Yosemite National Park did not offer the grander or views that I was expecting....it did however offer traffic and lots of tourists! Despite the fact that the "peak" season is over all of the campgrounds were completely booked! We heard previously that its reasonable to book camping reservations weeks, even months in advance but we did not expect the park to be so heavily saturated with tourists come the fall. The Yosemite waterfall is hyped up in reviews and in the Lonely Planet US, but beware, there is no water in the waterfall after the summer season and the best views are in spring when the winter snow has begun to melt.
A lot of the main attractions of Yosemite such as Half Dome can be seen from the road. However a back country hike would offer better views and a connection with the wilderness in the area. Unfortunately, without a campsite, we needed to leave the park rather quickly in order to find accommodations for the evening, and so our experience was limited to the car.
We decided to head south to Kings Canyon where we easily found a campsite for the evening. Black bears are extremely prevalent in the area and are habituated to humans in the region as well. The park does not take bears lightly, and we needed to put all food, toiletries, soaps, towels, etc into the secure lock bear boxes located in our campsite. The bears are able to see in color and they can and will easily locate an object in your car and rip it apart until they get what they want. As they say in the parks "A fed bear is a dead bear" and it's no joke. Bears who become aggressive once they have had high-calorie "human foods" will be euthanized for the publics safety, understandable on one level, but sad on many others.
We were in a bit of a rush to get back out to the coast but we did get to drive through Sequoia, overlooking Kings Canyon from viewpoints, seeing the mountains in the distance, and even getting to drive through a fallen tree. And of course, we got to stand in the shadow of the worlds' largest tree; The General Sherman Sequoia - a massive wonder with a 102.6' base circumference, a 275 foot stature, and is around 2,500 years old. The tree was absolutely beautiful.
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2 comments:
Yosemite can get pretty ridiculous. When Diana and I went I had to book a couple months ahead to get a cabin. Late spring is definitely the time to go there. Did Jack relive all his King Canyon memories?
Yes, Jack likes to pretty much relive all of his travel memories. And to answer your question (re: showers) the longest we've gone is about five days without one.
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