Yosemite National Park trip

Different views of Yosemite falls

It is time I wrote the full details of our Yosemite trip, Shubha and I went last weekend (July 22nd, 23rd 2006).

We were not sure till Friday evening where we wanted to go, whether it was Lake Tahoe or Yosemite. We looked at the weather reports and decided Yosemite as it was suppose to be cooler during theweekend. How wrong were we about it. You can read about how wrong we were during the course of this write up. :-)

So, Yosemite it was - during the July 22nd 23rd weekend. We were again not sure if we want to go for only 1 day or both the days, finally decided for 2 days we were going all the way of 200 miles, might as well stay for 2 days, see everything and come back. Friday night, I went over some websites via google and got all the basic information I needed as to what are the "must see" and "must do" stuff in Yosemite. You can see those links at the bottom of this write-up.

I also booked a hotel in Mariposa, which is about 40 miles from the main Yosemite valley area, as there were no lodging available within the National Park. This was another mistake I did (booking accommodation in Mariposa), which I will explain later.

I had booked a car from dollar car rental from Friday morning to Monday morning, so car was not an issue. Sat morning, we set off from home around 8.20 am in the morning, wanted to leave by around 7am, but since I slept late looking around for lodging, we left around 8.20am. It was an uneventful drive, via I 280, I880, I680, I 580, I 205, I5 CA 99, CA 120. We stopped around 10.30 at Oakdale to pick up Subway sandwiches for lunch, then went full speed till we reached the entrance of the park. There we were held up for nearly 30 mins due to huge trafficnear the entrance.

Finally, we were in the park by 1 pm, we stopped at the junction of CA 120 and CA 140 for sometime, to get the first view of the Yosemite valley and the Merced river. We could view the Bridal veil fallsfrom a distance and it was a enchanting site.

Now to the mistakes I made.

The temperature was super hot and we felt it throughout both the days, but did not realize how hot it was till I saw the weather reports later in the day - the temperature had reached 112 F which isapproximately 44 C, which I have never experienced before. So much for the previous weatherreports which indicated it will cooler in Yosemite, than in the bay area. Never trust these weather channels or the weather reporting websites.112 F is burning hot...we had a tough time trying to cool ourselves, we did drink lots of water, but112 F was too much.
Then the other one was CA 140 highway was closed due a landslide and the place where we had bookedour lodging was 40 miles from Yosemite via CA 140, but 70 miles via CA 41. So, we had no choice, but to go 70 miles each way to reach the lodging place in the night and come back on Sunday morning.

Well !!! - can't help it, some more driving miles and more driving experience.

It was 2 pm when we reached the park, we managed to find a parking space, immediately went to the visitor center, checkedthe timings of the "2 hour Valley ride in a trolley". It was at 3pm, we took the tickets and went over there from the parking lot to the Yosemite Lodge area via a shuttle bus.( where the trip starts). We had apples quickly and got into the trolley trip. The trip was a nice ride around the valley, the tour guide was well aware of the history of the placeand gave good details of all places we went. We stopped at the El Captian peak, the Half Dome peak, the Bridal veil falls, the Merced river,the Yosemite falls. It was an entertaining ride. But the heat was unbearable as it was nearly 110 F even at 5pm. We finished this tour by 5pm, tooklots of photos along the way. We then decided to have our sandwiches and some more apples. We ate this around 5.30 and then went to see the Yosemite falls. It was a breathtaking site to seethe water falling from such a huge height. It has been separated into lower Yosemite and upper Yosemite falls. We went right under where the water was falling, got to feel the spray.

Then - it was time to go back to the visitor's center to figure out a way to reach Mariposa asthe usual route to it was closed due to a landslide. The lady there was helpful in telling us the exact way to reach Mariposa, it was an extra 30 miles, but we had to do it. We left around 7 pm and hoped to reach around 9.30. The drive again was uneventful, went in CA 41, thenCA 99 and managed to reach safely around 9.15. We found the hotel ( Mariposa Lodge) immediatelywithout any issues. We got a good room with King size bed. We freshened up, thenwent out for a walk, went to Burger King, picked up Milkshakes and Onion Rings, ate it along withthe subway Sandwiches. We decided we will get up early and leave, but it was not to be....

Sunday July 23rd

We got up around 7am, got ready and left around 8.45, filled the gas tank full, then left to Yosemite, via Oakhurst. On the way picked up Burritos at TacoBell, drove at full speed to reach Yosemite Park entrance. Before that on the way, we saw a place, calledYosemite Mountain Sugar Pine which had a train ride. It was an old rail track which used to transport logs from the Yosemitemountains to the valley below. But they did have rides into the forests to tell you about thehistory of that place, we decided to skip it as we had a similar experience in Felton (steamtrain into the Redwood Forest). Not many folks are aware of this and would suggest this if anyonewants to have a different experience.

Photo : Inside one of trees in mariposa grove

Then we entered the park and had decided previous day evening itself, we will go to Mariposa Groves. It is home to some of the world's tallest trees - and is worth a visit. Again - we did not see many folks out here compared to the Yosemite valley area. I suppose most of the them come to the Yosemite valley area and then do not come south towards thisarea. But, this is really worth visiting. It has this huge Sequoia trees which are all taller than 250 ft and having huge tree base.There are three famous trees inside this Mariposa groves.

We decided we will hike on our own into the Mariposa grove forest rather than take the trolley tour. It was a 2.5 mile trek each way with an elevation of 1000+ ft as we moved form 5600 ft to 6650 ft.

It was a good trek of 5 miles in total with 1000 ft elevation and of course the temperature was 110 F.:-)Shubha was always ahead of me and seemed keen to finish it ahead of me. We covered the Grizzly Giant tree, then the California Tunnel Tree and went all the way upto to the Fallen Wawona Tunnel Tree. The Grizzly Giant tree is one of the largest and oldest trees in the Mariposa grove with an estimated age of 2000 yrs. Coming to Tunnel tree, it has a huge tunnel at the base of the tree (tunnel was made in 1895)to allow stage coaches to pass through it. Similarly the Fallen Wawona Tunnel tree had a tunnel and many many cars have passed under it, but fell down in 1969 due to excess snow.

http://yosemiteexplorer.com/mariposa-grove
This above link will give an idea about the trees.

Photo : View from the Glacier point

We managed to reach the top of the trail by around 1pm, taking lots of photos on the way. The hikewas good, but it was really hot. We came down quickly and reached Wawona via shuttle bus where we had our car parkedfor some much needed water and food. We had choco bar icecream. then decided to drive to Glacier Point. We did again stop at 2-3 vista points and got some photos. The view from the Glacier point is too awesome and cannot be described, only photos can explain the beauty of that place. We were there for about 1 hour and clicked all kinds of photos and videos. We decided to leave around 5.45 and drove back to the valley, then left the valley around 6.45pm. We stopped once on the way at Oakdale for some Milkshake, then was back home by 11pm. We had a good time and the whole trip was well worth it.

Yosemite national park rocks....

Refer these links for more information and for planning your trip.

http://www.nps.gov/yose/trip/todo.htm
http://www.yosemite.national-park.com/
http://jrabold.net/yosemite/faqs.htm