ca trip: yosemite and coast
Back from CA trip to the coast and Yosemite. VERY awesome places -- very overwhelming! The whole place is like a movie set. The scale of everything is so much larger than on the east coast.
The weather was ideal when we were in Yosemite... we even got sunburned! Hiked all around the park and saw many beautiful waterfalls and vistas. (I'm sure the photos will be stunning and yet far too many!) We climbed the approach to El Cap and even scrambled up onto the very initial rock formation where the climbers start their trek up The Nose. We saw a rattlesnake (some birds pointed him out to us, actually!) and two coral king snakes (non-poisonous) while back there. It was a very neat view -- just the approach brings you up a good height. We became pretty obsessed with the guys climbing El Capitan. We watched on and off for 4 days, named the teams/kept track of them, and saw a 2-man team summit. While we were seeing the redwoods for half a day we "missed" the helicopter rescue of a hurt climber. Later that same day two people were repelling down and lost their gear bags -- for a LONG time (40+ min), we (and even the climbers we were hanging out with) thought that we'd witnessed a person fall from the wall, but, thankfully we located the 'missing' climber and got news from the foot of El Cap that it was just gear that fell.
I wasn't all that impressed with the redwoods at the park -- or more to the point, the area where they were seemed like the most touristy and over-run part of the park. The trees themselves were beautiful. Unlike other areas though, you couldn't just go off the path (because that's damaging to the trees) and get away from people, so we bailed early despite the long drive to see them. We may have given up too early, but, the people were making us nuts.
The waterfalls were in full force right now... very spectacular. They are unbelievably tall. SS climbed to the top of one of the smaller ones and came back with a sort of "ghost story" feeling from it. When we later read that an Indian maiden was supposed to have gone over that particular falls and since then has left visitors with an odd sense of foreboding if they dared approach the top we got that 'spooky' feeling all over again. We spent a long time hanging out by that falls and swimming (well SS swam--too cold for me!) in the river. There was an awesome cave there too that you could just imagine a primitive family living in.
One of the absolutely coolest things that we did the whole trip was lay out in the valley meadow and look at the stars, while the lights of the guys on the wall winked and twinkled. We also saw shooting stars and satellites pass overhead. It was the new moon, so the sky was especially dark and star-filled.
After Yosemite we went to the coast and had a whole new type of beauty to be overwhelmed by. Coastal ranges, the sea, flowers blooming everywhere in the seemingly dry landscape. Even an art show to ogle in Carmel. Too much to do it justice or not ramble on and on and on...
The weather was ideal when we were in Yosemite... we even got sunburned! Hiked all around the park and saw many beautiful waterfalls and vistas. (I'm sure the photos will be stunning and yet far too many!) We climbed the approach to El Cap and even scrambled up onto the very initial rock formation where the climbers start their trek up The Nose. We saw a rattlesnake (some birds pointed him out to us, actually!) and two coral king snakes (non-poisonous) while back there. It was a very neat view -- just the approach brings you up a good height. We became pretty obsessed with the guys climbing El Capitan. We watched on and off for 4 days, named the teams/kept track of them, and saw a 2-man team summit. While we were seeing the redwoods for half a day we "missed" the helicopter rescue of a hurt climber. Later that same day two people were repelling down and lost their gear bags -- for a LONG time (40+ min), we (and even the climbers we were hanging out with) thought that we'd witnessed a person fall from the wall, but, thankfully we located the 'missing' climber and got news from the foot of El Cap that it was just gear that fell.
I wasn't all that impressed with the redwoods at the park -- or more to the point, the area where they were seemed like the most touristy and over-run part of the park. The trees themselves were beautiful. Unlike other areas though, you couldn't just go off the path (because that's damaging to the trees) and get away from people, so we bailed early despite the long drive to see them. We may have given up too early, but, the people were making us nuts.
The waterfalls were in full force right now... very spectacular. They are unbelievably tall. SS climbed to the top of one of the smaller ones and came back with a sort of "ghost story" feeling from it. When we later read that an Indian maiden was supposed to have gone over that particular falls and since then has left visitors with an odd sense of foreboding if they dared approach the top we got that 'spooky' feeling all over again. We spent a long time hanging out by that falls and swimming (well SS swam--too cold for me!) in the river. There was an awesome cave there too that you could just imagine a primitive family living in.
One of the absolutely coolest things that we did the whole trip was lay out in the valley meadow and look at the stars, while the lights of the guys on the wall winked and twinkled. We also saw shooting stars and satellites pass overhead. It was the new moon, so the sky was especially dark and star-filled.
After Yosemite we went to the coast and had a whole new type of beauty to be overwhelmed by. Coastal ranges, the sea, flowers blooming everywhere in the seemingly dry landscape. Even an art show to ogle in Carmel. Too much to do it justice or not ramble on and on and on...