Finding America

We decided to bring Kodi with us today rather than do another round trip to Yosemite and back just to pick him up again. It was a challenging drive to be sure, but after the hair raising Hwy 1 drive in California I feel prepared for anything.

On the way into the park we got the earth shattering news of the Virginia Tech tragedy. The news hit hard as we have a good friend who graduated from there and whose brother is still a student. Fortunately he was safe but the shootings came as a complete shock.

We parked the Kodi and the Fox, then walked about a mile to one of the lodges to pick up a shuttle to the trail head for the Vernal Falls. It was cold on the trail as most of it is in the shadows of mammoth sequoias. We hiked along the creek for a while and then the trail began its incline to the falls. The whole hike was full of amazing views of the valley and the bubbling creek cascading through lichen covered boulders as it carved it’s way through solid granite bedrock.

It was a bit slow going for me this morning. The cold air was brutal on our throats and mine especially. We had to stop from time to time for my throat to defrost and the coughing to subside. Whoa man – how the mighty hiker has been humbled. 

After crossing a footbridge we began our climb in earnest. Eighty percent of the climb was actually accomplished by using steps that had been carved right into rocky clifsides of the creek. Everything was slippery and wet at the base of the falls since it kicked up so much spray. We were grateful to have our rain jackets and with our hoods pulled up we pushed on through the splash zone. We caught a gorgeous view of the pool where an impromptu rainbow had appeared to encourage the faithful hikers on their way.

The last stretch is nearly vertical but with a little huffing and puffing we made it to the top and were rewarded with a clearing sky and the warm sun shining down evaporating our mist covered jackets. It was peaceful up here where the water begins its plunge. There is an audible difference in the water, the ferocity of the splash zone has been replaced with an odd echoing behind the natural gurgle of the creek.

We lounge on the large table like rock here kicking off our jackets and sprawling out like lizards soaking up the comforting heat of the rock. We devoured our lunch of PBJ’s and an apple and then laid back and took a rewarding nap under the gentle sun of the clearing sky. Other families were around doing much the same as we were. Kids played in the boulders but the creeks song drowned out much of the chatter and it was easy to forget we had other visitors on the rock with us.

We enjoyed the view a bit longer and then returned to the trail and began out decent. It was much easier going on the way down. We still had quite a bit of ground to cover but the sun had knocked the chill out of the air and my throat was much much happier.

We got back to Kodi and fired up the Fox for the trip west out of Yosemite. Little did I know that the challenge of the drive in today was a gentle warm-up for the technical drive awaiting us. Honestly the road to Stockton was insanely steep and curvy. The going was slow but we were still grateful to have not needed to return to Oakhurst in the south just to pick up Kodi after our hike.

There wasn’t much in the way of civilization between the park and where we planned to stay that evening so when we finally found a town we were more than happy to take a break and have a few tacos as an early dinner.

We pulled into our campsite at dusk and were so pleased to discover that the site was long enough for us to not need to unhook Kodi, enabling us to get right to the business of preparing some dinner, getting cleaned up and tuning into our newest obsession “The Bachelor”. Friends I am ashamed to say that I am hooked. We watched it the first time on the computer since it was the only tv show that was showing it’s first episode, and we didn’t want to watch an episode of a show we hadn’t followed from the beginning. Anyhow we ended the night with speculation of who would be voted off and laughing about how socially challenged some of the other girls on the show were. Talk about armchair quarterbacking – LOL.