Our Trip to Yosemite National Park
September, 2011
Saturday, September 24;
Bryan took us to KCI to catch our flight to Dallas. It was just fifty minutes to Dallas to catch our connecting flight. We were right on schedule--or so we thought! The pilot announced that the emergency chute fell out of its housing and started to deploy. We had to sit back in our seats for about fifteen minutes to wait for maintenance to restuff the chute into the housing. (It had not filled with air, but if they'd opened the door all the way it might have filled which would have taken much longer to put back together.) This made us short on time to catch our connecting flight to Fresno, Calif.
We caught a golf-type cart for old fogies. The driver kept trying to hustle more riders and we didn't think we could wait so we took off. We got on the transit tram to go to the next terminal. Another setback--Susan read the overhead sign that read different gates than what we wanted and hopped off the tram. Gary, being slower and more analytical, read the sign as it continued to rotate around and told Susan to get back on the tram. Slam--the door closed before she got back on. Susan realized her mistake and took the next tram. Gary was waiting--patiently--kind of.
We made it to our flight to Fresno. We had exit row seats on both flights. (The airline was more than willing to put Gary in that row.) Sitting next to Susan was a cell phone spectrum investor chatterbox. He and Susan talked most of the flight. Gary dozed. Fresno is a very small airport (six terminals). We had no trouble locating our bags and the rental car booth. We rented an Impala and drove to the town of Mariposa, Calif. It took about an hour and a half. We checked into our motel, The Mariposa Lodge. It was an old resort motel. It was just as featured on the Internet. We drove through town and found the Happy Burger Diner open. We were really hungry and ordered the double happy cheeseburgers. It was enough to feed a football team.
Sunday, September 25;
We had a leisurely start. We had breakfast and then started off to Yosemite. Yosemite is about thirty-five miles from Mariposa but it is a curvy mountainous drive so it took about one hour. We noticed charred trees and hillsides, but the fire damage wasn't extensive. The road follows the Merced River into the Yosemite National Park Arch Rock Entrance. Our National Park Senior Passes got us in the short line, so we didn't even have to stop at the entrance gate. (Thank goodness for the benefits of old age!) We immediately drove under building size overhanging granite rocks. We took pictures of this formation while driving.
You can click on the pictures to enlarge them and see the captions.
Bryan took us to KCI to catch our flight to Dallas. It was just fifty minutes to Dallas to catch our connecting flight. We were right on schedule--or so we thought! The pilot announced that the emergency chute fell out of its housing and started to deploy. We had to sit back in our seats for about fifteen minutes to wait for maintenance to restuff the chute into the housing. (It had not filled with air, but if they'd opened the door all the way it might have filled which would have taken much longer to put back together.) This made us short on time to catch our connecting flight to Fresno, Calif.
We caught a golf-type cart for old fogies. The driver kept trying to hustle more riders and we didn't think we could wait so we took off. We got on the transit tram to go to the next terminal. Another setback--Susan read the overhead sign that read different gates than what we wanted and hopped off the tram. Gary, being slower and more analytical, read the sign as it continued to rotate around and told Susan to get back on the tram. Slam--the door closed before she got back on. Susan realized her mistake and took the next tram. Gary was waiting--patiently--kind of.
We made it to our flight to Fresno. We had exit row seats on both flights. (The airline was more than willing to put Gary in that row.) Sitting next to Susan was a cell phone spectrum investor chatterbox. He and Susan talked most of the flight. Gary dozed. Fresno is a very small airport (six terminals). We had no trouble locating our bags and the rental car booth. We rented an Impala and drove to the town of Mariposa, Calif. It took about an hour and a half. We checked into our motel, The Mariposa Lodge. It was an old resort motel. It was just as featured on the Internet. We drove through town and found the Happy Burger Diner open. We were really hungry and ordered the double happy cheeseburgers. It was enough to feed a football team.
Sunday, September 25;
We had a leisurely start. We had breakfast and then started off to Yosemite. Yosemite is about thirty-five miles from Mariposa but it is a curvy mountainous drive so it took about one hour. We noticed charred trees and hillsides, but the fire damage wasn't extensive. The road follows the Merced River into the Yosemite National Park Arch Rock Entrance. Our National Park Senior Passes got us in the short line, so we didn't even have to stop at the entrance gate. (Thank goodness for the benefits of old age!) We immediately drove under building size overhanging granite rocks. We took pictures of this formation while driving.
You can click on the pictures to enlarge them and see the captions.
We drove past El Capitan but didn't pay too much attention as everything we were seeing made our jaws drop. We drove to the Visitor's Center and got our bearings there. We found where the shuttles ran and where the hiking trails were. We first hiked to Yosemite Falls. It was easy and just beautiful. The route was a well-worn path or wooded walkways. We walked through oaks, ponderosa pines and many building size rocks. The area was fragrant with pine scent. A Ranger told us that this was the first September in her six years at the park that water was flowing over the falls. It had always dried up by September. There were mallards in the creek. The squirrels are grey with white shoulders.
You can click on the forward arrow to watch our videos. You may even hear Gary narrating!
You can click on the forward arrow to watch our videos. You may even hear Gary narrating!
Gary and Susan at the scenic stop by the lower Yosemite Falls.
Here are some of our still pictures from our first day in Yosemite. (You can click on all our pics to enlarge and see the captions.) The park is just awesome and it makes you realize that we are truly just a spec on this earth.
We have many more videos. We'll just link them from this page to the website, youTube. We won't show them all because some rabid geology wann-be took many videos of rocks. (Wait until you see our rock videos from the Grand Canyon--but that's for another page!)
We have many more videos. We'll just link them from this page to the website, youTube. We won't show them all because some rabid geology wann-be took many videos of rocks. (Wait until you see our rock videos from the Grand Canyon--but that's for another page!)
We took the shuttle around the whole park to get our bearings. Then we went back to the visitor's center to go on a ranger led geology walking tour. Our ranger, Karen, was kind of ditsy and corny, but she was a geologist and knew the park and it's history well. We walked and stopped on this tour for about one and one half hours. We walked in a meadow on the park floor where we had a good view of the surrounding mountains, including Half Dome. The whole of Yosemite was an ancient volcano. Only volcanoes make granite. Magma cooled one to three miles down and after the overburden was eroded, it rose to the cliffs and mountains. The Merced River was always cutting away at the ground. Then came at least three glaciers. They are responsible for most of the boulders lying around. Trees and water freezing also came off the rocks and sent them down into the meadows. The meadows were previously lakes. We learned there are four minerals in granite--feldspar, mica, quartz and black hornblende.
With our legs worn down and brains overloaded, we headed back to our hotel. We had dinner at the local restaurant, Savory's. Excellent food.
Monday, September 26;
Our plan for the day was to drive the northern mountainous route of the park. We drove on Tioga Road sixty miles from the valley floor to the Tuolumme Visitor's Center. It was already closed for the year, but the scenery on the drive was fantastic. We passed through a troop of chainsaw wielding
fire rangerscutting firebreaks for a controlled burn that was visible in one of the local valleys. The best view was from Olmstead Point. It was awesome. The park valley and Half Dome were twenty-five or so miles away. We were at 8,000 feet and the temperature never got above sixty-two degrees. (The temperatures back at Mariposa was an eighty-two degree high for the day.)
With our legs worn down and brains overloaded, we headed back to our hotel. We had dinner at the local restaurant, Savory's. Excellent food.
Monday, September 26;
Our plan for the day was to drive the northern mountainous route of the park. We drove on Tioga Road sixty miles from the valley floor to the Tuolumme Visitor's Center. It was already closed for the year, but the scenery on the drive was fantastic. We passed through a troop of chainsaw wielding
fire rangerscutting firebreaks for a controlled burn that was visible in one of the local valleys. The best view was from Olmstead Point. It was awesome. The park valley and Half Dome were twenty-five or so miles away. We were at 8,000 feet and the temperature never got above sixty-two degrees. (The temperatures back at Mariposa was an eighty-two degree high for the day.)
There were two park rangers at the parking lot of the closed visitor's center. We asked them for an easy trail to walk and we were directed to the John Muir trailhead located behind a lodge that was closed for the season. There were minor elevation changes on this trail. The scenery was beautiful. It could have been straight from a movie set with the running creek waters that were crystal clear. There were large boulders and perfect trees. We walked over the Toulemme Creek branches. The Dana Fork and the Lyell Fork went under wooden bridges built for walkers. The water was very cold. We didn't see fish but we were told German brown and Rainbow trout were in the area. The few people we met on the trail had big tent-holding backpacks and were traveling with purpose. It was possible to walk twenty-seven miles on this route down to the main valley of the park. We walked about two miles.
After our beautiful walk, we started back. We stopped at a very scenic lake at the eight thousand feet elevation. Next to the lake was a large semi-mountain. We stopped and took photos of at least four people climbing the straight up granite mountain. Gary thought they were about six hundred feet up a nine hundred foot climb. Our drive down the mountains was very scenic. The Tioga Road included three tunnels dug through the mountains. One tunnel was so long it had to be lighted. (The videos are noisy with the wind because Gary was holding the video camera above our sunroof.) We had a delicious dinner at a local tavern.
Tuesday, September 27;
This the day we checked out of the Mariposa Lodge. We had a good breakfast and drove to Yosemite Valley. Our first stop was at Bridal Veil Falls. This was a short walk to the base of the falls. On the way to the visitor's center we saw many cars parked and looking up at El Capitan. We stopped and Gary could see the climbers with his binoculars. We shared Gary's good binocs so we could both see the little specs of humans on El Capitan. He got videos of them, but they are very small figures on the video.
Tuesday, September 27;
This the day we checked out of the Mariposa Lodge. We had a good breakfast and drove to Yosemite Valley. Our first stop was at Bridal Veil Falls. This was a short walk to the base of the falls. On the way to the visitor's center we saw many cars parked and looking up at El Capitan. We stopped and Gary could see the climbers with his binoculars. We shared Gary's good binocs so we could both see the little specs of humans on El Capitan. He got videos of them, but they are very small figures on the video.
Gary went on a seven-mile hike. It was contained to the valley and had no climbing or elevation changes. The trail went through meadows, along the Merced River, by the main road, through trees in the surrounding forest. A large pool in the river had husky trout. Gary watched them for thirty minutes. None of them ate anything, just swam around. Gary then ran into a climbers group that was set up to watch El Capitan. They had two telescopes zeroed in on two climbing groups. Gary yakked with them and found out that there were about thirty fools climbing the mountain. One of them was named Piton Pete and he had been there fourteen days just swinging in his hammock. Gary also witnessed a Huey helicopter land in the valley. It looked like a fire drill with about twnty fire rangers. It landed, dropped off the rangers, took off, and landed again.
Susan shopped for Yosemite gifts and sat in a lovely location and read her book. Gary met up with Susan after his walk. We took in a fifteen-minute free movie about Yosemite. It was worthwhile. After the movie, we headed back to our car and drove toward the south entrance of the park. There were tunnels on that road too. We made it to our next lodge, The Narrow Gauge Inn. It was two miles south of Fish Camp, Cal. It was located at about five thousand feet elevation. No air conditioning was needed. (It's a good thing because our room was not air conditioned.) We got checked in and then went back up the road a few miles to the Tanaya Lodge. It was the only restaurant open on this night. This lodge was a very large exclusive golf centered enterprise. The restaurant was lovely and the food was great. (I was beginning to think there is no such thing as bad food in California!)
Since this page is getting so verrry long, we'll finish the rest of our Yosemite story on Yosemite, Pg. 2.
Since this page is getting so verrry long, we'll finish the rest of our Yosemite story on Yosemite, Pg. 2.