Yosemite National Park and our first USA day on the road

Its hard to describe the amazing day we have had today. It was certainly long but how else do you fit so much in. Taking advantage of jet-lag we left our motel in Modesto at 6.40am. We headed East through the flat lands and towards the Yosemite National Park. We hit our first major climb and were impressed to see a sign saying "Elevation 2000 feet". 

This paled in comparison to the over 9000 feet we were to climb by the end of the day. Its amazing to think that that Mt Cook is only a little over 12000 feet, highest mountain in New Zealand.

 The roads were really steep and had speeding limits of 35 miles/hr at times. But some of the vistas we saw as we approached made it all worth while.

We didn't arrive at Yosemite valley until 9.30am. We made a quick stop to take a couple of shots from the valley floor before hoping to beat the masses by walking the very popular walk Lower Yosmite Waterfall Hike first. 

Its a very pleasant walk through the native trees before coming up towards the lower of the two falls. Naturally the girls were exploring every nook and cranny on the way, often clambering over huge boulders. The track stops about 50m from the waterfall so we decided to head up through the creak bed picking our way as best as we could. There were plenty of others to follow and Julia and Sophia seemed happy with our endevour. 

The jumping was well worth it as the pool at the top was tranquil. It just felt nice to paddle our feet in the cool water. The temperature even at this altitude was over 30°C.



The second walk we decided to take was to Artist Point. Its not a major and was more steep and rugged. In fact it wasn't sign posted on the road and we had to ask a couple of people for directions. It zig zagged its way up the east side of the valley rising a couple of hundred meters in no time. Once there we looked, stunned, across the whole valley. Totally breath taking.

By the time we had again returned to the car it was going past 1pm and we still had a long way to get to our destination of Big Pine. The highway wound higher into the mountains reaching an altitude of 9,941 feet at Tioga Pass the highest road pass in the Seirra Nevada. Again the driving is slow with speed limits only going up to 50 miles/hr on few occasions. It does give a great chance to view the scenery.

Before reaching the pass we stopped at Lake Tenaya, where the kids went for a swim and we marveled at the scenery again. It was hard to remember that we were so high and yet still to have such a large lake.

The road rapidly descended and after just 10 miles we were down into Owen's Valley still very high by our reckoning. The highway was double laned and headed straight down the valley. Now that was the type of space we had missed in the UK. I love these roads. We found a country radio station and cruised down into Big Pine. The views on the way were just stunning. Could be a hot one tomorrow though, as when we pulled in we spotted a temperature gauge indicating 100°F.