Park 47: Yosemite National Park - Day 1

7/11/14. This morning the three of us (Catherine, Jason, Muriel) hit the road in the trusty Subaru Baja and headed north on the I5 over the mountains. We traveled through all the farmland and stopped at the Bravo Farms country store for a break and to soak up some local color!

We made our way to Yosemite by 3:00 or so and headed up the southern entrance. We stopped first at the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees to see the sequoia. This, of course, looked just like Sequoia National Park, and it was a real delight.

Next we headed to the Wawona Visitor's Center and got our passport stamped. The ranger was very helpful - as always - in planning our visit, and we headed up to Glacier Point. We were stunned at how beautiful the view was. We had high hopes for Yosemite being amazing and this was even more awesome than we could have imagined.

Photos and videos of Yosemite do not give you a sense of the incredible size and scale of everything. Huge peaks, huge rock walls, huge trees, huge waterfalls, huge views. We could hardly process how incredible it was. We stopped at Washburn Point on the way up and, like the other tourists, climbed out on a high rock for photos and better views. It was a blast! Then we made it up to Glacier point early evening with the sun low in the sky. The shadows gave a terrific contrast and made it look like Ansel Adams photos. The clarity of everything is heightened by the dry, thin air. It looked like HD.

Next we stopped at Bridalveil Creek and we hiked a short way to the falls, which were dry at this time of year. Jason enjoyed climbing on the rocks and we had beautiful views of the surrounding cliffs.

At the end of the evening, we drove back down the mountains, stopping along the way for more amazing views of El Capitan and the valley. We left the park through El Portal and drove on 140 to the Cedar Lodge where we are staying. We stayed up for a while working on a puzzle and trying to use the very slow Internet. There's no phone service at all, so it was weird to not be able to communicate with friends and family. As always when visiting parks, we fell asleep from exhaustion. Tomorrow we visit Yosemite Valley.