Sunday, October 10, 2010

Today was our second day in Yosemite National Park.  We are staying at a KOA close(?) to the park.  We have a 16 mile drive to the entrance each day.  The road sign say ‘curves next 23 miles’ and they mean it.  In the park and outside the park, the roads are very slow because of the curves and grade.

Yosemite was our first national park.  Actually Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant into law which set aside part of the land that is now the national park. Galen Clark was the first custodian of the park.  Yosemite became a national park in 1890 during Harrison’s presidency.  Two other areas were added to the park in 1906.  John Muir devoted most of his adult life to making Yosemite a national park.  Ansel Adams is also linked with Yosemite because he spent years photographing the park.  There’s a gallery in the park that has many of his original prints; one print that we saw was $3,500.   

Yosemite is similar to Zion in that you are in the valley looking up at most of the major features.  Also, most of the activities are concentrated in one area, the valley. 

First the ‘where we are today’ photo.  The photo on the right is El Capitan, one of the more notable features of Yosemite NP.  Our friends, Mim and Don Baker’s son Lee climbed this mountain, we think.  It took him two days.  He spent one night hanging on the face in a sleeping bag.  What an experience that must have been!

  

John Muir spent years exploring Yosemite and worked to have Yosemite named as a national park.  In the photo above, in the lower right of that photo, is John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt in 1903.  President Roosevelt spent time in the park and added additional land to the park, also in 1903. 

 

Two falls in the park; Lower Yosemite Falls and Bridalveil Falls.

 

On the left, is a similar photo of ‘Half Dome’ that Ansel Adams made famous.  To the right is a giant sequoia named Grizzly that is in Mariposa Grove.

At the top of Glacier Point, this is the view.  Half Dome is one of the other major features on Yosemite NP.  It’s on the left.

There is a telescope at the viewpoint.  We could see 12+ people walking around on the top of Half Dome.  We talked to four young men that were going to climb it tomorrow.  They were going up the back of the mountain.  In season, the NPS puts a cable on the back side to help climbers make the climb.  That climb is for people much younger than us.  Oh well, we can always talk to climbers.