On Walkabout at: Yosemite National Park – Part 2

Prior Posting: Yosemite National Park – Part 2

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As my wife and I zig-zagged my Ford Escape up Glacier Point Road at California’s Yosemite National Park we continued to gain altitude and get some impressive views of some of the valleys that stretch away from the main Yosemite Valley:

There really wasn’t many views to see once on top of the ridgeline because the road was surrounded by thick ponderosa pine forests.  However, once the road exited the thick forest, the first look out provided an incredible view of the absolutely incredible Half Dome peak:

Half Dome is no where near the tallest mountain in the Sierra Nevadas with an altitude of only 8,842 feet, but it easily the most scenic.  The next time I come to Yosemite I have got to climb this peak.

From the look out we also got to see our first waterfall during our visit to the park:

This waterfall is probably massive during spring time snow melt season.  The look out also had some great views of the larger peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains that tower over Yosemite National Park:

On the National Geographic special, Hidden Yosemite they actually showed footage of a man that hiked back into the high country where there is still the remains of a glacier visible.  Of course the linked the shrinking glacier to global warming, which is of course absurd considering the glacier used to extend all the way through this valley just a few thousand years ago.  I guess Native-American camp fires were responsible for the shrinking glacier back then?

Anyway from up here one can see just how vast and scenic this park is:

Just short drive from the first viewpoint is the end of the road at Glacier Point where there is a large parking lot to accommodate the hordes of tourists that visit Yosemite.  For whatever reason, the day my wife and I visited the park it wasn’t very busy and we had no problem finding a parking place.  There is a small visitor center and snack bar at Glacier Point from where it is just a short walk to some spectacular views up the Yosemite Valley:

Looking at this valley it is easy to imagine the large glacier that once cut through the granite rock here thousands of years ago to create this valley:

Besides looking up the Yosemite Valley there is an area of the look out where you can look straight down towards the visitor center we had stopped at earlier in our visit to the park:

However, it is the incredible Half Dome that continued to draw my eye with its incredibly odd shape standing watch over the valley:

There is also some great views of the far off high Sierras that tower to over 13,000 feet in altitude:

Here is a closer look at these snow capped peaks:

I would definitely love to go backpacking in the back country of Yosemite in the future:

Something else we could see from the Glacier Point look out was some more waterfalls:

It was a series of two waterfalls that had a fairly decent amount of water falling down the sides of the granite cliffs:

Here is a closer look at the top waterfall:

Anyway we spent about two hours hanging out at Glacier Point enjoying the scenery and fresh air before taking one last look at the wonderous Half Dome before driving back down Glacier Point Road:

The final thing my wife and I did was visit the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoia trees:

These trees were quite large and impressive:

However, the sequoias in Mariposa Grove both my wife and I thought were not a impressive as those we saw back in Jedediah Smith Redwood National Park.  However, these trees are still quite a sight to behold:

Both cars and people were dwarfed by these giant sequioa trees:

The sequoias are relative of the coastal redwoods we visited earlier in our trip, but they did not grow as high as the coastal redwoods.  However, they do grow wider which gives these trees more overall bulk then the coastal redwoods:

Their bulk in fact makes the sequoias the largest living thing in the world.

Visiting Mariposa Grove wrapped up our visit to Yosemite National Park.  We arrived at the park right when the park opened and left right before its closing hours.  So we spent a full day in the park and got to see many of its wonders, but in reality we only scratched the surface of what this park has to offer.  That is why we will definitely come back and check out this park again and next time I am bringing my hiking and camping gear because I want to get into this park’s back country.

The park overall ranks up there with some of the most scenic areas I have ever been to and is more scenic then some of the glacier carved valleys in New Zealand I have hike through such as Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers.  The park is however, not more scenic then the glacier carved fjords of Milford Sound though, which are just awe inspiring when seen.  Tasmania as well has some incredible glacier carved scenery that ranks right up there with Yosemite as well.  Anyway, I will definitely get pictures posted at some points of these incredible sights, but in the mean time I hope everyone enjoyed the pictures from my travelog to Yosemite National Park.