Scambling at Yosemite

Day: 6
States: CA
Location: Yosemite N.P
Total Miles Travelled: 380M

Road Trip Section 2
San Francisco to Yosemite N.P - 188M, 3h 50m

Woke up early in San Francisco so that we could head off early to Yosemite N.P – home of Half Dome, towering waterfalls and the chance to go scrambling.

This was our first National Park visit so we grabbed a year pass at $80 which allows us into all the N.P’s in the US before heading into the park. We were greeted with spectacular views over a massive valley covered with sequoia trees.

It wasn’t long before we found our first waterfall towering many hundreds of feet in the air, although not flowing as much water as usual due to it being the dry season but enough for us to want to scramble up to the plunge pool to feel the mist, absorb the view (and the sun!) and then grab these photos.

The climb down from here was a little hairy at times but we made it to the bottom and found the lower part of the river where we could dunk our feet into to cool down – understatement of the year as this water was f-f-freezing! A Brain Freeze kind of feeling in our feet stopped us from dunking for long so we then got back to the RV to go into the heart of the park – the meadows and view of half dome.

The day was getting on now so we took a chance at going to see another waterfall but it turned out this was all dried up so we headed back to the RV once more however. It was pretty much night now so we had fun finding our way back, especially after reading signs everywhere stating that the place was bear country!

We managed to reach the RV without being eaten or getting lost and started her up. We headed out of the park to try and get beyond the N.P’s boundaries so that we could possibly have a BBQ but it was too late and way too cold by then as we were now at an elevation of over 8000 feet. Our altitude was confirmed by the fact that every sealed bottle in the RV had expanded and bulged meaning that when I opened my toothpaste lid, it amusingly proceeded to eject the contents all over the bathroom wall! We finally reached the edge of the park and parked up in a turnout along the edge of a lake under the twighlight.