Traveling Sol: Stop #4: Yosemite National Park

I have a few clips to accompany my previous post about Las Vegas but I'm working on putting them into one long video. Since the video creation/uploading phase is taking longer than I'd like, I'll skip right to the second-to-the-last stop on the road trip: Yosemite National Park.

I've always been a huge Ansel Adams fan and if there is one person who can inspire you to visit Yosemite, it's most definitely him. His photos, as you may know, were black and white shots and many were shot right in Yosemite National Park. His talent for capturing the vasts landscapes of the park is unmatched. (I tried in vain.)

Upon entering the park, my first stop was Mono Lake. I was lucky enough to see the lake in the evening, just as the sun was setting behind the Sierra Nevadas. It's was beautiful. One of the first things I noticed (besides the natural beauty of course) was that the kayaks on the water looked as if they were sitting on top of the water. (I know, they're suppose to be on top of the water, but these looked like that hadn't sunk even an inch into the water!) The area had signs posted all around with little facts, where I learned that Mono Lake is three times more salty than the ocean! Apparently this saltiness, combined with the other elements that the water contains (chlorides, carbonates and sulfates) create a density that makes the kayak appear like it's barely touching the water. (Maybe I'm going on about this too much, but it really was a strange sight!)

Driving through the park at night was even neat. The trees are so tall and you're winding through the forest climbing up the mountains. And it is DARK. Very dark. What was interesting, is that at night you only see the trees around you, so waking up the next morning and coming out of the cabin to see the huge mountains on either side of you was a strange feeling. It was like: "How did I get here?" A "pro" of arriving at night: I didn't see the bear traps when I came in so that helped me sleep soundly!

After a great French Toast breakfast in the Yosemite Lodge Foot Court, we hiked up to the Vernal Fall Footbridge. Now, here's where I got a lesson in the "difficulty" levels assigned to each trail in the park: they're deceiving! (Or maybe I am just extremely out of shape? Or maybe it was because it was 9 AM and I'm not a morning person?) Anyways, the trail was much more difficult than I had anticipated. We unfortunately did not make the ascent all the way to Vernal Falls, but we were close and the footbridge offered a very nice view.

After the hike, we decided to take it easy and cruise the park roads. (We were really able to see quite a bit of the famous land marks in the park by doing this.) Next, we saw Yosemite Falls, which are the tallest in North America, and then Bridalveil Falls, El Capitan and finally, the most impressive of all, the views from Glacier Point: all of Yosemite Valley and the breathtaking Half Dome. In this case, I really can't describe the views, because a picture is really worth a thousand words! After seeing some of these simply amazing sights, we visited Mariposa Grove and saw the Giant Sequoias, which definitely lived up to their name!