Yosemite: Day 1

The past weekend was a long weekend in the US (with the Fourth of July falling on a Saturday, Friday was a public holiday). We headed for Yosemite national park (South-East of Sacramento) on Thursday afternoon. Colin and Janet had borrowed their neighbour's RV (Recreational Vehicle — a monster motor home!) for the trip, as the thought of tent-camping in bear country did not appeal too much! Getting camping sites in Yosemite on the Fourth of July weekend was a non-starter, so we stayed in a camp site just outside the park gates. We left Rocklin on Thursday afternoon, and arrived at the campsite early that evening, in good time to set up camp (relatively easy with the RV) and enjoy a dinner of braaied sausages and salad.

On Friday morning, we tried to get up and going reasonably early, but with with relatively little success! The line of cars waiting to get into the park was a little daunting, but was moving reasonably quickly and we were soon through the gate and enjoying the beautiful scenery of pine forests, dramatic rocky mountains and cliffs, and rushing rivers. The mission for the day was to tackle the hike to Nevada Falls. The round-trip distance was about seven miles (about 12km), but the difficulty lay in the 2000ft (600m) climb (and descent)! There were several geocaches located along the trail, which added to the fun of the hike.

Our route up the trail took us along the Merced River most of the time. The first climb of the day was up the "Mist Trail" alongside the Vernal Falls. The spray from the falls provides a very welcome, cooling mist as you climb up a set of stairs built into the cliff face. At the top we stopped for lunch at the pool above the falls, and got our breath back before the next stage.

From Vernal Falls, there was a short section through some woods, before starting the climb up to the top of Nevada Falls. That was a little more hair-raising than the climb up to Vernal Falls, as the steps were relatively rough rock, with no hand rail. It was also in hot sun most of the time and far enough from the river and falls that there was no cooling mist effect on this climb. The effort was more than worthwhile though, as the view from the top of the falls was amazing and there was a lovely cold, refreshing pool in which to soak our feet before contemplating the descent.

We took an alternative route for the descent, which didn't follow the river as closely, but also took the descent more gradually (the alternative trail is used by horse riders, which pretty well rules out staircases!). It was also well shaded and reasonably cool.

By the time we got back to our parking spot, it was starting to get quite late, so we abandoned our plans to try to get to a scenic sunset spot (a fair distance drive away), and settled for getting some pizza for supper at the "village" near the parking. After dinner, Colin tried fishing for a while in the river, before we headed for the campsite and showers.

While we didn't see any bears, we did see a lot of squirrels and a few deer in the park, but the highlight was without a doubt the spectacular scenery.