the above pic is the beloved half dome at sunset from glacier point. on our way back to camp it was dark and we could see the lights from night climbers lanterns on el capitan.-sorry no pictures of that. we jumped into our cozy sleeping bags when we reached our camp. only to be awaken by a bear in our camp and later an effin car alarm!
wed. may 30, the sweet forest birds woke me up at 5:30(along with my bladder!) we all had a quick breakfast-uh-big mistake-instant organic oatmeal-nasty shit! i could have cooked the box and it probably would have tasted better. but we needed to get to el capitan meadow for early a.m. photo shoot. we left the group(liam and i are not big on groups-we are solitary beings.) we headed the opposite direction-to the base of el capitan and watched climbers.
after this photo opportunity we headed to curry village. this was the starting point of our first ever ralph vertical death march. all he tells us is we are hiking to sierra point-the trail was closed ion the 70's-but he knows the way-he just has to find it. okay. well this hike was a short mile hike but it was vertical climb of maybe 800 feet and much of the trail was gone due to landslides. it was intense! it was more climbing than hiking- and ralph almost got beaned or rather bashed in the head with a rather large falling rock- more rocks came down liam hid under a big boulder ledge and janie, morgan and i realized we were right in the line of fire-we had to pull ourselves up and against the cliff wall-that's when i started getting a bit nervous-we had many small children-youngest-age 4. we continued our ascent very slowly as not to lossen more rocks which was nearly impossible. we learned to yell "ROCK" when one one went tumbling down so people could cover their heads. after searching for the trail and finding what little is left of it we finally made it to sierra point-"holy effin mother of all"-the view was spectacular and breathtaking.-you could see 4 water falls. wow!
a very exhausted liam once we reached the point! we had a wonderful lunch at the top and headed down-ugh! going down is harder than going up! i totally tweeked my knee; each step down was a red hot poker searing the inside of my knee. not to mention rubber leg syndrome. i was in charge of 4 kids-and all i could think of is-don't let any of them fall off this chunk of granite. remember-i'm the worry wart! we all made it safely down-yehaa!(sage an 8th grader did it barefooted!) andwe were greeted lightly with a thunder storm we headed back to camp for dinner and saw a bear.
we ate a quick dinner and then headed out to olmstead point for early evening shots. this place was awesome. smooth granite-you can run right up a dome. liam was in heaven-his body forgot all about the strenuous hike. and was climbing like a mad man. we saw marmots and i finally got to see in real life-a pika! i have always wanted to see one of these-i love them!
liam took this pic of the back side of half dome from olmstead point. from here we headed to tenaya lake-sorry no pics of me and karen mooning each other from opposite shores. after sunset photos we had campfire and marshmallows and collapsed in our tents-zzzzzzzzzzzzz!
thursday may 31: thurs. plans were to go to lambert dome-(did i mention we were camping at hogden meadows? far from everything? so we had a lot of drive time involved getting to these places-the kids were getting tired of driving) when we woke early and had another long drive lay ahead and another short but very STEEP hike lay ahead and my legs were jelly and my knee was tweeked and i didn't want to wreck the rest of my summer with a bum knee-i opted out-so did rhodie and her kids. instead we did our own thing. ended up in yosemite valley as i wanted to see the "obata" exibit. but was very disappointed to find out that it did not open until the 9th. we did the tourist thing. met up with our group at three and climbed up to devil's bathtub. i think this a view from there-sorry no pic of the actual tub!-too many kids in it and liam would not take the pic-ha!
while we were in yosemite village rhodie and i tried to find info on our hike to sierra point and got scolded by several rangers as the reason the trail was closed was because it was too dangerous. here's a blurb i did find out though:
"In 1916, at the age of 14, Ansel Adams took his first trip to Yosemite and wrote in a letter to his Aunt Mary in San Francisco, that 'yesterday I went up to Sierra Point and enjoyed lying on my chest and looking over the edge-about fifteen hundred feet down-perpendicular.' He also reported that he had already made thirty photographs with his new Kodak Brownie-his first camera. The pictures were nothing special, but this trip inspired him to keep returning to Yosemite for the rest of his life. You'll be standing at the same spot that inspired Ansel Adams many years ago." wow- we felt pretty special and thankful we were all safe.
we had pizza in the village and headed out to our last evening photo shoot.
this pic is my favorite-well-the family is grrumbling about dinner-gatta go-i will continue our adventure later-the long way home!
1 comment:
Yosemite still has it's magic. I hope we adoring public don't love it to death.
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