Reflections of My Travel

Getting up for work was slightly easier today. Not by much, but adjustment is adjustment right? Sometime while we were working Sylvia took the kids to a friend’s house for the weekend and loaded up the car. After work, we four started on a little road trip for some national park adventures. It was a long, slow, winding ride but we finally made it to Visalia, CA (as opposed to Vidalia, GA – I’m easily amused, you know). We had a nice swim at the hotel and I’m ready for an early day tomorrow.

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The plan was to get a good, early start. Those who know me know that doesn’t really happen too well. Lucky for me, our friends aren’t too quick on the morning motivation either. We got a later-than-planned start but we arrived at Sequoia National Park mid-morning. Turns out, there are some pretty darned big trees in the world. I was astounded by the size of these things. Especially when I was jaw-dropped in front of one and the sign next to it said that it was just an average one. We climbed Moro Rock to look out over the surrounding landscape. It was pretty. I’m sure that it was absolutely gorgeous before the days of smog. I’ll have to say that the very well defined purple haze took something away from it. It’s bad when they even have an informative placard all about the smog. We then made our way to the General Sherman, which is the largest tree in the world, by volume. There was a branch that had fallen off of it last year that was bigger than most Georgia trees I’ve seen. When it fell, the impact sunk it about two feet into the surrounding dirt and shattered the sidewalk it landed on. Huge, I tell you. The last big stop we made in the park was at the General Grant tree which is the third largest in the world, by volume, and the largest in the world around the base. The diameter of the base is forty feet. Massive. While in that section of the forest, we went by the Robert E Lee tree which was roped off because Rangers were climbing it and conducting extensive surveys on it. The really interesting thing about that was that they informed us that they found an eight foot tall pine tree growing on one of the upper branches. I wish we could have seen that. After leaving Sequoia, we headed to Yosemite National Park. Since it was late in the afternoon, we planned to drive through the south side to the Mariposa exit, where our hotel would be, and see what we could see along the way. We stopped at some scenic pull-offs to take photos of El Capitan and we did the short hike (walk really) to Bridal Veil Falls. There was a rainbow across the waterfall which was very pretty, but it was easy to see that we are here the wrong time of year for water falls. It was more than a trickle, but not by much. I saw postcards of it that were magnificent though.

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We did slightly better on our early start today. When we got back into Yosemite, it was decided that our goal for the day was to do the Upper Yosemite Falls hike. We took the short hike (walk really) to the Lower Yosemite Falls to start with. Again, not a lot of water, but very pretty. The lower, upper, and middle cascades combine to form the tallest waterfall in the US, so they say. It was around 11:00 when we started the upper hike (and I do mean hike). If we had started at some ungodly, not-so-hot hour it may have been better. We set out on the 7.2 mile roundtrip hike with an elevation gain of 2,700 feet; the sign estimated it as a 6-8 hour hike. The trail started out as an extremely steep series of switchbacks. It felt like this lasted about ten miles but it was probably only three-quarters of a mile. We finally got out of the switchbacks but it remained torturously steep. After a lifetime, we made it to Columbia Rock which has a beautiful view of Half Dome. We stopped several minutes for photos and battery/card swapping and started up again. I’m not a good rester on hikes. Once I’ve stopped to rest, I have a very difficult time regaining my momentum. As a general rule, even if it’s killing me, I’m better off powering through to my destination. All that being said, I was DONE after Columbia Rock. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the trail didn’t level off, it started going down!!! DOWN. On a trail that gains 2,700 feet of elevation down can only mean that there is a heck of a lot more steep UP in front of you. Probably 1.8 miles into the trail, we found the rest of the up. Luckily it was also about the same time that the waterfall came into view. Photos were taken and we stopped for granola bars at the base of the extremely steep series of switchbacks that would be the remainder of the trail. Brian was determined to go to the top. I was way too hot and tired to care. Sylvia was in my camp. Randal was neutral so he volunteered to accompany Brian (never leave a hiker alone). Girls and boys split. As I’ve already stated, if it had not been so bloody hot, I probably would have pushed myself to the top. I usually like to push myself on hikes. I did feel pangs of guilt for turning tail, but not enough to slow down my descent. Realistically, it was probably the right choice anyhow. Up might tire me out and wind me, but down always hurts me. As us girls powered back down the mountain, my knees made known their displeasure with all of the down. I’m quite certain that if I had added another 1.8 miles of ridiculously steep down, I would have been crying long before the bottom. Also, about halfway back down, my head began throwing in its $0.02. I always take Motrin with me wherever I go but today I forgot to transfer it to my camelpack. By the time we got all the way back down, rested a bit, and started back to the car for a snack, I was in full migraine mode. Luckily, Sylvia had a book to keep her company because I took some Motrin and laid down in the back for a good hour to dissipate the pain. When the boys finally made it back down (7.5 hours but they also took a swim break at the top of the falls), I was feeling mostly better and we grabbed some food before starting the drive back to the house. The drive out of the Tioga Pass exit of the park was stunning. I was actually regretting that we had to drive through the night because it was so pretty up until it got too dark to see.