Thursday 4 October 2012

Yosemite National Park

This post is more about the pics as I simply can't explain it so I will let the "picture is worth a thousands words" take over, enjoy.

After Shann and Greg left us homeless in a strange land we were lucky to score the camp site at Camp 4 the climbers camp, see the FULL signs!.



And the bear aware pics  



The first thing that caught my eye was the accessible parking sign which was over the OTHER side of the wall ...... WTF ...are they meant to park on the cliff side???  ... they should change the sign to inaccessible.



We found ourself surrounded by young fellas and fellesses .... all the fellas had 6 packs!!!! ... bugga me I felt like a monster and from an old peoples home... perfect we love hanging with younger people.





After setting up we headed off to Glacier lookout, whoa ... top of the world views second to none, looking over the edge was spooky for me but I made the most of scaring myself which was plenty enough for my daily quota of scaring myself daily so I know I am alive.



Half dome was standing out with grandeur amongst his shorter counterparts and with the evening sun pasting the western faces it was a pretty cool sight to see.





Spot the people on the top



Yosemite Village below looked like a toy village and the cars like matchboxes, again looking out and down gave me the willies. 







So we had some neighbours from England who were closer to our age and some young gun rock climbers, really neat taking to these guys from around the world, watched some vid of them falling of a cliff .....and larfing!!.

We gained some local knowledge on a walking track to the top of Yosemite Falls, a 2800ft climb ... perfect for us oldie non 6 packers.

Two climbing kiwis set off on a mission to conquer the mighty Yosemite falls, it started off as a zigzagathon, 60 actually!! then leveling out for a while before the final assault up the gully part 2 zigzagathon.



The views were getting more and more stunning and breath taking (maybe the breathtaking bit was cos we are unfit), although the falls were not falling the abrupt rock faces and majestic surfaces of granite slowly changing colour as the day progressed added up to a walk that would make you stand there in silence and in awe.... so we did that.





Ya just can't help yaself from looking!







Nearly there



Upon reaching the top I was scared, overwhelmed, had vertigo BIG time and totally gob smacked .. so a normal day.



Chance to take off the smelly socks in the sun ..... so nice! 



Big views



Other way



Some strange trees







Really neat tree right near the face



What can I say but make the effort to go if you can, you will not be let down, it proved hard on my knobbly knees from previous injuries but worth every bit of discomfort.

Al Capitan was calling us so we climbed aboard the free shuttle bus to have a look at this incredible rock face, 5 climbers had just started an ascent earlier in the day so we we treated to a level of climbing we had only ever seen at the Wanaka Film Fest. 

I am not sure how to explain my feelings seeing them hanging on a rope other than fear, thrill, excitement, awe, crazy, etc ..... be fare to say it is not my game. 

See the tree, to the left is where they are.





See the zoom up







See the close up. 







That night was quiet in the camp as the climbers returned very tired (and us) so sleeping was easy as no parties were on, the moon was out, again I will let the pics do the talking.







The following morning we packed up and headed out of the park to Lake Tahoe.

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