YOSEMITE - ANOTHER PARADISE

May 29 & 30, 2008 in Yosemite National Park in California. This was quoted by John Muir. "It is by far the grandest of all the special temples of nature I was ever permitted to enter".

Before we started travelling many people were suggesting where to go and what to visit. I guess this park was suggested by Jennifer Depascale, our x-coworker at ESE Consultants Inc. Jenn I have been to many national parks for the last 19 days ranging from Badlands in South Dakota, Yellow Stone and Grand Teton in Wyoming and many more.

I said it many times this and that was the most beautiful but this one was different. I enjoyed its views, sounds and smells.

Yosemite has four geographic areas. High Sierra, Granite cliffs,Sequoia groves and valleys.

We arrived around 3 pm on may, 29. We started looking at massive granite cliffs. It was not only one cliff but many cliffs continuously.Some of the cliffs have water falls. That was another beauty of these cliffs. We walked towards the water fall from the bottom.We were actually right by the fall. Can we imagine for one second and see how the water smokes when it falls from top to down over a cliff ?

George Anderson was the first man reached the top in 1875. Since then adventurous men and women have been climbing cliffs.Climbers from around the world come here to challenge these cliffs.

Andy and I climbed to the bottom the cliff which has a water fall :-) To do this it needs to climb over trees,rocks and walking along the river until we hit the water fall.Avi followed us but ended some where in mid way. Actually, he hide himself in a tree and rock, and when I returned he shouted from my back and made me nervous.I didn't expect any human being over there.I have a picture by the water fall so that explains much more than what I am writing about with my broken English.

We kept on driving by the cliffs and the valleys. Everything what we saw, was amazing.It was around 8 PM so we got a point where looking for a camping site.We didn't want to camp on camping ground somewhere close to Yosemite Valley Visitor Center.Rather we wanted to camp in National Forests. There are about five national forests in this park.

It was quite camping in one of the forest. What we heard during night was birds singing, Creeks flowing, trees swaying and some wild animals. No human or any vehicle noise. We liked that. We camped inside a sequoia trees. Another interesting thing about these tree were , fire actually promotes the reproduction of these trees.

We woke up the morning of may 30, 2008. We got breakfast, brushed teeth and I shaved. Here is what happened. Andy wanted to climb a tree. Wow !! It was impressing. He climbed over an Oak tree. I scared a little bit when he was climbing at some point and said "You did a great job so far and I would say please stop climbing and come down". Thinking for his safety. He replied "Sisay this is the worst thing you are telling me ". He was serious. Then he kept on climbing to top of the tree and came down safely. He is the man !! I used to climb a tree when I was around 12 but not on big tree like this.

Then we headed towards Sierra Mountains. It is among the highest mountains in US.We saw many rocky mountains covered with snow. We were driving mountain to another mountain until we hit close to 10,000 feet. It was snow and cold in there.We stopped by and started walking to even a higher elevation.Andy took the lead.Avi and I followed.It was too cold and less oxygen.It was amazing to sit on top and see such a stunning scenery around us. We took pictures right there. One of my favourite picture was the one when I was rolling over massive rock :-)

Then we started driving. Still there were many rocky mountains covered with snow. But this time we were going down to a lower elevation. We stopped by for lunch and packed our lunch and put in back pack. And then started hiking.

We arrived at a creek on bottom of the mountain. Wow!! It was beautiful. We had lunch there. Avi swimmed. And and I took a little nap while listening to the creek flowing. It was refreshing.

Hey guys if you are travelling with us we are going to heading towards death valley. I am also going to write a little bit about Denkil Depression in Ethiopia-The second lowest point below see level in Africa. Have fun

For comments my e-mail is : virginiacons@gmail.com