California, Part 3: Yosemite National Park

Travel & Days Out

17 Jul

Written By

Due to the fact a few days before we’d taken on water in our tent, we bought some tarp for the ground on our drive to Yosemite.

We’d read about it not being uncommon to be queueing for hours on the road trying to get into the national park, so we went on a week day, and we went early. I thought the drive in was beautiful, and when we arrived there was a considerable amount of “fucking hellllllll” every time we looked somewhere new.

There had recently been a storm, which meant all the camp grounds bar one weren’t open. The camp we got was, as far as I can remember, for seasoned backpackers. As it was a minimal set up and mostly filled with people that were going out rock climbing.

We took a walk to a place called mirror lake. A popular spot for mountain lions.

Everywhere we turned, it was clear just how massive the trees and mountains were.

Going off the trail in mountain lion and bear territoriy probably isn't the wisest of moves, but crossing rivers like this instead of bridges is infinitely more fun.

It's hard not to be reminded of Glasgow when stumbling across sights like this.

The first evening, Cayotes ran freely through the camp, and seemed mostly un-bothered by us humans. And it was mostly peaceful...There was one camper though, he was English, and he insisted on playing a shitey acoustic and blurting out Wonderwall. You could tell he thought he was fucking mint. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world or how disconnected from everything you are, there’s always that one cunt. He eventually shut up, and we all got some rest. The coyotes came back during the night, but the other campers were making loud noises to scare them away.

The second night though, we woke at around 2am with the ground thudding somewhat. Right next to us heads, and then around the tent. This was different to the cayotes. Lights were being shone on our tent, but no one was making a sound. It was a bear. It was terrifying, but also what could we do? I was in no rush to get out and wrestle. We just laid there, and waited, and eventually it passed.

Truth be told, I still preferred that over the Wonderwall performance.The final day we decided to walk up Yosemite Falls. We made some food and got gone.

The incline was pretty wild, and I was thoroughly knackered by the time we got to see the falls.

The plan was to get right to the top, around 2,500 feet in total I think it was? Despite feeling insanely hot, we soon hit snow and ice. People were equipped with full-on ice shoes. For us to continue in our trainers would have resulted in certain death, so after a few photos we headed back down!