"Looking eastward from the summit of the Pacheco Pass one shining morning, a landscape was displayed that after all my wanderings still appears as the most beautiful I have ever beheld. At my feet lay the Great Central Valley of California, level and flowery, like a lake of pure sunshine, forty or fifty miles wide, five hundred miles long, one rich furred garden of yellow Compositœ. And from the eastern boundary of this vast golden flower-bed rose the mighty Sierra, miles in height, and so gloriously colored and so radiant, it seemed not clothed with light, but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city." ~John Muir, excerpt from The Yosemite, 1912
Tenaya Lake, Tuolumne Meadows
John Muir records his vision of Yosemite, first seen in the glorious Springtime of April. We visited in September, no less beautiful---the fresh blue water of mountain lakes, the dark green of forests and scrub, the snow-laced mountains rising majestically...
hiking the Mist Trail
to Vernal Fall (317' high, on the Merced River just below Nevada Fall)
erratics at Olmstead Point (Erratics are glacier transported rock fragments that differ from the local bedrock)
"Grizzly Giant" in the Mariposa Grove of Sequoias (probably 1900-2700 years old, the oldest tree in the grove, its basal circumference is @ 92 feet)
California Tunnel Tree (cut in 1895 to allow stagecoaches to pass through)
This was a Mother-in-Law trip (brainstorm of my husband. Yes, it was fun!) which we took in 2005. We traveled to California visiting the Lake Tahoe area and Yosemite National Park. Above are our mothers (mine, left; his, right) standing inside a sequoia.
LINKS:
The Yosemite by John Muir
Yosemite National Park website Mariposa Grove
Yosemite Hikes (general) Mist Trail (specific)
Vernal Fall wikipedia
great information on giant sequoias and Mariposa Grove
Sequoiadendron giganteum
NOTES:
Yosemite National Park (established in 1890 ) comprises over 760,000 acres located in the central Sierra Nevada of California.
Giant Sequoias, Sequoiadendron giganteum, aren't the oldest living things, the tallest, or the widest. They are, however, in volume, the largest living things known to humans.
Come join in the fun at Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday. You will be enlightened, charmed, and have some plain ole fun! See more entries HERE. This week our letter is "Y."
photos by me © 2005
