Yosemite Park

After visting a dozen or so Oregon state parks over the first 7 weeks of our stay in the states, today we finally got to see one of the big guns - a national park! A mere four hours (!!) away from San Francisco was Yosemite National Park (pronounced Yo-Sem-It-Ee) and we were determined to see as much of it as time would allow.

We were up at 5am so that Andrea could do a track session at a nearby high school before it opened at 8am. It went well and we then came back and rushed to get ready so we could hit the road as early as possible. It was a long drive and with only my rough drawn map we managed to get to the park perimeter with only one 20 minute detour.

Our primary destination was the Yosemite Valley, which is the main tourist center, mainly because of the incredible views of the many waterfalls and surrounding cliff faces. There are also many trails and walks that hikers may take up to the fall heads and in the valley itself there were many families on bikes and the odd jogger making the most of the miles of paths.

On driving into the park we were immediately struck by some of the magnificent views of the valley. There were some convenient stopping places, so rather than driving off the road trying to crane my neck to have a look, we were able to stop and get a proper peak.


Messing about


Looking across the valley

After 4-5 photo stops we eventually reached the valley basin and headed for the trail leading to Nevada Falls. The previous evening we had been advised to take a look at them by some of Doug’s friends. However, we found that a few of the trails were closed off, so what should have been a 5mile round trip, would have turned into a 10-12 mile trip. On our tired legs we decided to give it a miss, but still managed to get some more great views of Vernal Falls and the other side of the valley (to what we had seen on the way in) at the cliff top.


Yosemite Falls



On our way home we stopped by a Sequoia grove. A Sequoia tree being the most massive living entity on the planet. Andrea was really tired from having done two runs and already walking half-way up a mountain at altitude so I decided to go it alone. It was getting dark and it was meant to be a 3mile round trip, so inevitably I decided to run it. Having not run for a couple of months, running on 2feet of snow and at 5000ft altitude wasn’t the easiest. Especially on the way back which was all up hill!! After forty minutes I returned, very tired and hot. Luckily nobody saw me stripped to my underwear as I ran back up the hill towards the car. I did say I got hot didn’t I!!


Sequoia Tree

We eventually arrived back at our motel at 11pm. A very long day, but totally worth it. We’re looking forward to our next national parks now!!