Yosemite National Park, California, USA

We have visited Yosemite NP twice now and would return every year if that was possible. It is one of our favourite places to visit. Our first visit was in June 2004 and our most recent visit was September 2008. Both times we stayed 5 nights at the Yosemite View Lodge Hotel in El Portal, immediately outside the National Park gates on the US140. The hotel was very nice and ideally situated unless you wanted to pay the higher price for lodgings in the park. It took around 20 minutes to drive from the hotel to Yosemite Village. The hotel also boasted the best pizza place for miles around and several times we “pigged” out on a spicy delight.
Yosemite National Park itself covers a huge area, mostly wilderness, also taking in Tuolumne Meadows, Wawona, Hetch Hetchy and others. This report concentrates on the sights and sounds of Yosemite Valley – by far the most popular and busiest part of the National Park (for good reason).
The biggest difference between our two visits in June and September is that during the latter the waterfalls are pretty much non existent. Yosemite Falls was completely dry, Bridal Veil and Vernal Falls were mere trickles and the views were somewhat lacking because of this. Temperature-wise it was much hotter in September, with the scale reaching 90+ in the valley each day.
Apart from 1, our 5 days there followed much the same pattern. We were always up early and into the valley for sunrise. El Capitan viewed from the east across the Merced River is a spectacle to behold. Cooks Meadow was normally bathed in early sunlight and the deer were usually contentedly grazing there. We would spend a few hours just drinking in the atmosphere and views here. By 10am the light was too harsh so the camera was put away and we would head for a coffee. Midday until late afternoon was generally about keeping in the shade and scouting for photographic viewpoints (and snacking of course!). Come late afternoon the camera was coming out again and Valley View, Tunnel View, Half Dome from Glacier Point and Cook Meadow were all prime locations. We would photograph until the sun dropped hopefully bagging another bunch of mouth watering images.
One of the days we were there David climbed Half Dome, something he promised himself he would do after the last visit to the Park (not up the steep way of course). It is a 10/14 hour climb, 14 miles long and 4800ft of ascent. The route starts at the trailhead in Yosemite Valley and heads up past Vernal and Nevada Falls, round Liberty Cap, around the back of Half Dome itself to the north west side of the summit and then up the famous cables (the last 400ft of steep ascent). David started his climb at 5.30am, in the dark and arrived back at the car park again at 2.45pm, some 9.25hrs later. Well done auld yin!!
Evenings were generally spend back at the hotel (eating pizza and) downloading images onto the laptop and making sure there were enough keepers to be able to head home satisfied.
Some useful links:
Yosemite National Park - http://www.nps.gov/yose/
Yosemite View Lodge - http://www.yosemite-motels.com/yosemiteviewlodge/
It’s photo time again. If you want to see more images from our trip visit our galleries at: http://www.pbase.com/davidleask/california2008