Friday 23rd September

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Today was our free day to give us the chance to explore Yosemite by ourselves. As the parking availability had looked a little scarce yesterday, we decided not to be too late leaving the campsite. There was a yart bus (local service bus) leaving at 9.40am for the park, but as there was only one service each way per day, we decided to go in Ellie and brave the narrow winding road down into Yosemite Village. It took us over an hour to get down and get parked, not helped by the road works closure of some of the one-way route around the valley. This was something we hadn't realised, when we being chauffeured on our bus yesterday.

So having parked up we made some sandwiches and set off to catch one of the free shuttle buses that run through the bottom of the valley. We alighted at the stop for the trail up to the Vernal and Navada falls and walked up to the former of these, which unlike most of the falls we saw yesterday, actually had some water flowing over it. We descended by the same route and then walked along the valley trail loop to Mirror Lake. This was a lovely walk through pine trees along rock canyons and it was much quieter, with a lot less people, than some of the main attractions. Walking along we suddenly heard a loud tapping noise and the sound of bark falling from a tree and then we espied the culprit, a red crested woodpecker head banging the pine tree for all his worth! Camera shots duly taken we continued our walk to Mirror lake to find a large sandy bowl, but of course no water. It was still a beautiful spot overlooked by the magnificent Half Dome and we sat on some rocks and ate our lunch. We then continued along the valley loop, keeping an eye out for any bears, but although we did see two big paw prints under a tree, there were no bears to be seen.

On returning to the village we went to the museum,where amongst many other items, we saw the marvelous baskets of many sizes and decorations made by the native Miwok and Paiute Indians. Behind the museum was a self guided tour of a represention of a native Indian village. Apparently they now live in low rise flats and apartments, alongside americans and many of their native skills and inherent knowledge of plants etc. has been lost. There is a campaign to try and remedy this before it is too late.

We then walked back to Ellie via base camp 4, which is where all the climbers pitch their tents, to see the very large rock on which they practise free climbing, which as its name suggests, is climbing with no aids whatsoever. Anyone who completes the climb has to re-chalk the mark on top of the boulder, or so Fred the guide told us yesterday. We did not climb it ourselves to verify this!!

We then began the long haul out of the valley along the spectacular, but scary road. On reaching the campsite it was time to feed Ellie again at the gas station - she surely is one hungry RV!

Tomorrow we head for the Sonoma wine valley.

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