Yosemite is just amazing! It is 2.5-3 hrs drive from the bay. The weather is much colder than at the ocean, the mountains are beautiful. The wildlife cannot be compared to the one in Europe. I did hike in the Tatra and Alps but apart from seeing birds or squirrels I didn't meet any wild animal there. Here the first evening a coyote was crossing the road in front of the car looking at us as intruders. He didn't really mind the car and took his time to cross the road. 2 days later when we wanted to do a short 2 miles long hike we had to stop right at the beginning because a huge North-American brown bear aka. grizzly bear was crossing the path looking for something to eat.
So yeah, it is very much different, and I just fell in love with the whole place. It fits in the American way of things: everything must look like in a fairy tale. In the suburb grass is perfectly cut, the houses look perfect etc. so is with the national parks here. The Yosemite Valley cannot really be described using words. You need to see it. So many waterfalls and not tiny ones! Huge rocks, green oak and pine trees, white creeks. Breathtaking.
I was quite surprised that even though it was the last weekend in May, so technically it was June, in some places there was at least 1-1.5m thick snow. Even though the weather was not that cold, something between 15-20 centigrade... One day it was snowing quite heavily. It felt like winter really :)
This time we covered the most important things to see, but the next time we go there we'll get out hiking gear and do a couple of hikes in the mountains for sure.
The places we wisited:
- Yosemite Valley: This is the downtown with the information/tourist center, places to eat, souvenir shops and many nice things to see. All you need is to look around :)
- Hetch Hetchy Water Reservoir: The whole SF Bay area gets the drinking water from this project. Public transportation and government buildings in SF are using the electricity generated here.
- Glacier Point: Elevation 2199m, with a 980 tall rock wall straight down to the valley
- Wawona Pioneer History Center: Some buildings from 100-150 years ago showing how people who discovered the area lived back then.
- Mariposa Grove: Home of the Giant Sequoias. 1800-2000 years old pine trees. Did you know, that they need wildfires to regenerate? Their shuck is fire resistant protecting the trees, and smaller plants killed by the fire blocking small Sequoias to grow. With the fire helping them reach the sun Park Management now sets part of the forest on fire on a regular basis. They just discovered this recently realizing that with preventing wildfires these trees started to disappear. Crazy.
Some pictures I took:
The same pictures placed on a map
Our route track for the long weekend
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