Chasing Waterfalls

Coming in from Death Valley, we got a little preview of Yosemite since driving through the park was the only way to get to our hotel. It was evening when we entered, still light out but late enough that the sun was no longer beating down making more heat, which was a nice relief from the swelter of Death Valley. Right away we opened the windows and could feel the cool crispness of the mountain air, and we drove by some of the clearest water you have ever seen. Although Yosemite is actually a smaller park compared to some of the others, it took us quite a while to drive all the way through it, but we were able to enjoy seeing parts of the park that we had not planned to explore, so it was a nice treat. As we came towards the other side of the park, we came around a bend and saw a spectacular waterfall. Luckily, this was on our list of things to do in the park, so we were able to continue on to our hotel safe in the knowledge that we wouldn't miss anything.

When we returned to the park the next day, it was unfortunately prime visiting hours (unlike when we had driven through the evening before) so we had to deal with crowds, traffic, and a significant lack of parking, but we were still able to do everything we wanted. We centered or tour around Yosemite Valley, a small section in the southern end of the park in the valley of the surrounding mountains. On our slow drive in we saw the same waterfall from the day before (again to be revisited later), and a unique rock formation called half dome, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Imagine a mountain that has a dome shape at the top, now imagine that someone has taken a knife and sliced right down the middle of the dome. There you have half dome. If you're still having trouble picturing it, just google image it and you'll see what I mean.

After lucking into a coveted parking spot, and a brief trip to the surprisingly hard to find visitor center, we then hiked a short trail to the base of another waterfall. While it was beautiful to see, if I were ever to come back here again I would make sure to be prepared with a bathing suit and towel, as there were tons of people who climbed down the rocks and were splashing around in the clear rocky stream that flowed away from the fall. And on such a hot day, it was extremely inviting and difficult to resist! Nevertheless, we moved on to another waterfall, the one we had already driven by twice. But this time, we were able to park and hike another short trail to the base of this waterfall as well. Here we were much closer to the waterfall, and you could see how the water flowed over the top of the mountain and then became foamy and soft until it almost seemed to disappear. And this time we were so close that we could feel the spray on our faces as the gentle breeze lifted some water away from the rocks.

On our way out of the park, we stopped by a grove of Sequoia trees. At an average of 250 feet tall, they are not the tallest trees, but they are wider than any other tree even nearing their height, making them overall the largest. I knew they were going to be big, but I could not imagine just how big. Even the pine cones are huge, almost equalling the size of a football! It's enough to make you feel practically Lilliputian in size.

states driven through: 20

states visited: 13