Yosemite

The first day in Yosemite NP we tackled a trail recommended to us by a grumpy ranger so we should have known better and it ended up being pleasant but pretty uninspiring considering where we are.

The next morning was another cold one (6C inside, but we are at 10,000 ft) but gloriously sunny so we headed back the few hundred metres into the park. We found a spot with enough signal to get a call out and we were pretty gobsmacked when we were told we'd won the daily lottery to get Half Dome permits for the following day.

We hiked up to Cathedral Lakes but this time it was a glorious walk with majestic scenery. These huge scarred and also polished rocks jutting up out of the hillside and rising hundreds/thousands of feet. It was about 12 miles and fairly up and downy so we were feeling it when we eventually stopped for the night. The camping arrangements here are crazy - even at this time of the year the only available reservations are over a month away and there is pretty well sod all around! Rather than pay $25 to camp in front of a long-dead (vault toilet) in basically a layby, we found a much nicer and free pull out up the valley. Now we've dropped down to 2,000 ft the temperature has soared and its 33C at 6pm, which makes a very pleasant change to the past couple of cold nights.Read more