Day 15 and 16
I am putting these two days together because they were
equally our most miserable days on our trip so far.
We
got up early and headed to Yosemite. I really love driving through California I
love seeing the rows and rows of orchards of every kind of fruit. We also see a
lot of pickers and occasionally you can see the mountains on both sides of the
valley through the smog. As we were driving we started to notice that the
beautiful blue sky was becoming more grey and cloudy, so I looked up the
weather and found out that it would be raining for two days. So not only were
going to fighting the crowds for Memorial Day weekend but we will also be
camping in rain, great.
We
made it to Yosemite it was rainy and cold. We got there to late to try and get
the campsite we wanted to try and reserve for the weekend. We went to our
campsite and it was rainy pretty hard so we went to the visitor’s center to
find out what hikes we should do and to find out where we could stay for
Saturday and Sunday night. We had reservations for a camp that was advertised
to be close to the park but it was almost 2 hours away. So we talked to the
ranger who told us that there was camp that opened early for the season it was
about an hour up the mountains. So we started the drive everything was foggy so
we couldn’t even enjoy the views. We drove up and it was starting to snow
harder. We found a spot paid and headed back down the mountain to stay at the
campsite that we had down there since it would be warmer. We made dinner in the
rain/ice mix and then went to see a free film about this mans journey on the
high sierra trail from Sequoia national park to Mount Whitney, which is the highest
peak in the continental U.S. Before the film started we were sitting and
waiting in the sierra club building and a woman tripped on my chair and
screamed as loud as she could, scarring me half to death. She was ok and it was
funny after it all happened. The movie was a really good film and it showed
some of the trails that we took while we were at Sequoia. It made me want to do
that 60-mile trek but it would take a lot more hiking experience.
After
the film we spent about 45 minutes on the shuttle trying to get back to our
camp but at least it was warm. We made it back to camp and it was still rainy
and cold so we decided to forget about the tent and we slept in the car.
The
next morning we found out that the camp that we reserved a space for was closed
now or at least the road to get up there was closed due to icy roads. jumped in line at camp 4 the only
walk-in camp, David waited in line and I tried to get back to camp to pack up
everything but kept getting lost until I ended back at camp 4. Unfortunately we
were about ten people away from getting a spot. So we hurried over in all the
traffic to get our name on the list for reservations cancellations. After that
we went packed up camp and parked the car. We took showers, finally and one
plus was that they were free. We walked around the village to kill time cause
there was nothing else to do in the weather. So we walked around the shops and
museum and watched the free documentary (which we both fell asleep in). At
three we went to see if we got a cancellation spot. Once again we were a few
spots too late, by this time we were a little worried and feeling homeless
since the road was still closed. We went to the visitors center to find out
what we could do and the ranger told us that they just opened the road and in
the same instant we found out that they were about to close it again because of
freezing. So we got to the car and tried to get to campsite before the road
closed. We made it and the weather cleared we actually had a little bit of sun
break though. We made it down the bumpy road just to find that someone had
taken our spot. Apparently the campers beside us told them we left even though some
of our stuff was there and our receipt to show this was our spot was there. So
we made new friends and we shares the camp spot. They are really nice, they are
from L.A and have two little girls. It turned out to be nice because we got a
fire, a s’more and a fun evening talking around a fire. When it got to cold we
went to sleep, but we froze all night in 19-degree temperatures.
With
all of the people, the confusion, the rain and the cold, we were ready for
these two days to be over. Day 14
Today we went to the Giant Forrest, named this by John Muir
who is a influential figure in preserving the two of the first national parks
Sequoia and Yosemite. We had a reserved spot in the same camp ground for
tonight we just had to wait for the campers their now to pack up and
leave. I have always been
surprised how fast campers wake up, tear down their site and leave, except for
this couple. They took forever to break down and we had to wait for almost two
hours before we could finally pick up our tent and carry it over.
Today was the opening of the summer
season for the park so the shuttles opened up. We took the shuttle to Morro
rock/ Crescent Meadow because our camping neighbors told us about how amazing
the view was. We took a longer hike instead off the shuttle from the meadows to
Morro. We hiked to the first viewpoint on the high sierra trail., then we hiked
over to Morro rock through what is called “Bear Territory”, it is the area of
the park that they see the most bears. Have I known that before we hiked
through I would have taken our lunch out of the backpack I was carrying;
instead I walked around as human bear bait. We started up the staircase to the
top of Morro rock which is a staircase of about 200 hundred straight up, steep
and slim stairs. Once you get to the top the trek up is all worth it. There is
such a beautiful view of the sierra’s and the other mountains. We ate our lunch
up there dodging the crows and the swooping swallows that were speeding by us.
Then headed back down.
Next we headed over to Giant
forest, which is largest grove of sequoias, it has about 7000-8000 Giant
Sequoias. We started at the museum to learn about the trees, such as the Giant
sequoia is the biggest in volume but the Redwood on the coast of California is
the tallest. We also learned that the sequoias need thousands of gallons of
water and will evaporate about ten thousand gallons a day. When one of the
Sequoias fell, water poured out. The biggest tree in the world is General
Sherman. We barely could get the entire tree in the picture it is so big. We
also went to visit General Grant, which is the third biggest tree. We found
some of the other record-breaking trees and we had a lot of fun crawling
through the holes and gaps in the trees. We hiked on the some of the trails in
the giant forest and it was just amazing to stand next to these Giants, David
was even afraid of them they were so big. After we hike around we went drove
over to drive through the log tunnel, which is a tunnel that you can drive
through that they made out of a fallen tree. We also walked through some other
tunnel logs and went to see the auto log which was a popular drive way on a
fallen tree until it was closed due to rotting of old age.
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