeing that many images would detract from the whole experience. On this note, I'd have to strongly disagree. Driving into Yosemite that first night was nothing short of amazing, and it is little wonder that people like Muir and Adams devoted their lives to documenting and saving this sacred place. The first evening we arrived just in time to see the sites of Yosemite Valley.
The second day we decided to go on a hike. We picked a trail that started at Olmsted Point just down from Tenaya Lake and descended down into the valley. We figured that this was sort of the ultimate trail where we could enjoy the best of both the high country and the valley. As it turned out the trail was absolutely spectacular with straight-on views of Half Dome. However, the moment it reached the edge of Yosemite Valley it dropped down 3,000 feet of switchbacks. We ended up underestimating the rigor of going downhill, which was especially hard on Holly's knees. Trying to hike as fast as we could we just barely missed the bus back to Tuolumne by 10 minutes. Now we were stranded and we needed to get back to our car and campsite. Our only option was to hitchhike so we caught the shuttle to Camp 4 and stuck our thumbs out. It took about half an hour before a car pulled over. Most surprisingly it turned out that that car was a taxi. In a near state of disbelief we walked over to the taxi expecting the taxi driver to charge $100 for the ride, but as it turned out two hikers on the John Muir Trail had bailed out early and had hired the taxi for the day to bring them back to their cars at Tuolumne. We enjoyed the ride back up to the car and gave the backpackers $20 to help cover our part of the trip. The final day we spent looking at the falls and swimming in the Merced River, before leaving the park in the midst if a major rainstorm.
The weekend following our Desolation Wilderness trip we took the opportunity to go somewhere that we've always wanted to go, Yosemite! Being a climber, naturally, I've always wanted to go to Yosemite. By any climber's standards it is an ueber-Mecca. Despite the multitude of rock this trip was to be, however, a trip to see the sites. Holly and I had three days, and with three days one can barely scratch the surface of a park as varied and beautiful as Yosemite. We stayed at Tuolumne Meadows campground, which is closest to the eastern entrance of the park near Tioga Pass. Despite staying at Tuolumne we spent most of our time down in the Valley. One thing about Yosemite is that probably every tourist who goes there has already seen countless images of the place. So you'd think that the seeing that many images would detract from the whole experience. On this note, I'd have to strongly disagree. Driving into Yosemite that first night was nothing short of amazing, and it is little wonder that people like Muir and Adams devoted their lives to documenting and saving this sacred place. The first evening we arrived just in time to see the sites of Yosemite Valley.
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