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Some brave, some other...
Okay so we've been on the trek for about 5 days now.
We picked up the tour group in San Fransisco at 7:30am on Tuesday. At a hotel just along from the shiney new fedral building in town. Tasty tasty. This ment we got up about 5am to catch the BART from Oakland - thats the public transport in San Fransisco. Needless to say we wern't taking it seriously enough. We were really quite lucky actually because we found it while we were wondering around the artist warehouse parts of the town. There's alot of disused buildings in San Fransisco as part of the failing DotCom boom of the 90's. Basicaly what happens is a bunch of artists and kids move in, do it up then the company who owns the building buys the people out and sells the place as trendy appartments. It's quite fun.
We met everyone at this hotel and piled in to the mini bus which will be our transport for the next 14 days. We saw the Golden Gate bridge (again) but it was still foggy so we all just had a jaunt across it - except from Joris, the guy who is scared of hights, but we'll come to that later.
We drove straight from there to Yosemite across country. We had a wee orientation of the park in the afternoon and saw a bear after being warned that they we're quite shy and hard to spot. It was very exciting. The valley itself is awe inspiring. El Capitan, one of the shear faces of the park is breath taking and is not going to be done any justice by our photographs. It's immense in the truest sense of the word.
That was our first night of getting to know the people we'll be in the pokets of for the next two weeks. We had some beers and ate chilli. It's all very wholesome. There's two Belgians, two Brits, a kiwi, us and the rest are Dutch. Our tour leader Molly is from New Mexico but lives in Las Vegas, speaks fluent German and has travelled the world. Not bad. We're camping all the way but the tents are simple to put up and we've been given a Thermarest each so it's pretty comfy now we've invested in a simple cheepo Walmart blanket rather than our Scottish winter sleeping bags.
That next day we did a walk down Glacier point, which was pretty easy but was a good introduction to the heat, sandy walkways and everyone elses fitness level. Surprisingly we're right up there - you'd think we were athletes hahaha. We saw a long windey man (snake) on this hike and plenty of lizards. Unfortunatly Diana tripped and took a chunk out her knee and is unable to do most of the walking on the trip bummer. From here we visited the Seqouia groves. These trees are not only the biggest plants in the world but also the largest living things on the planet. Again, see above for awe inspiring / lack of photographic justice. Incidently they were discovered by the same Scotsman who campained for the region to be a protected national park. Go team! We saw another bear on the way back to the campsite galloping across the road in from of the van. It was a big one and real fast. It must have been late for it's tea.
The next day was free for us to do any trek in the park we wanted so we did the most brutal one. Obviously. The Half Dome mountain dominates the parks skyline and is the sheerest face climb in the country. Following a six hour trek in the blistering heat the climbers are presented with a 600ft blind summit acsent using the most shoddy cables. See video. Graeme made it to the top but I manage to get half way up the cables and freak myself out so I had to come back. I'm such a wuss.
(For the hardened climbers out there, it's not really that difficult, but trust me it's mighty scary on the way up and down. This is compounded by the number of morons in slip on vans and flip flops who have miraculously made it this far and insist on attempting the ascent. The family behind be on the descent were using the phrase 'controlled slide' every time they lost thier footing. They all looked pretty ill by the time they got down. G)
At the top Graeme saw a Marmot, a big chubby one, and wrote 'Dave Was Here' in the sand (It was about 3.30 on Friday afternoon, putting it bang on his birthday, UK time. Although I didn't realise this until just now. Still I was compelled to get to the top and write in the sand. Forgot the bloody whisky though - G). After a quick look round he came back down and we made our way back down the path. Unfortunatley we ran out of water about two hours from the bottom and despite the elegant pools and waterfalls, you cant drink from the streams. God knows why, but it was pretty irritating. Still it made the cool beer all the better when we reached the bottom. All in - 12 hours round trip.
The national parks have a well maintained system of trails and paths, many of which are paved ar cut into the granite, which we found silly at first. But once you see the number of people who tackle the mountains every day, it becomes apparent that it's an essential conservation measure. Although, if it wasn't so easy, maybe they wouldn't come.. it's a catch 22.
From Yosemite we drove for 8 hours to the great basin in Cathedral National Park. It's a stones throw from Area 51 and we stopped at a place called the Little Al'E Inn. The locals see all kinds of weirdness over the mountains, their vision clarified by the wonderfull booze served at the bar. We kinda liked it. We'll tell you all about the newly arrived gays which were the talk of the steamie. Not quite Pricilla, but you get the idea. If you've ever seen Independance Day...it's the trailer park where the families stay at when the aliens attack.
The roads were impossibly straight, though with enough bumps and dips to earn the title - the roller coaster. It was a fun drive and we arrived at the campsite in time to eat, drink, sing songs and sleep, sans-tent, under the unspoiled stars. It was, again, awesome.
In the morning, three of us took a quick hike into the desert for a look at the crazy rock formations.. a bit like the planet from Generations for all you trekkies out there.
We arrived in Zion that afternoon and were all still pretty washed out from the long drive and booze session the day before. Once the tents were pitched most folk did some laundry and had a dip in the pool to cool down. It's around 40 in the shade and at night... sweaty sweaty. We visited te park for a quick orientation and I found a book titled "Scat Trails for Kids" which is exactly what it sounds like... poo hunting for kids.
We also saw a black widow spider which was quite exciting and Graeme was very very brave and even looked at it. Unavoidable really as it had spun a web outside the shower block to catch some fat children.
Another free day today saw us leap out of bed at 5am in the pitch black and head into the park on the first bus of the day. In fact, the only bus before 7.30. Before leaving we spotted a big ol' preying mantis in the bathroom and watched as it pounced and devoured a cockroach, which kicked throughout the experience. It was brutally cool.
We tacked Angels Landing, which was a pretty easy but steep hike to a ridge over to another point that had a 600ft scramble to a view point. We'd been warned previously that the view wasn't worth the effort, or the fear and with high gusty wind we skipped the final part. Again we're pretty wussy. We sat on a rock high above the park and watched the sun rise. There was only 6 other people in the whole park and it was beautiful to watch undisturbed. The crowds we passed as we came down was crazy big.
From here we took a wander into the Emerald pools and up to the hidden canyon. Both were extremley beautful and fun walks requiring a little bit of bouldering to get to the exciting parts. It's really amazing and surreal with butterflys, lizards, streaks of sunlight and the cool lagoons all around. First frog of the trip also sighted. We settled for lunch under the Weeping Rock which drips 1000 year old rain water from above, a welcome relief from the oh-my-god-how-hot-is-it-actually sun.
After our tasty sandwhiches we decided to have a look at the Narrows. It's a point where two different cliffs meet and you can trek up river to narrow points and canyons. Despite it's obvious attraction there are lot of warnings about the dangers of flash flooding and with thunder overhead we thought it wise to skip, although some of our braver team members went in early and beamed with delight at the views. Still, Zion is a beautful place and we'll be sad to leave tommorrow.
We took more pictures than are healthy and I think only Morag and Alex will be as excited as us to see them! The vitam D has made is quite giddy and I made the decision to try and grab a squirrel on the way out of the canyon. They are very tame in the valley cause morons feed them. The attempt was successfull on both occassions and laughter, tickling and merriement followed us out of the park before exhaustion led us here... to the coffee shop.
Anyway.. a lenghty post and if you made it this far. Well done. We're off to Bryce tommorrow which promises to be a hoot. Right now, it's time for a cold beer and sleep... maybe a shower - we're pretty grubby - spiders permiting.
We picked up the tour group in San Fransisco at 7:30am on Tuesday. At a hotel just along from the shiney new fedral building in town. Tasty tasty. This ment we got up about 5am to catch the BART from Oakland - thats the public transport in San Fransisco. Needless to say we wern't taking it seriously enough. We were really quite lucky actually because we found it while we were wondering around the artist warehouse parts of the town. There's alot of disused buildings in San Fransisco as part of the failing DotCom boom of the 90's. Basicaly what happens is a bunch of artists and kids move in, do it up then the company who owns the building buys the people out and sells the place as trendy appartments. It's quite fun.
We met everyone at this hotel and piled in to the mini bus which will be our transport for the next 14 days. We saw the Golden Gate bridge (again) but it was still foggy so we all just had a jaunt across it - except from Joris, the guy who is scared of hights, but we'll come to that later.
We drove straight from there to Yosemite across country. We had a wee orientation of the park in the afternoon and saw a bear after being warned that they we're quite shy and hard to spot. It was very exciting. The valley itself is awe inspiring. El Capitan, one of the shear faces of the park is breath taking and is not going to be done any justice by our photographs. It's immense in the truest sense of the word.
That was our first night of getting to know the people we'll be in the pokets of for the next two weeks. We had some beers and ate chilli. It's all very wholesome. There's two Belgians, two Brits, a kiwi, us and the rest are Dutch. Our tour leader Molly is from New Mexico but lives in Las Vegas, speaks fluent German and has travelled the world. Not bad. We're camping all the way but the tents are simple to put up and we've been given a Thermarest each so it's pretty comfy now we've invested in a simple cheepo Walmart blanket rather than our Scottish winter sleeping bags.
That next day we did a walk down Glacier point, which was pretty easy but was a good introduction to the heat, sandy walkways and everyone elses fitness level. Surprisingly we're right up there - you'd think we were athletes hahaha. We saw a long windey man (snake) on this hike and plenty of lizards. Unfortunatly Diana tripped and took a chunk out her knee and is unable to do most of the walking on the trip bummer. From here we visited the Seqouia groves. These trees are not only the biggest plants in the world but also the largest living things on the planet. Again, see above for awe inspiring / lack of photographic justice. Incidently they were discovered by the same Scotsman who campained for the region to be a protected national park. Go team! We saw another bear on the way back to the campsite galloping across the road in from of the van. It was a big one and real fast. It must have been late for it's tea.
The next day was free for us to do any trek in the park we wanted so we did the most brutal one. Obviously. The Half Dome mountain dominates the parks skyline and is the sheerest face climb in the country. Following a six hour trek in the blistering heat the climbers are presented with a 600ft blind summit acsent using the most shoddy cables. See video. Graeme made it to the top but I manage to get half way up the cables and freak myself out so I had to come back. I'm such a wuss.
(For the hardened climbers out there, it's not really that difficult, but trust me it's mighty scary on the way up and down. This is compounded by the number of morons in slip on vans and flip flops who have miraculously made it this far and insist on attempting the ascent. The family behind be on the descent were using the phrase 'controlled slide' every time they lost thier footing. They all looked pretty ill by the time they got down. G)
At the top Graeme saw a Marmot, a big chubby one, and wrote 'Dave Was Here' in the sand (It was about 3.30 on Friday afternoon, putting it bang on his birthday, UK time. Although I didn't realise this until just now. Still I was compelled to get to the top and write in the sand. Forgot the bloody whisky though - G). After a quick look round he came back down and we made our way back down the path. Unfortunatley we ran out of water about two hours from the bottom and despite the elegant pools and waterfalls, you cant drink from the streams. God knows why, but it was pretty irritating. Still it made the cool beer all the better when we reached the bottom. All in - 12 hours round trip.
The national parks have a well maintained system of trails and paths, many of which are paved ar cut into the granite, which we found silly at first. But once you see the number of people who tackle the mountains every day, it becomes apparent that it's an essential conservation measure. Although, if it wasn't so easy, maybe they wouldn't come.. it's a catch 22.
From Yosemite we drove for 8 hours to the great basin in Cathedral National Park. It's a stones throw from Area 51 and we stopped at a place called the Little Al'E Inn. The locals see all kinds of weirdness over the mountains, their vision clarified by the wonderfull booze served at the bar. We kinda liked it. We'll tell you all about the newly arrived gays which were the talk of the steamie. Not quite Pricilla, but you get the idea. If you've ever seen Independance Day...it's the trailer park where the families stay at when the aliens attack.
The roads were impossibly straight, though with enough bumps and dips to earn the title - the roller coaster. It was a fun drive and we arrived at the campsite in time to eat, drink, sing songs and sleep, sans-tent, under the unspoiled stars. It was, again, awesome.
In the morning, three of us took a quick hike into the desert for a look at the crazy rock formations.. a bit like the planet from Generations for all you trekkies out there.
We arrived in Zion that afternoon and were all still pretty washed out from the long drive and booze session the day before. Once the tents were pitched most folk did some laundry and had a dip in the pool to cool down. It's around 40 in the shade and at night... sweaty sweaty. We visited te park for a quick orientation and I found a book titled "Scat Trails for Kids" which is exactly what it sounds like... poo hunting for kids.
We also saw a black widow spider which was quite exciting and Graeme was very very brave and even looked at it. Unavoidable really as it had spun a web outside the shower block to catch some fat children.
Another free day today saw us leap out of bed at 5am in the pitch black and head into the park on the first bus of the day. In fact, the only bus before 7.30. Before leaving we spotted a big ol' preying mantis in the bathroom and watched as it pounced and devoured a cockroach, which kicked throughout the experience. It was brutally cool.
We tacked Angels Landing, which was a pretty easy but steep hike to a ridge over to another point that had a 600ft scramble to a view point. We'd been warned previously that the view wasn't worth the effort, or the fear and with high gusty wind we skipped the final part. Again we're pretty wussy. We sat on a rock high above the park and watched the sun rise. There was only 6 other people in the whole park and it was beautiful to watch undisturbed. The crowds we passed as we came down was crazy big.
From here we took a wander into the Emerald pools and up to the hidden canyon. Both were extremley beautful and fun walks requiring a little bit of bouldering to get to the exciting parts. It's really amazing and surreal with butterflys, lizards, streaks of sunlight and the cool lagoons all around. First frog of the trip also sighted. We settled for lunch under the Weeping Rock which drips 1000 year old rain water from above, a welcome relief from the oh-my-god-how-hot-is-it-actually sun.
After our tasty sandwhiches we decided to have a look at the Narrows. It's a point where two different cliffs meet and you can trek up river to narrow points and canyons. Despite it's obvious attraction there are lot of warnings about the dangers of flash flooding and with thunder overhead we thought it wise to skip, although some of our braver team members went in early and beamed with delight at the views. Still, Zion is a beautful place and we'll be sad to leave tommorrow.
We took more pictures than are healthy and I think only Morag and Alex will be as excited as us to see them! The vitam D has made is quite giddy and I made the decision to try and grab a squirrel on the way out of the canyon. They are very tame in the valley cause morons feed them. The attempt was successfull on both occassions and laughter, tickling and merriement followed us out of the park before exhaustion led us here... to the coffee shop.
Anyway.. a lenghty post and if you made it this far. Well done. We're off to Bryce tommorrow which promises to be a hoot. Right now, it's time for a cold beer and sleep... maybe a shower - we're pretty grubby - spiders permiting.
hungry