Yosemite National Park
In July 2002 I was visiting California on business trip and popped up to San Francisco to take a three day guided mini-van tour to Yosemite national park. The following are photos from our second full day where we basically did a walk around the top end of the Yosemite valley.
See also: day 1 photos
Note: Click on any image to see a larger one. They're all about 800x600 pixels and only fairly small. roughly 100k.
 |
Here's a view from the lookout near the top of the valley, which was pretty amazing, panoramic... spectacular!! even. You could make out most of the high peaks and rock features, it's also where we planned who was gonna walk where? |
| This is a wee way into the walk down the side of the valley showing a section of forest thats recently had some fire damage. Apparently fires are lit regularly to control undergrowth. |  |
 |
Here's a view of half-dome, one of the major rock features you can see from various points in the park. This is a 2,200 foot granite cliff cut in two by glacial activity. It was here that the group split, with the crazy Belgians/Japanese and Germans heading off to try and reach the peak. The sensible ones amongst us took it easy from here on. |
| Here's a view of one of the many waterfalls in the park. I forget exacly which one this is, but hey, they all look much the same. Some amazing high granite slopes in the park make for some spectacular views. |  |
 |
I'm smiling in this photo because now that I was in the group with less optimistic goals for the days walk we had plenty of time to stop and swim in beautiful natural pools like the one behind me (despite the warning signs advising us not to) |
| Here's a photo of one of the mighty Sequioa trees. I thought we had some pretty big trees in New Zealand, but these things are whoppas!!. They might not look that thick, but they are AMAZINGLY high. |  |
See also: day 1 photos