Sunday, October 22, 2006

Yosemite Road Trip! (Part 2)



Tip #2: Pack all food, toiletries, and water in a separate bag from your clothes.

Since we didn't follow Tip #2, we were stuck at the car until 1 am sorting our toiletries. Funny the bear in the movie looked like it was tearing apart our car...as soon as we turned to sleepily wobble to our tent, a huge bear saunters across the parking lot 100 feet in front of us. Not a welcome site. After waiting out the bear sighting from the front seat of our fortress, er, Chevy Aveo, we decide to make a break for our bunker, er, canvas tent.

On our second attempt to just get some sleep after our long drive, we were welcomed into the campground by shouts of "BEAR!" coming from all over. Not in the mood. At all. After a few tears, cussing, and thoughts of leaving right then and there, we survived the first freezing cold night.
Tip #3: Sleeping bags don't keep the cold out if they aren't zipped up/zipped together. Especially when it's 35 degrees.

So, by now you've realized we're not the most experienced campers. Funny that I always ask for camping gear for gifts. Maybe it makes me feel more outdoorsy.

The Grizzly Giant
After a nice long rest (until 11am) the second day was a zillion times better than the first waking up under the eye of half dome and brisk autumn day. Instead of braving the tourists in the Valley, we drove one hour south to Mariposa Grove to see the Sequoia forest. On the way we stopped to see Bridalveil Falls, one of the few waterfalls still flowing in October. The short hike was worth the time to see a light mist spraying over the precipice above.

We have tall redwoods in the Bay Area, but these trees were just beasts. We passed on the $16 tram ride and decided to take a short hike up to see the sites. It was a busy trail, but much less busy than the bustle of activity in Yosemite Valley. And the car trip there and back was equally breathtaking.

Yosemite National Park
We decided to drive to Glacier Point to see Yosemite Valley from above. The short half-hour drive leads to a point directly above the visitor's center in the Valley below; it was as if we were in an airplane looking out over the mountains, and it was such a clear day. The Sierras just went on and on in every direction. This short drive was definitely the highlight of our trip.

We grabbed dinner back at Curry Village with the rest of civilization. The lounge/lodge/restaurant had all of the comforts of home: a fireplace, big leather couches, and the Cal football game opposite the National League playoff game on television. So much for getting away from reality!

Our second night was much less eventful with our lessons learned from the night before. We called it a night early to avoid any bear encounters. It was too cold to do anything anyway.

Hetch Hetchy

On our way back to the Bay Area we stopped by Hetch Hetchy Valley and O'Shaughnessy Dam. My wife claims I was slightly giddy as we drove up the deserted road to San Francisco's drinking water supply reservoir - maybe I was a little. Funny that we've both studied this place in school as a history major and an environmental engineer.

The Hetch Hetchy area of Yosemite was much easier to wrap our hands around than the main park. There were several great day hike trails (although we were too exhausted to try), not many people, and still an amazing view.
Tip #4: Get a National Parks annual pass. It's $50 and entering Yosemite is $20...and entering Yosemite again to see Hetch Hetchy is $20.

The only thing in my life that has compared to visiting Yosemite is visiting the Louvre in Paris. Both places are utterly unique and breathtaking and completely overwhelming. When we go again, we hope to rough it a little more during the day and pamper ourselves more at night. It is truly an amazing place that cannot be described through pictures or stories, but needs to be experienced first-hand in its harsh beauty.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Yosemite Road Trip! (Part 1)

El Capitan from Yosemite Valley
After living in California for over two years, we finally decided to take a pilgramage to Yosemite National Park: the breathtaking, gradiose, and tourist ridden Sierra Nevada valley. We dissuaded ourselves from going in the past because we wanted to try to avoid tourist season. Well, it seems that there is a reason that more people come during the peak tourist season - it isn't 35 degrees at night with no heat in a canvas tent! More on that later...

Despite our best efforts to leave right after work from San Francisco, our plans were thwarted by the other half million people trying to escape the City for the long weekend.
Tip #1: Do not attempt to leave downtown San Francisco by car on a Friday afternoon. Everybody else is doing the same thing.
So, we were off to a great start...by 7:00pm we had made it all the way to Livermore for a gourmet dinner at Quizno's. We really just got off 580 to let the traffic die down, but we ran into Friday night high school orgy at the mall. And don't diss Quizno's - this is the staple of road-trip food!

The traffic had died down substantially as we zig-zagged across the central valley on Highway 120 arriving at the Curry Village registration desk just before midnight. The road into Yosemite was breathtaking: the full moon overhead lit up the granite valley walls with a spooky white shimmer that towered over us.

Yosemite National Park
Arrival
We expected to be the last of the night to check-in to our tent cabin lodging, but it turns out that the entire Bay Area decided leave and arrive with us. The half-hour wait at the registration desk was thoroughly enhanced by the ten-minute "bear safety" video looping over the employees' heads.

"Do not leave food in your car. Do not leave food in your tent. We hope you didn't go to Quizno's on the way here because a bear will smell it and tear open the roof of your car like this...." --video showing bear tearing off the roof of a car like ours--

So, if a bear can do that to a car, what will it to our paper-thin, vinyl tent cabin walls? What if I smell like Quizno's?

Continued: Yosemite Road Trip! (Part 2)

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

RAIN!

San Francisco Radar Oct. 4
The first rain in MONTHS has arrived! It smelled so good today coming out of the BART station - I'd trade smelly BO for wormy and moist any day! In all honesty, summers in the Bay Area can get a little boring - the same weather everyday with some fog thrown in here and there for fun.

In the land-of-two-seasons it is so refreshing to experience the transition. I saw more happy wet people today than I have in a long time.

We're headed to Yosemite this weekend to freeze our asses off in an unheated canvas tent cabin. Hopefully October will scare off all of the tourists and we'll have the whole place to ourselves - haHA! Expect a full report with pretty pictures when we get back.