Yosemite

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK
June 6 - 20, 1999

Bridal Veil Falls, one of many waterfalls in Yosemite.	Our home along the river at Yosemite Lakes Thousand Trails campground; five miles from the entrance to Yosemite National Park.

	The fishing here was great. Mitch and Max caught twelve to fifteen inch fish almost every day for lunch and dinner.
	Click image for larger version
	Here, the boys enjoy riding horses through the woods

There's really not much to say about Yosemite,
because words just won't describe the experience like being here.

One hike we all enjoyed was to Vernal Falls. The 1 1/4 mile trail, called Mist Trail, rises 1900 feet. The last stretch of the trail is great on a hot day. It's like going for an afternoon walk in Seattle -- but with sunshine. The trial turns into granite steps that go up the side of the falls. By the time we reached the top we look like we were in a wet T-shirt contest.

Click Here to see a panoramic view of East Yosemite Valley (~100kb)
taken from the top of Glacier Point looking at Half Dome, Nevada Falls and Vernal Falls.
Then click here for a panoramic view of El Capitan (~100kb)
During our visit to Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks we ran into problems taking pictures for our web pages. Everything is too big to fit. So out of necessity we now have graphic files as large as El Capitan itself.
Click here if you would like to know how we produce these panoramic results.

There are about 10 rock climbers on the face of El Capitan but they are barely visible to the naked eye. After we find them in the telescope we can watch some of them as they climb. At night we could see their flashlights and lanterns as they prepared to settle in for the night. The record is four hours to climb El Capitan using limited safety gear. Most climbs take three to seven days.

Here's a close-up of Vernal falls. Look to the right of the top of the falls and you can see a few people standing on the granite. The trail goes down on the right side just out of this picture. This picture was also taken from Glacier Point.
Below is a picture of Mist Trail as it goes down along Vernal Falls.

On the way up to Vernal Falls we came across this fellow. Let's see, "red on black", ah, well, let's just give this guy some space.

Here we are on an interpretive walk with Ranger Bob Fry. He talked about how the Indians of Yosemite used to live. Bob has been a Yosemite Ranger for forty years. Here he is mixing some acorn meal into a paste.

We all sample the acorn meal. We also learned one method for making a fire from dried bark and sticks.

We also learned something about llamas while on a walk with our dog Cocoa. This guy has been a local resident of the area just outside of the park for several years, but lives in the wild.
We found out, (almost the hard way), that llamas are put in with flocks of sheep to protect them from wolves and coyotes. The reason is that they naturally hate, chase down, and trample dog-type animals. (Although they will approach and sniff the nose of a house cat).

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Here's a close-up of Vernal falls. Look to the right of the top of the falls and you can see a few people standing on the granite. The trail goes down on the right side just out of this picture. This picture was also taken from Glacier Point. Below is a picture of Mist Trail as it goes down along Vernal Falls.