Madera County

Yosemite was the third National Park to be inducted, and what a wonder it is. Laying in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, Yosemite was formed around 11 million when the fault was forced upwards creating deep and narrow granite valleys. About one million years ago glaciers formed at higher elevations which eventually melted and moved downslope, cutting and sculpting the U-shaped valleys we see today, rich with flora and fauna on the valley floor.

We walked down into the valley to loop around the bottom of Yosemite falls and then a very steep path to see the top half of the falls, which is apparently the tallest waterfall in North America. Pretty impressive and when the wind gets going it blows all the water off course. After lunch we walked further down the valley to sit in the El Capitan meadows and watch the climbers up on the Nose, one of the climbing Holy Grail routes for those who like Big Walls. It's a grueling 3-5 day climb which means sleeping on little improvised platforms attached to the wall. You have to take all your food and water up with you and bring it all back down as well. Not for the faint hearted. We sat for about an hour and could see a few groups slowly making their way up.

Our second day in Yosemite we headed over to the Tuolumne Meadows. Sitting on a plateau above the Yosemite Valley it is a little cooler and the Alpine meadows have some stunning scenery. We took a trail up to Dog lake and hardly saw any other people the entire 10km trip, very different from our day down in the valley. It was the first time that we were a bit scared to meet a hungry bear on the walk! We managed to get a view down into the Valley from above to see a different aide of the iconic Half Dome mountain.Read more