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Published: December 31st 2008
Shanghai - San Francisco… across the ocean one more time, ready for my first true American Christmas & discovery of the Yosemite National Park and California coast line.
And what an amazing trip! Thanks so much Stephen for those few days spent together and see you on the 9th! Christmas celebrations Absolutely love the time difference between China and the West coast, left early on the 24th and arrive even earlier on the same day, ready for a three hours drive to Fresno with Stephen to spend Christmas in his family.
So…for “breakfast”, well, lobster! :-) Followed by the Christmas church service (American style…culturally interesting) & Christmas dinner at his cousin house. Lots of family member there and a whole new experience for me with paper candles lined up in the street, Christmas decoration absolutely taking over every single house and barbecued oysters!
Back on time to open the numerous Christmas gifts and chat & laugh by the Christmas tree before catching up some well deserved sleep!
The Dana house was most likely the most original gift and yes picture of it in Costa Rica are to follow! Thanks Stephen & your family for welcoming me and making this Christmas
so special!
And up the mountains to the Yosemite national park we went… Early afternoon departure for the Yosemite Park, a “3 hours” drive from Fresno…Lots of snow storms the past few days and a dreamed weather forecast for the coming days (sunny/ blue sky). The drive up the mountain in itself is quite spectacular especially with all the snow that fall on the area, from deep green medium elevation forest, we were quickly putting on the snow chain for the snow white tortuous roads…Peace and quiet…
Guess that’s when it must have been slightly “too peaceful” as shortly before entering the Yosemite park we were stopped in the middle of nowhere.
All cars lined up on one side of the icy road waiting for the road to be cleared up…so far so good…Road cleared and up the mountain we went again at least for the next 10 mn when we were again stopped…car accident, the icy road was clearly a challenge for the less experienced drivers or the Yuppies as Stephen likes to call them…
45 mn later, when the road was actually about to be cleared, and we had decided to walk a bit and chat
the majestuous Yosemite waterfall
tallest one in US and 5th tallest in the world (2425 feet)...mmmm...watch out for the snow cone half way :-)with the locals, a loud noise broke the silence…
Didn’t really pay attention to it, well, at least until one of the driver who had walked down to see how the car clearing was going ran back to us with a
“gonna be a while…a tree just fall on one of the car that was waiting for the road to be cleared with people inside…" ok, guess in addition to the icy curvy road, we will have to watch out for the trees who might fall on us while we drive…
Sounds like fun…
Anyway, none of us were planning on spending the night waiting for the road to be cleared so we drove back and took the other road leading to the park…
Felt like we were doing a night safari drive ! Crossing in front of the car deer, coyotes and other four legs animals…driving under a night sky filled with stars, along a thundering river and finally into the actual park with all signage covered with snow! Truly lucky that Stephen is so familiar with the area if not we would have spent the night trying to find our way to curry village!
Fist stop for the
night, a very cozy tent cabins in the middle of the forest and right at the bottom of the Dome, right in the middle of the Yosemite National Park.
Ok, after the tree incident, guess that none of us was truly comforted by the fact that the tent cabin opposite to ours had been entirely crashed by a tree that fall on it due to the weight of the snow…
All about statistics so the chance that an other cabin in same area got reduced to dust by a tree are technically very limited…(at least that’s what I convinced myself while going to sleep). Ok….well, not always true…as in the middle of the night a massive tree branch fall down on the cabin located on the right side of ours..mmmm…no massive damages but
slightly less confident in the “statistic logic”... Welcome to snow land! The next morning wake up was truly magical, as we had been entering the park at night I didn’t realized that we were surrounded by such mountains and with a view on the “Dome”… Couldn’t resist but rush back to the cabin and grab my camera for some early morning shoots!
Following
El Capitan
Around Yosemite park which Stephen treated me to the Grand Tour…from the snow covered fields and forest up to the top for a full view of the Yosemite Valley while stopping by to admire “El Capitan” truly majestic and even more dramatic with the occasional avalanche!
The Yosemite fall were our next stops and closer we couldn’t have been as we stayed right by the fall :-)
and well it is quite an impressive 2425 feet fall that creates a snow cone half way before going further down. Although not very wide (well…the snow and cold doesn’t help…), I am definitely looking forward to come back and admire those in spring when they have regained their full power.
Snow trek & bear encounter…a first and asking for more! All geared up, up the mountain we went again! This time on foot through a tiny path covered with snow :-) Loving it!
Lucky enough someone had went up before us and thus the foot steps greatly helped to find our way up, although we would frequently end up with fresh snow up to the knee, making our way while trying to keep our balance!
The view from above was once again
Hello beauty! the most impredictable encounter!
wondering who was the most surprised...us or him! majestic and the whole experience was already absolutely unforgettable, well…
and it got even more unforgettable when while making our way down we run into a massive black bear! This was a
very unexpected encounter as most bear are down the valley during the coldest part of the winter and with this amount of snow we would have expected everything but a 300+ kg bear on the trail! Looks like he was as surprised as we were and not quite sure which way to go as we were technically on the same path!
Stephen having some cookies in his bag (which the bear could easily smell and then run for the bag..) promptly reacted and “made himself big” and loud. The bear hesitantly started to take a short cut thus allowing us to keep going down while having a last glimpse at his snow covered fur…
This concluded our three days in the Yosemite and the first time for me to actually see something else in the US than big metropolitan cities!
The next day, we would hit the road again, crossing the mountains and heading to Big Sur! Pacific Ocean here we come!
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Stephen Paul
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
What a Big Bear!
Wow, that guy is handsome! And the bear too... Its amazing how fast you got this travelblog up! Nice work!!