Hiking up and up. And up.

---

We were peeved to find that we had to put our name down and wait 15 mins to get a seat at breakfast. Breakfast itself was quite decent, albeit with limited options.

We'd planned two hikes today. The 1st, Mariposa Groves to look at the giant sequoia trees. It's only a short drive from the Wawona Hotel and we arrived shortly after 9am. Armed with our $0.50 map, we head off to check out the main attractions.

The trees are pretty damn big. Not quite as high as I'd imagined, but very thick trunks. Amazingly thick trunks. You'd have a hell of a time digging one of them out of your back yard! The grove is full of bloody big trees, and there's a bit of a hike between them. In all, we climbed 1000 ft to see the Fallen Tunnel Tree - itself a let-down after the other trees we'd seen.

On the way we encountered an American Couple, Rob & Barb, who we asked to take our photo. Rob had been playing with what I guessed to be a relatively new Nikon D40 with wide-angle lens, and insisted on taking our picture so he could email it to us. Turns out he was a retired Electrical Engineer (Power) and we chatted for about 15 mins in all.

Time to head over to our next hike. In all, it took 3 hours in the grove.

A quick sandwich in the park next to the Wawona General Store, alongside the river, and we headed up to Chiluiana Falls. It was a very hot day - high 30's I'd guess - so we made sure we had (barely) adequate water as the map had suggested it was a 5 hr hike.

It was 2:50pm now, and I wasn't too sure about hiking out of bear-infested woods at 8pm. As a result, we started off at a fairly cracking pace. In fact, the entire trip up was done at time-and-a-half I reckon.

The map said this hike had a climb of 2,400 feet!!! What wasn't clear was the fact that there was no - and I mean absolutely NO - level or downhill bits at all!!! It was a constant, and sometimes steep, ascent with no respite at all! On a hot day, racing the clock, it was a rather strenuous hike to say the least - especially considering we'd already done 1,000 ft this morning!

We met a few hikers returning on the way up who gave us some indication of our progress. We pressed on - to be occasionally rewarded with some fantastic views over the valley from which we had climbed. The early climb was directly alongside the lower falls, but as we rode the tack snaked away to create an accessible climb, but always within earshot of the fast-flowing river/falls.

Finally, we emerged around 4:45pm at the top of the main falls. With a commanding view of the valley and the tons of water gushing over the edge only inches away (we didn't really get _that_ close mum) it was well worth the climb! We took 15 mins to take in the view, and climb over a few more rocks to see the source of the river - higher falls again - upstream.

5pm and high time to start down. Again we set off at a cracking pace, ever wary that we were the last on the trail by about an hour, and wondering if there was a reason why sensible people had finished earlier. Seeing the bear-proof bins in the car parking lot didn't help.

Coming down was just as hard as going up, except now my quads hurt instead of my hamstrings. I just hoped that my muscles would hold out long enough not to jeopardise my knees. It really was hard going. We marched into the car park around 6:25pm - still plenty of light and very, very tired and sore. A 5 hr hike up 2,400 ft in 3 hr 45 mins was pretty good going, especially considering we'd done a 3 hr hike and climbed 1,000 ft this morning!

There was simply no way I was going to drive 30 mins into Oakhurst for dinner as we'd planned - it was sandwiches and Coke from the Wawona General Store, then bed.

Easily the most demanding hike I've done. I'm sure it was harder than Porto Venere to Riomaggiore in Cinque Terra in Italy last year!

---