Yosemite

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What can you say about Yosemite or Yo!-semi-te. This truly is one of the most beautiful spots I have ever seen. And I have been blessed with seeing some of the worlds most beautiful places in the last year!. If you come to America and do not see this valley you really are missing something. Spring is apparently not even the best time as a reasonable amount of the park is still snowed in and closed. But the waterfalls were in full flow and really the highlight of the valley. This really is a case of a picture is worth a 1000 words so I'll let the pictures speak more for me on the beauty of the place
We spent three days in Yosemite, staying about an hour out of the park in a village called Mariposa. Staying in the park was prohibitively expensive but the drive was not a hardship. A 40 mile road winding up a valley to Yosemite following the Merced River passed meadows covered in wild flower with the river roaring in spring melt. It was to put it mildly a nice drive. The landscape was incredibly rugged. There was one point where a rock-fall had closed a section of the road and because it looked such a big job to clear it (I assume) they had put two temporary bridges in and a section of single track on the other side of the river. This section was governed by a set of traffic lights that had a most annoying feature. The lights had a sensor to change back to red if traffic didn't continually roll past it. Needless to say with a bunch of tourists getting out of there cars and generally pissing about it happened on a few occasions that we wouldn't get through because someone didn't go quickly enough. On the last day having had enough of it I swerved around the stalled car and ran the red light. (knowing I had at least 5 minutes to get through and could in-fact still see the cars ahead). Unfortunately there was a cop right behind me! But fortunately he was a nice guy and let me off with a warning rather than a 350 dollar fine! So law enforcement encounters in America 1 (please sir step out of the car and keep your hands where I can see them!) Nice guys 1.
The first time in Yosemite we just had a look around the valley and the tourist center to plan our second day. I saw a photograph I liked in the Ansel Adams Gallery, and it turns out I have good taste as I picked the most expensive thing in the shop. 6000USD for a photograph by Jerry N. Uelsemann. I did a bit of research on this guy and he is pretty cool. Basically he was doing photoshop stuff but before computers with multiple enlargers. Worth googleing and checking out his pictures.
First impressions of the valley are important and you can not help but be stunned by the views. You have El Capitan a huge solid granite monolith that dominates the left side of the valley, then in the middle you have the half dome - usually swathed in cloud. And on the Right the impressive Bridalveil falls. All in all it is breathtaking. Further up the valley you have the Yosemite Falls, both upper and lower making it the highest cascade of water in the US.
Still further up you can see the best examples of the glacier polished granite. So smooth and reflective that it is difficult to take a adequate picture. If you walk further up the right branch of the valley as we did on our 2nd day you will find Vernal & Nevada Falls which are a 7 miles with 2000ft elevation gain hike.
Up the left branch of the valley is Mirror lake which we hiked to on our final day. A beautiful peaceful lake set in amongst the soaring granite walls that shield it and glass it out most of the year.
Venturing to the south end of the park on our first day we came across the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. Which are the largest living things by volume on the planet. A very peaceful and prehistoric grove of trees.
Overall Debs and I spent 3 glorious days here recharging the batteries after the hedonism in Vegas for which it is the perfect antidote.

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