Yes Yosemite! Our goal was Half Dome. A hike of 19 miles (round trip) with a 4,737 elevation gain up to 8,884 feet. Most of the trail that leads to Half Dome is the John Muir trail which starts at Happy Isles parking lot and leads all the way to the summit of Mt. Whitney 210 miles away. The distance is longer than it seem to be because the trail takes a large loop around to the opposite side of Half Dome (East Side) before the actual granite ascent begins.
Yosemite drive took about 6.5 hours, and was a very interesting drive. There isn't much east of the coast. Some farm land and cows. Reminded me of Montana a little bit. We started out on Friday afternoon around 3:30. Its a pretty straight forward drive, except we did hit some rain and storm clouds on the way.
Map to Yosemite - view the drive from Oceano to Yosemite on Google Maps
Getting to the actual park didn't take long, getting into the valley of Yosemite took long. The roads are real steep and windy; as you are traversing through the Nevada Sierra mountain range. In fact, there was a nice quarter of a mile tunnel we shot through.
We were unable to get a cabin, or a heated tent, so we were reduced to a non-heated tent. These are basically a canvas tent with 2 cots setup with about 4 blankets per cot. Lucky for me, Tony brought an extra sleeping bag-so we didn't freeze.
I don't know how cold it got at night, but i woke up a few times because my face was freezing. We set the alarm clock for 5:30 am so we could get a good jump on the trial. By the time we packed up our gear, ate breakfast, and checked out of the non-heated tent, we didn't get to the trial till about 7:00 am.
What was nice about Curry Village (where we stayed) is that it is 1 mile from the trial head going up to half dome. So we were able to walk a mile to start the trail, and not have to worry about driving in. The warm up hike to the trail was good, and the first 2 miles in was where we saw some splendid views.
We kept a very brisk pace, and passed herds of people (mostly foreigners-they love hiking.)
View Yosemite Video Part 1 - click here
View Yosemite Video Part 2 - click here
View Yosemite Video Part 3 - click here
See Page 2 of Yosemite here.
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