Yosemite National Park
What can I say about Yosemite, where do I start? Everywhere I looked was just breath taking and so beautiful - the trees, the mountains, the animals, the sky. Even with the worst camera you just could not go wrong though any pictures would not do justice to what you see in real life. It felt like I was being in one of Apple's Mac desktop wallpaper, except that it was a gigantic 360 degrees one and it was real.
I joined an overnight group tour with Incredible Adventures (there are other tour companies too) because I didn't want to go through the hassle of arranging everything myself since I was in the USA only for such a short trip. It was the right decision to stay overnight, we took our time and didn't have to be in such a rush. For me the intensity of the walks / hikes is just right - I'm not super adventurous nor so fit. We walked a lot, like A LOT. It was a good work out of around 2-3 hours each walking trail, but it was all well worth it. I definitely felt great afterwards and saw some of the most amazing views I haven't seen anywhere else.
This was the first hike of the day and for me it was the toughest compared to the other two treks we did the following day. It was pretty steep at the start of the trail. I was all sweaty, at times running out of breath. The quick rest stop for lunch on the top of the hill viewing El Capitan, Cathedral Rocks and the Half Dome in the background was pretty awesome though. I felt like a winner.
A quick photo stop at the Glacier Point look out. Great view of the Half Dome and you could also view Yosemite Valley from the top. Can you spot the 2 waterfalls behind the Half Dome as well?
Pretty animals we met at Yosemite
We saw some deer and squirrels. I took quite a few photos however these two were the most decent ones I captured, everything else on my camera was blurry! We saw no bears, unfortunately.
They call it Mirror Lake but really, there was no water in the lake. We could walk through the flat waterless lake area surrounded by the mountains and trees. We saw a group of 5 or 6 deer along the way (but all my photos of the deer were blurry, damn it), some cute squirrels, we were spotting climbers up the mountains, we walked over the bridge of a small river and we walked through granite rocks at the base of the mountains.
Another quick photo stop at the side of the river with El Capitan and Cathedral Rocks in the background. I felt like I was in gigantic Apple Mac's desktop.
The sequoia trees were just extraordinary. There's this one fallen sequoia tree that we climbed over, it was so huge - see how small I looked in comparison of the tree? The inside of that fallen tree was empty that we could crawl inside from the middle towards the end of where the roots were. I felt like a little kid again.
It was good to be away from the city and spend a bit of a time close to the nature and I'm proud to have done so much walks. Coming back to Sydney, I'm all inspired to explore and do more walks and get more fit. Thanks Yosemite!
Whoa…… This is absolutely breathtaking.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you got to visit. It looks amazing.