Skip to main content

Above Yosemite

Having spent yesterday in Yosemite Valley, today we started by spending the early morning at the top of Yosemite.  Glacier Point sits at the end of a long dead end drive 1km above the valley floor overlooking Yosemite village.  From Glacier Point a tremendous view stretches down Yosemite Valley and across to Half Dome and beyond.  It was a little hazy in places but still stupendous to enjoy the view in the early morning.


We saw some coyotes by the side of the road near Glacier Point.  They looked completely fearless of the car and probably (sadly) have worked out that the presence of humans mean food sources are nearby.  The parks preach strongly about the importance of keeping food away from the animals (especially bears) but obviously it's hard to secure everything.

We took a short 1 mile walk up to the top of Sentinel Dome, about 2 miles back along the one way road to Glacier Point.  This was our high point in the park (in altitude).  From the summit we could see even further back down the Yosemite Valley and over the bumpy tops of many of the parks granite domes.

After our scenic viewing, Elise and Sam retraced steps in the car stopping to have a look at the scenery as they drove back the way we came.

From the top of Sentinel Dome Eric walked the 10km (and over 1km down) back to the valley floor where we explored yesterday, Elise again kindly organising the car shuffle.  It was another of those crazy trails (eg Grand Canyon, Zion, Arches) not for people with vertigo.  Nevertheless there were plenty of people on the path - most surprisingly climbing up rather than descending.  

Although it was only lunchtime we decided that was enough sightseeing for one day.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Inca Trail day 4

This was the day we would arrive at Macchu Picchu so we awoke with a keen sense of anticipation.   To celebrate the last day on the trail, somehow the chef had whipped up an enormous cake which was served after breakfast.  After a discussion with Marco about the likely weather over the next two days we agreed that it would be best to tour Macchu Picchu as soon as we arrived in mid afternoon rather than wait until tomorrow. Marco assured us that this would mean less crowds and better weather (he was right). We could see the backside of the mountain above Macchu Picchu in front of us as we started out.  Unlike the last two days, today was mainly downhill.  We would have to descend about 1,000 meters and judging by the first part of the morning walk, most of this would be on steep and slippery rocky steps. After alternating descents and traversing along steep hillsides through cloud forest and bamboo groves we reached the ruins of Intipata. Intipata was a very...
2 comments
Read more

Dining in Denpasar

 A key part of any holiday experience is food.  During the first week of our stay in Bali we had two nice and very contrasting dining experiences. Merah Putih is billed as the best Indonesian restaurant in Denpasar. It was just a few blocks from our Seminyak villa so we prebooked well ahead of time for a visit. The restaurant venue is very impressive - from the inside it looks a bit like a giant greenhouse, including the plants. The food was spectacular.  While every dish was good, the Bak Pao Sapi (Beef steamed buns) and Semur Sapi (slow roasted beef cheek) were incredible.   Then for Christmas Eve lunch we had booked at Starfish Bloo at W Bali, one of the swankiest Sunday Brunch venues on the island.  Sunday brunch buffets are a signature Bali experience with many of the big international hotels putting on all you can eat extravaganzas once a week. Needless to say the meal was jaw dropping.  We had a great table close to the beach where we enjoyed un...
Post a Comment
Read more

Santa Cruz

Unlike our first island hop, Isabela to Santa Cruz was done by boat (see the addendum below for my thoughts about inter island boat travel).  At least the early morning trip was a smooth one.  Luckily we had managed to book an apartment in Puerto Ayora which meant we could do some of our own catering for a change.  By the time we arrived we were slowing down some, we felt we'd seen much of the wildlife the islands offered and frankly, we were exhausted. So we didn't venture too far from Puerto Ayora. One nice place near town we did visit (Eric went twice) was Tortuga bay which was exactly what you would expect a tropical beach to look like.  In fact it had two beaches, one a surf beach and one a quiet cove where you could snorkel with barely a ripple.  There wasn't much wildlife here except a few Iguanas (and one turtle) but the warm water was great for a swim nevertheless. As with San Cristobal we took a taxi trip to the highlands, crawling in Lava tub...
1 comment
Read more