Tuesday 16th September 2008

[22:08 PDT]

It's odd how a simple decision affects how the whole day finishes...

Today was our second day at Yosemite park. We started off quite early out the door and was in the park by 9:30am. Now the odd thing about Yosemite is that you can be 'in the park' (i.e. through the entrance booths) but still be over 8 miles from the main areas of interest. This coupled with the fact that these eight miles are twisty turny roads means you're travelling a good 20-25 minutes after entering the park. On the way in you also pass a petrol station. It proudly proclaims "last Gas, no Gas in Yosemite". As I drove past this sign, I glanced at the fuel indicator - it said I had 108 miles until I run dry. I believed that this would be more than enough to get everything we wanted done and I'd fill up on the way out...

Our first stop was at Bridlevale Falls, which is a short distance inside the main area of the park (after the 8mile drive in).

As you can see, the falls are a mere trickle now at the end of the Summer. They won't return to their full force until next Spring when the snows start to melt.

We then continued up to the Glacier Point area on the Southern side of Yosemite. This point is 7214 feet above sea-level and boasts one of the best views of Yosemite Valley. The drive is all uphill, of course, and took us just over a hour to complete (including an extra stop at an earlier vista viewing area).

The views from here were breathtaking. Although that could be due to the altitude and the fact that looking over the (frankly) feeble barriers reward you with a knee weakening sheer drop of well over 6000 feet!

Once we came back to the car park, we noticed quite a few Model T Ford cars parked in the car park. I think these belonged to a owners club who were visiting Glacier point at the same time as us. How some of these 80+ year old cars made it to the top I've no idea.

Turning on the engine before coming back down, I was alarmed to see that Zeke showed under 50 miles to go before running out of fuel. This was odd as it has said just over 70 when I'd parked up. Still, this meant that we had to go straight to the petrol station before anything else. We were quite close to the Maraposa Grove which house the giant sequoia trees, but that had to wait whilst we drove all the way back to the entrance of the park to visit the "only gas station in Yosemite". We filled up, (19.5 gallons for $86 - about 57p a litre) but it was touch and go as to whether we'd get there OK. I'd even turned the air-con off in the car to ensure we didn't run dry. The run-dry indicator had at one stage said just 16 miles to go, although this changed to 38 as I started climbing upwards again (!?!?)

Now we were filled up again, we returned to the other side of the park and went to the Maraposa Grove to visit the big trees. I drove straight past another gas station soon after I'd passed the end of the trail for Glacier Point. I couldn't have been more than 10 minutes from this gas station as opposed to 35 minutes from the one we actually went to. Grrrr.

We wandered around some of the big sequoias but as time was pushing on and it was getting dark quickly we only got half way up the trail.

The drive back (yet again) to the entrance of the park took us back right through Yosemite. I must say their night driving markings on these deadly roads (many have no walls and a fatal drop awaiting the careless) are quite poor. Never-the-less, we made it back in one piece in the pitch black. Sadly, no bears were to be seen, although we did run into a bat flying along the road - ouch.

Early start planned tomorrow - as it's the longest part of our drives, away from the mountains and back to the coast. Both Linda and I will be glad to seen the back of the forest. There's only so many tree-lined S-bends you can suffer in a day !!!