Today was day with a few setbacks: I'm trying to sell my surf set and learned that the board I bought second hand for $150,- at the surf shop in Bodega Bay sells brand new for $99 from Costco. Furthermore my camera stopped working :-(. Googling for solutions, warranty and perhaps travel insurance to get it repaired or replaced as quickly as possible. On top of that I've only got three more days of the van, so it's planning for cleanup, return, etc. Stress :-S. On top of that T-mobile has mislead me with their mifi device: they promised me to unlock it after sixty days of use, so that I could use it in Argentina and NL with different providers. I called in yesterday to get that fixed but the tech support guy said that they don't have an unlock possibility on this device... so another issue to get sorted with a big company...
I did get a blog post together yesterday, so please read up on my adventures on Yosemite, while I scramble to get a new camera, and my surf gear sold. A route update:
I did get a blog post together yesterday, so please read up on my adventures on Yosemite, while I scramble to get a new camera, and my surf gear sold. A route update:
After leaving San Francisco there were three more national parks to be seen in this region: Yosemite, King's Canyon and Sequoia. I used the morning of my last day in San Francisco to arrange the last things for my ensuing trip, then returned Remco his keys at his office, and off I went towards Yosemite. Not long after crossing the Bay Bridge the amount of buildings started diminishing and soon I found myself amongst empty country again: except for the roads, these were still a lot fuller than I had become accustomed to. In the distance appeared snow capped mountains: the area where the national parks are. Soon also the road started winding itself up onto the hillsides, into the mountains. Temperatures also dropped, but this I didn't notice until I got out to explore my first camping possibilities.
The plan was to head for a campsite a little further away from the main road, but according to the reviews beautifully located on the shore of a river. I could pay for the national forest's campsite, or do dispersed camping on the road leading to this camping. Sounded pretty neat, so that's where I headed.
When I entered the area there was a nasty surprise: all the forests were burned, dead and black. At the entrance to the national forest was a memorial for a firefighter that died fighting the fire, and an explanation. The fire had been caused by humans, and now the whole area which had been burned was closed for traffic, to avoid igniting all the now dead wood that remained. So, my preffered campsite was closed. There was one campsite that was open, right among the burnt forest. There was no one there, a dump toilet as facilities and it cost $20. I decided to explore a little road that led to a small lake to see if that would be any better. This turned out to be a commercial RV park, with sites starting at $35... on the way to the lake I had spotted a little bare logging area beside the roadside, without any signs on it. With all the campsites not being very attractive I went back to this place to see what it was. This still remains a mystery, it might be a plot that was being developed into a housing site, but for now there was only an empty sign and a nice clear and horizontal area, so I decided to just park the van right there and take the spot. I took some pictures of the burnt forest, but these don't really show the devastation well, so it's just the campsite I can show you, which actually also had a few charred trees as you can see.
With the biorythm that I inherited from Remco I was wide awake at 07:00am the next day. This meant frying a quick egg and being off before a possible workday would start at my campsite. This also allowed me to spend a full day in Yosemite. Of course I wasn't too well prepared, except for knowing that it's a climbers mecca, so the first stop was the visitor center. Here I learned the make up of the area from a nice old lady who was volunteering there. There's a nice meadow area on a separate road to the north, and a road leading up to glacier point which has really nice views. Both these destination were off the beaten track and would already take up to day to reach. The campsite in the area only takes reservations which are released three months ahead and then run out in half an hour or so, so I asked about the possibility for walk-up campsites. The lady actually had her family coming in and was the first one to go onto the back-up list in case of no-shows or cancellations. She went there at 05:30am, so with it now being 11:00am I didn't give myself much chance. Hence I opted to just check the destinations that most tourists visit, and save the others for another time. This meant first visiting curry village and a hike towards the waterfalls there. Depending on the amount of time left I would go hiking near Yosemite fall either the lower or half of the upper track.
What is impressive about entering Yosemite is the huge walls of granite on both sides of the valley. On a few of these are huge waterfalls, dropping from the top of the rock all the way to the bottom. This makes for some pretty impressive sights!
There were a lot of people also checking out these sights (it was weekend and the place is a few hours driving from some huge cities). This meant that parking was arranged quite far from the actual sights and that you could either take a shuttle bus, with a regular (but undependable with regard to waiting time) schedule, or just increase the lenght of your hike a bit. I opted for the latter and started on the hike towards the waterfalls east of Curry village. The hike started out as a climb in a forest, but soon the trees opened up a bit offering great vistas of valleys, rock slopes and waterfalls in the distance. At the first crossing of the creek that was beside the track you could see one of the destinations: the first big waterfall. This was my target, as the second one was too far to reach (I hoped to catch a glimpse of it from the path).
The hike was pretty nice, but near to the waterfall it became really really crowded with people. They all bunched up trying to walk on slippery rock with crappy footwear so I was happy that I could pass a few here and there shortcutting by taking a steeper slope. The reason the place was so slippery was because of the direction of the wind: all the mist from the waterfall landed here, and it was in the shade as well. Soon you became wet, and actually a little cold on the skin as well. My pace kept my heart beating fast though, so I wasn't really cold, and when a hole opened up I increased the pace to get into the sunshine and out amongst the slow people.
The slope to get up to the waterfall was really, really steep, which required pauses every few feet just to regain your breath. It was fun though, and of course it feels very rewarding when you finally make it to the top.
A good place for a little rest and an apple, while soaking up the beautiful surroundings. I had more hikes to do though, and with the next waterfall out of sight I opted to get out of crowd and back on track to the van after taking a few last looks at the place.
Yes it was busy near the waterfall.
The trip down was actually great fun. With my weak knees I really don't like hiking down, especially not when going slow: letting your knees and knee muscles take all of the impulse out of your motion on each step. Instead I opted to run down, which was actually a lot of fun, much less straining on the knees, and also less tiring (but I did have to pause for breath regularly).
Next up: Yosemite falls. The hike to the waterfalls did take me more time then I thought. The lady had said it took her 20 minutes to get to the viewpoint. I don't know which waterfall she went to see, but most definitely not up to the one where I hiked. That took some one and a half hours. This meant that I would not go halfway up the track towards the upper waterfall, but would only hike the lower waterfall trail. This offered great views as well though.
After this short hike it was time to get into the car and head out of the valley, towards Fresno. A quick goodbye to half dome and the surrounding cliffs and off I went.
On the way out I had to stop at a viewpoint ofcourse, but well, it just isn't as good as hiking up close and personal to the cliffs IMHO.
The drive went faster than expected, so instead of heading out of the park directly I also visited the Mariposa Sequoia grove. The size of these trees is really, really incredible.
Walking around amongst these thousand+ year old giants really made me feel very peaceful. I don't know what it is, but there is just this sense of serenity in these groves, knowing that these living beings have been there for more than a thousand years... so incredible. A few deer jumping out of the forest a couple of feet away and walking amongst the trees made the place extra special. Check out the picture below and more on Picasa.
On the way out I went for the national forest campsite I had planned on staying at, but here something quite unique passed: the campsite was actually full. The lady there told me she had just given away the last campsite to another camper. She couldn't really tell me where a good place would be to go roadside camping, but she told me the local shopkeeper down the road would probably know. When I drove up there he was just closing the shutters, but he kindly answered my question. He referred me back to a road I had mentally noted as being a possible camping site, just outside of the park, leading off into the forest. There's a large (ugly) concrete plateau up there, and some antenna. It's probably designed to hold people like me that end up needing a place to stay in between the parks. No problem: a great place stay, so I cooked myself a dinner before sunrise (bear country!), enjoyed it, sorted some pictures and got to bed early. More about the other parks in the next post.
Picasa:
Day 50: towards Yosemite
Day 51: Yosemite
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