I’ve been putting off posting photos, hoping to have time to create a longer photo essay. That’s probably not going to happen so let’s get some pictures online…
I didn’t have much planned for graduation celebration, but then Kelly called to suggest an adventure. I said “Yosemite?” She said “Yay!” And so we planned a trip to Yosemite.
April 5 (Saturday): Liz dropped me at Albany train station, rode overnight in coach and arrived in Sacramento at 6:30 am.
April 6: Kelly and Sara Taylor picked me up at the train station, we had breakfast with Katie and Hank (more Corvallis ex-pats living in CA), rented a car, and set off southeastward to Yosemite. After stopping for food and to check out cool flowers (traveling with three botanists…) we arrived, our jaws dropped appropriately upon entering the valley of cliffs, and we a chose a mellow loop hike before dusk to Mirror Lake below Half Dome.
Sheer Half Dome cliff from below.
Hank and Katie took off, and we set up camp with the climbers in Camp 4.
April 7: Yosemite Falls Trail day hike.
Upper Yosemite Falls, a sheer 1430-foot drop.
Bobcat!
April 8-9: Overnight backpack into Little Yosemite Valley, on the trail to the summit of Half Dome.
Crowded trail below Vernal Fall on the Merced River.
Nevada Fall, 594 feet and tons of water.
Snow at ~7800 feet on the trail to Half Dome (8839 feet). This is a busy stretch in the summer, but on this day I only met two intrepid Canadians who took aim for the top but were stopped by snow on the slick cable section.
Half Dome from Little Yosemite Valley campground.
Canyon Wren! These guys have a most beautiful song.
Vernal Fall (317 feet) on the way back down, fighting the crowds even on a Wednesday in April.
April 9: Sequoias!
We made a rushed hike into the Tuolumne Grove of giant sequoias on our way out the park. Redwoods are impressive and huge, but they look mostly like regular conifers stretched way out of proportion vertically and horizontally – normal trees in a world where people are Liliputian. Sequoias do not look like normal trees. They look more like forests in the sky on huge elevated pedestals, with no branches for over 100 feet and then multiple parallel trunks reaching for the sky. They grow in small, isolated groves of 20-60 trees, which only amplifies the feeling of walking into Lothlorien. I need to spend more time with the sequoias…
We had dinner with Katie and Hank, stopped at a farm stand to buy 17 artichokes for $2, and caught our train in Sacramento at midnight.
Inside the Pacific Parlor Car. We traveled in sleeper on accumulated Amtrak points.
We had a fun-filled weekend in Corvallis after returning, with potluck dinner and brunch, music with Rosalie and friends, and plenty of mead before Kelly headed back to the Hudson Valley of New York.