Yosemite

Today we did Yosemite. What an awesome place. Driving through with the top down and just looking up the view was amazing. Ranger Bob advised us to go for a short hike up to some water falls, 5 miles that can be done in 7 hours. Pah! said Simon, it’s a short hike, it’ll be easy! How wrong, I have never felt so tired in all my life!! (American miles are longer… 🙂 – Si) The first waterfall – Vernon Falls, although a mere trickle because of the summer, was pretty impressive, and that was from the bottom! From the top, it was just some water falling over the edge, but the view down the cliff made it worthwhile. Well, we’d made it that far, seemed silly not to carry on to the Nevada Falls. By the time we’d reached the bottom of those falls we were low on water, and only had a brownie between us (American size – so pretty much filled the rucksack) but we carried on like the couple of fool hardy souls we are. Everyone we met had proper walking poles,
with that hardened mountaineer look, this hill was only meant to be conquered by the best! Or so we thought, until the top, where there were 5 year old kids being dragged along by their parents… Anyway, in the picture you can see the second waterfall – did i mention that it was 2000ft up!? It was like sitting on top of the world and tempting to sit up there and watch the sun set over the mountain in front of us, however I was very worried about the bears and the fact that they might come out after dark and smell the orange peel that Si had in his backpack so we legged it down the other side of the mountain at a pretty swift trot, all the while looking over our shoulders for bears sneaking up on us. Luckily none were to be seen , although I’m pretty sure I heard one growling / snoring in the bushes next to the path. Bear or not we both trotted a little faster after that. Made it down to the bottom in record time, in the end it took 5 hours – but it
was worth it! (I was right, they over estimated! – Si)
Back at the hotel, I had a bath and Si went out to forage for food, he came back with burgers from Jack in the box, I think he is adjusting to the American lifestyle a bit too well – they were all he could get, honest!! Ah well, think we earned them today. Heading back to Yosemite again tomorrow, hopefully for a more leisurely stroll. Might pop down to Mirror lake – Ranger Bob reckons we might see a bear there and apparently that would be a good thing!!