Yosemite

By Kevin Jones

San Francisco's big, beautiful bay is spanned by two bridges but it is the Golden Gate that gets all the acclaim, all the touristy photos and, if were a living thing, all the royalty cheques.

It is the Bay's glamourous star, whereas the Bay Bridge, connecting San Francisco with its neighbouring cities of Berkeley and Oakland - and carrying more traffic - is the journeyman bit player. The charactor actor to the leading lady.

It is this bridge, however, that you must take to continue our road trip around California.

Spend time in Oakland and Berkeley by all means if you have the time, but that commodity may by now be in short supply and you have a real treat awaiting you: Yosemite National Park.

Also, en route, you'll pass through one of California's famed Wine Country areas and may be tempted to give it a day or two to go wine-tasting in places like Modesto (home of world-famous Gallo Brothers wines).

Yosemite really has to be seen to be believed. The entire National Park is a visual feast but Yosemite Valley is paradise.

The popular legend has it that back in 1851, a battalion of Indian fighters wandered into the valley and were left dumbstruck by what they beheld from a spot now known as Tunnel View (see below).

They were the first non-natives to see this landscape, but their vivid descriptions of it ensured they would not be the last and today, millions of Americans and international tourists visit the park each year.

Amazingly, with all this human traffic around, you can still switch off to mankind and just marvel at the magnificence of your surroundings.

One early visitor later wrote: "None but those who have visited this most wonderful valley can even imagine . . . the awe with which I beheld it. . . . As I looked, a peculiar exalted sensation seemed to fill my whole being, and I found my eyes in tears with emotion."

Okay, so just what is so special about Yosemite?

Well, the pictures that accompany this article give you some idea of the awesome beauty of the area but that is all they can give you.

Essentially, the visitor to Yosemite is left with an overwhelming sense of wonder at the size and scale of this ancient landscape and is faced with a sense of humankind's insignificance in the grand scheme of things. This stuff has been around for millions of years - we're here for a nano-second in geological terms.

Whether it is the thousand-foot waterfalls or Yosemite's monumental granite peaks, you are left gasping at the natural beauty of the world's most famous glacial valley.

Half Dome, Yosemite Falls and El Capitan are generally seen as the stars of the show in the Valley, along with Glacier Point, which offers one of the world's greatest views from around a kilometre up a sheer cliff!

(It's actually 3,214 metres above sea level but a straight kilometre up from the valley floor!).

No, you don't have to climb it - you can drive to the point of no return by a 45-minute, twisting, turning road route that will test out your brakes on the way back down.

Even people without a great head for heights (this writer included) will be blown away by Glacier Point. (Take a look at the pictures below to get an idea). Don't panic, you don't have to perch on the edge of the cliff to see the view and there's plenty of railings to hang on to!

Half Dome is Yosemite Valley's trade mark. It is depicted on every imaginable form of merchandise from hats to T-shirts to bags to cups to personal hygiene items.

A massive granite dome that looks as though it has been hit with a gigantic, intergalactic meat cleaver and cut neatly in half (hence the name), this monolith has been climbed, painted, photographed and revered by generations of tourists.

It can be seen from several vista points as you travel along the valley floor and just begs you to take another photograph.

The greatest views of Half Dome, though, can be found at Glacier Point. It is almost as though some greater power had created the latter purely so that people could look at the former, so good is the view.

The Valley's other legendary monolith is El Capitan, or El Cap as it is colloquially known among the climbers who place it high on their worldwide list of "must-climbs".

If you're a serious climber, it just has to be on your resume or you've blown your wilderness cred. Why? El Capitan is the largest chunk of exposed granite on Earth, that's why.

The longest part of El Capitan's face is in the middle, around "The Nose." It rises around a sheer kilometre from the valley floor.

Comprised of two intersecting faces, El Cap is over one-and-a-half kilometres wide. The rock's sheer face is the world's finest big-wall climbing surface.

Warren Harding pioneered the first route to the summit in 1958. There are now some 80 established routes to the top, many of them multi-pitch monsters that demand extreme aid-climbing skills and require nights to be spent "bivvied" - sleeping in canopies that you attach to the rock face. Pass the sick bag.

Springtime is the best time to climb El Cap; the days are long and the weather is often perfect for weeks at a time. By June, the wall can be an inferno due to high temperatures. By September, the days are too short and the nights can be chilly.

Perhaps it's best if you just enjoy El Cap the way I did: from the Valley floor looking up in awe.

You can be a bit more intrepid in your enjoyment of Yosemite Falls, the highest falls in the whole of the USA.

You don't have to cling on to impossibly sheer rock faces to get there - you can climb the steps and walk the trails.

All that is required is a sufficient level of fitness because it is not for the weak-hearted. It is considered an easy hike by hikers, but these things are all relative, aren't they?

Your reward for your effort is some stunning scenery en route and the majesty of the falls themselves. Be prepared to get wet, however, because there is incredible amount of spray generated by the falls at times.

The best time to see them is in late spring, when winter snows melt into surging run-off and a raging plunge of mist and rainbows.

There is, of course, lots more to Yosemite than just the valley but the first-time visitor can find all the beauty and wonder that they can handle in this magical place and leave the further-flung attractions of, say, Tuolumne Meadows or the Mariposa Grove (with its massive sequoias) for a return visit.

Accommodation can be found in the Yosemite Valley village, which has lodges and camp grounds. They are very busy places, especially in peak season, but a bit of prior planning will ensure you have somewhere to lay your head down.

Camping is, of course, the more intrepid option, because you will be sharing your campground with bears. Yes, bears. Real bears, not your Yogi and Boo-Boo type.

You can hear them at night scraping around the garbage left by unthinking humans. It is all a bit disconcerting at first, but if you follow basic safety procedures, such as keeping your tent closed up and not leaving foodstuffs lying around the campground in the first place, you'll be fine and in one piece to continue our road trip from the greenery of Yosemite to the scorched starkness of Death Valley.

Los Angeles
Santa Barbara and Highway One
Big Sur
Monterey and Carmel
San Francisco
Death Valley