Tuesday 4 September 2012

California Part 2: Yosemite National Park

Read this first :)
Part 1: San Francisco

***

This was definitely my favourite place in California. To a nature lover, it doesn't get any better than this. The place is no other than Yosemite National Park. Everything about this place is amazing, even the drive here is beautiful.

We stayed one night in Yosemite (I wish we stayed here longer though). We booked a tent in Curry Village despite the Hentavirus scare that's going on there. I completely forgot to take pictures of Curry Village (my apologies), but if you are curious, just drop by your best friend Google and look it up!

If you'd like to see the map of the park as a reference, check this out
  
 The dramatic change in landscape as we drove southbound from San Francisco. 
 Tomatoes
Highway 140. I couldn't believe my eyes. 
 The bridge was only one-way. We had to wait here for cars on the other side to pass by. 
 The jaw-dropping begins...now. 
 El Capitan.
 Can I drive down this road everyday? 

 It was super cloudy the when we arrived there.
 
 But then the skies opened up just in time for sunset. 
 Can't you see why I love this place so much? 
Couldn't decide which shot I liked better. There's actually another set of mountains on the left side but for some reason I didn't take pictures of both together. It would've made a nice composition too. I was pretty upset at myself for missing the shot. 
Yosemite Falls. There was barely any water as you can see. Apparently the best time to see the waterfalls here is during the spring. I also used an eBay ND filter here. Terrible quality. At least the GND filters are still somewhat usable. 
 Tunnel View. Simply beautiful.
 
 Heading towards Glacier Point lookout. The elevation here was about 5000 ft. 
Washburn Point on the way to Glacier Point. 
 Waterfalls in the background. I would tell you the names of them if I knew. 





 I want to stay here forever.
 After another drive through the mountain roads, we arrived at Glacier Point. There were a lot of tourists here, even some tour buses...

 Looking down at the park. The white specks are tents. Elevation here is about 7000 ft, if I'm not mistaken. 


 Information on the different peaks. 

 I had to cross over the fence to get this shot. We had to hurry out of there b/c the Park Ranger was coming. 
 I called this "Pride Rock"
Hello there Mr/Mrs. Ground Squirrel. 
 We headed further south to Mariposa Grove, home of the Giant Sequoias'. There's a separate national park called Sequoia National Park. But that was too far south for us to drive. This is a mini version I suppose. 
 Man, these trees were massive. You can probably build some epic treehouses on them. 


 This guy's called Bigfoot. He's 1500 freakin' years old. Imagine the stories this tree could tell. 


Goodbye Yosemite National Park. You were incredible. 

I've been to a lot of provincial parks up here in Ontario. Sorry to say, but nothing I've seen can compare to this place. When I get a job and make some dough, I'm going to make visiting North America's best national parks a priority. Zion, Banff, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, etc. Name it all and I am determined to go. Such a grand display of God's handiwork. I am truly blessed to be able to witness such wonder and beauty. 

Next stop: Palo Alto and the surrounding areas.

-e.m. 

0 comments:

Post a Comment