Cooking & Conversation: Day 5-The Magnificent Yosemite National Park

"The mountains are calling and I must go."
John Muir

We were up at 4:00 AM for a full day of touring the majestic landscape of
Yosemite National Park and the Giant Sequoias.
It will be a full day.
It is difficult to know whether to dress for a warm day or cool temperatures in the mountains.
The general consensus is to layer.
The temperatures are to climb to 80 degrees today.
I'm just not sure where.

I love the tall wind towers against the background of the changing
landscape on our ascent to Yosemite.

The Sierra Nevada Mountain Range

We arrived at the Tuolumne Grove Trail in the Yosemite National Park.

Tuolumne Grove is one of just three sequoia groves in Yosemite, and it contains about two dozen mature trees, reached by an easy 1.1 mile hike along the Old Big Flat Road, a narrow, paved route no longer open to vehicles.

http://www.americansouthwest.net/california/yosemite/tuolumne-grove-trail.html

We started the descent down the narrow road (closed to all traffic since 1993)

gradually through tall, thick pine/cedar forest.

We rounded a couple of bends then the trail dropped down more steeply - 400 feet in total -

to the grove entrance.

The old drive through sequoia (Dead Giant) in the Tuolumne Grove.

Yes, tree pose.

I had to.

Then we journeyed on to see the famous El Capitan, Half Dome,
and more of the magnificent peaks of Yosemite National Park.

Half Dome

Rising nearly 5,000 feet above Yosemite Valley and 8,800 feet above sea level,

Half Dome

is a Yosemite icon and a great challenge to many hikers.

Despite an 1865 report declaring that it was "perfectly inaccessible, being probably the only one of the prominent points about the Yosemite which never has been, and never will be, trodden by human foot," George Anderson reached the summit in 1875, in the process laying the predecessor to today's cable route.

Today, thousands of people reach the summit. For most, it is an exciting, arduous hike; for a few, it becomes more of an adventure than they wanted. Indeed, park rangers assist hundreds of people on the Half Dome trail every summer. Most of these emergencies could have been prevented.

I am thankful I am too out of shape for the hike.

Looks pretty scary to me.

Here is some helpful information on the hike.

Most hikers take 10 to 12 hours to hike to Half Dome and back; some take longer. If you plan on hiking during the day, it's smart to leave around sunrise (or earlier) and then have a non-negotiable turn-around time. For instance, if you haven't reached the top of Half Dome by 3:30 pm, you will turn around. Check for sunrise and sunset times before you hike. Regardless, each person should carry a flashlight or headlamp with good batteries (hikers commonly struggle down the trail after dark because they don't have a flashlight). Although the trail is well marked, you should be prepared with a good topographic map and compass and know how to use them.

The most famous--or infamous--part of the hike is the ascent up the cables. The two metal cables allow hikers to climb the last 400 feet to the summit without rock climbing equipment. Since 1919, relatively few people have fallen and died on the cables.

More on Half Dome

El Capitan

Here is an interactive jouney on El Capitan with

Lynn Hill
Carolynn Marie "Lynn" Hill is an American rock climber. Widely regarded as one of the leading competitive sport climbers in the world during the late 1980s and early 1990s, she is famous for making the first free ascent of the difficult sheer rock face of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, and for repeating it the next year in less than 24 hours. She has been described as both one of the best female climbers in the world and one of the best climbers of all time.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Hill)

Alex Honnold

Alex J. Honnold is an American rock climber best known for his free solo ascents of big walls. He has broken a number of speed records, most notably the only known solo climb of the Yosemite Triple crown, an 18-hour 50 minute link up of Mount Watkins, The Nose, and the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome. He and Hans Florine are the current record holders for the Nose with a climb time of 2:23:51. Honnold says that he likes tall, long routes and that he tries to do them quickly. He is the author of Alone on the Wall, a collaboration with David Roberts that details his climbing exploits.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Honnold)

Tommy Caldwell
Tommy Caldwell is an American rock climber. He is accomplished in several types of climbing, including sport climbing, hard traditional climbing, big-wall speed climbing and big-wall free climbing. He made the first ascents of some of the United States' hardest sport routes including Kryptonite and Flex Luthor at the Fortress of Solitude, Colorado. In January 2015, Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson completed the first-ever free climb of the Dawn Wall of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. It was documented by photos and journalistically by Tom Evans.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Caldwell)

Watch:
El Capitan interactive journey

We were able to witness some of the climbers ascending El Cap

when we were there.

We were able to watch these climbers with binoculars provided by our guide.

Warren Harding was the leader of the first team to climb El Capitan, Yosemite Valley, in 1958.

Here is a great link on the history of the climbers of El Capitan.

The Climbers

Bridalveil Falls.

Bridalveil Falls with Cathedral Rocks and Spires on the eastern side of the canyon.

The Three Brothers just east of El Capitan.

Valley View

The waterfall is spraying upward.

Bridalveil is unique in that the water leaps from the edge of the precipice, and the water has worn that edge backwards into an alcove. The source of Bridalveil Fall is the Ostrander Lake, some 10 miles south of Bridalveil. When the wind blows hard, Bridalveil’s water seems to flow sideways, and in times of lesser water flow the water doesn’t seem to reach the ground. This particular phenomenon inspired the Native American name of “Pohono”, or Spirit of the Puffing Wind for the waterfall.

(http://www.extranomical.com/HTML_PAGES/BRIDALVEIL_FALLS.htm)