Friday, March 29, 2013

Yosemite National Park



Playing hide and seek with Alexa amongst the towering trees was quite fun. The weather was really fantastic too, it would be cool in the mornings and evenings but as soon as the sun would bathe the valley, the whole place would warm up quite quickly. It was the end of winter and snow could still be seen in patches here and there. There was a huge area with snow around the far end of the park closer to Half Dome and at times you would come across some ice on the tracks but other than that, it was all good!

Apparently the park was quite empty too... hard to believe when you see so many people filling up the cafeteria and the restaurant. You would encounter about 20 people on any given track on average and if this is the empty season, you can start to imagine what it's like during summer.

No bear encounters to worry about although they do stress out the point of not leaving anything in your car. Videos are shown all the time where bears completely destroy cars just to get an apple or even a piece of gum. Cars get totalled as if they were cans of soda pop.


Sun was setting when this picture was taken. You can start to see the sun's rays bouncing off the stone walls giving that orange tint to them. This particular water fall is the tallest in the US of A and apparently it's the fifth tallest in the world. Most of the mist that came of from the waterfall turned into snow and you can appreciate a big patch of snow before the waterfall continues it's path onto the lower part of the waterfall.

  


Mirror Lake can be seen in the picture above and you can see how it is still frozen. I didn't realize that we had already arrived to the lake because the water level was quite low. Once the snow and ice start melting and the waterfalls come back to life, the lake will rise once again and I'm sure it will be hard to miss. Still, it was a really nice place to be and just take in the scenery. So peaceful.

The lake is located at the bottom of the flat part of Half Dome. I only saw 3 climbers whilst we were there. One guy was just practicing bouldering and two other guys were packing their gear into their car. I assume that during the warmer months you can see climbers taking the walls.






Ooops! Somehow the roles were reversed here, I'm the one who's always taking pictures of Alexa and no one is taking picture of me. I guess it was bound to happen someday.

We'll definitely have to go back again at some point and visit all the other things that Yosemite has to offer. Traveling with my girl makes things much more memorable! ;)

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