May 28, 2007

May 28, 2007

After staying inside national parks the last several days without the comforts of electricity and Internet, we spend most of the morning recharging batteries and paying bills. We are also in no hurry. I am hoping the holiday crowd will be going home today.

Just before noon we leave the RV park and head the 37 miles into Yosemite National Park. Having heard Yosemite is one of the most popular national parks, we made reservations here a month ago, our only ones of the trip. We were probably lucky to get them because I think our reservation was only available because of a cancellation.

The road to the park’s western entrance follows the Merced River up into Yosemite Valley. The Merced River is another raging snowmelt river. It is hard to believe there is so much snow melting higher up. Once we hit the valley, we drive thru a boulder tunnel and get our first view of this granite-lined valley. We see El Capitan, the largest granite monolith in the world. Its sheer walls are awesome. This is the high cliff that you so often see climbers scaling in movies.

Our first stop in the park is at Bridal Veil Falls. It is just off the road. Big mistake. The parking lot is a madhouse and the footpath is a zoo. I am hoping the crowd is mostly holiday day-trippers who will be gone at sunset. The falls are very nice and we eat lunch near the base. It is not as romantic as I would have hoped with the crowd, and with the intermittent spray of water on our sandwiches. Bridal Veil is so tall that the water is almost all mist by the time it hits the bottom.

Wanting to avoid the crowd, we head to our campsite and check in. We are very happy with the site. It is large with lots of pine trees and in the shadow of Half-Dome, the other granite icon of Yosemite. We are going to enjoy our four days here. Aimee and I relax for a while, talking to the neighbors, and reading a guidebook they lent us.

Thinking the crowd has died down, we unhitch the bicycles and venture over to the visitor center. On the way we can’t help but take a few pictures. The scenery is stunning. Yosemite deserves its reputation as the most beautiful national park. I don’t know what John Muir was thinking when he said Kings Canyon was lovelier. They are similar but Yosemite has more striking vertical granite and the valley floor has many open meadows allowing better, unobstructed views.

The visitor center is pretty good. Yosemite Valley was set aside as a protected wilderness area by Abraham Lincoln in 1864, the first ever in the US. That Lincoln took time out from the Civil War to do this is a testament to its rare beauty! John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club was instrumental in enlarging the protected area and getting it national park status. We also stop by a photo gallery where they have a lot of Ansel Adams photographs. He made Yosemite and himself famous with his black and white photography here.

After dinner, we decide to walk over to Camp Curry for a ranger talk. Camp Curry turns out to be huge group of permanent canvas tents that looks just like the tent cities from the Depression era. Interestingly the ranger talk turns out to be a humorous historical look back at the origin of Camp Curry. The Curry’s built this tent city as an affordable option to the high-priced lodges at the park.