Last week of the USA

Salamander
Sun 16 Sep 2018 20:34

The fires have been out for a couple of weeks or so, roads are open and at last the smoke has cleared so we can go to Yosemite (our last National Park for this trip). We had a night's rest at Caswell Memorial State Park on the way. Unfortunately it was somewhat noisy due to a very vocal Great Horned Owl that hooted away through most of the night.

Arriving at Yosemite we were at the Hodgdon Meadow site, which is not a nice campground as it is very hilly and crowded. All the campsites are packed and lacking the charm of others. White Wolf was our last campsite here and a much more pleasant site, but it was at an altitude of 8,000ft so temperatures dropped to a chilly 8C.

This much vaunted National Park has had nearly 900 deaths by various means. As we walked down a trail we heard a thunderous crashing sound and in the seconds it took us to look round a tree crashed down next to us. We were covered in woodshavings and standing in a brown cloud of wood pieces. The tree had not been tall enough to reach us, but came down towards us; phew, what a narrow miss. Others have not been so lucky with falling trees.

We missed the lottery for the half dome cable hike as the site went down again. There were 3 serious walks we wanted to do. Four mile trail, which is actually now 4.6 miles one way and all uphill – the photo below shows the start and where you get up to. Another walk that looks impossible, but is quite straightforward as the trail is very well engineered.

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We really did walk up this.


The second strenuous trail was the well named Panorama trail and our final trail was the Mist trail. Luckily for us all these 3 trails join up and make a route just under 15 miles long with a shuttle bus and short walk to get back to the RV at the first trailhead. A lovely day of walking with the beautiful sights of Yosemite.

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The walk we didn't get into the lottery for.

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Mummy sooty grouse

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Vernal Falls on the Mist trail


Our only Ranger event was Starry Night, a relaxing evening at the Helipad in our chairs identifying stars. Murray even managed to get a pic of one of the shooting stars passing Cassiopeia.

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