YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK in CALIFORNIA

A sunny Sunday afternoon drive a couple weeks ago took us north east to Bass Lake to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

That drive made us decide to go to Yosemite National Park the following Wednesday. It turned out to be an even warmer day and very sunny. Such beauty!! Enjoy the pictures that we took while there!!

Whether standing red and tall, or lying in repose after being uprooted, the Giant Red Wood is breath taking!!

Whether the water is coming off of the mountains in gushing streams, as in this picture on the left, or in little trails down the side of the roadway on the right; it is cold and wet!

However when this little girl was trying to convince her mom that the little trickle along the road was just a "little" water and that it wouldn't hurt if she stepped in it, I got a real chuckle! She was so cute!

We wondered how old this was and how long it had been lying here. They are said to grow from one to three feet per year! More data on down.

Our entire drive was winding, round and round or back and forth!

The canyons are beautiful and sometimes vague because of the mist or clouds!

Sometimes the granite is very visible on the mountain sides as well as the many types of pines before getting to the giant redwoods which naturally grown on the west slope of the Sierra Nevadas, usually between 5000 and 7000 ft. elevation. Most of the Sierra trees die of disease and fungi. However, not the redwood which has chemicals in the wood and bark that provide resistance to the insects and fungi. The thick bark insulates them from most fire. The main cause of sequoia deaths is toppling because they have a shallow root system of only five feet with no taproot. Fire is beneficial as it leads to regeneration through the seedbed fertilized with ash and by opening the forest canopy which allows sunlight to reach the seedlings. They still put out fires that threaten life and property, but some fire is allowed to reduce the fuels (dead wood and dense growth) and improve resource conditions. Enough data?

Then on to the granite beauty!!

Here you see the "Half Dome" in the center. Many climb and repel from these shear granite cliffs.

The Half Dome as seen from Yosemite Village.

We always take advantage of anyone offering to take a picture of us together.

We could see some people with their gear getting ready to climb.

Yosemite Falls to the left of the sheer cliffs. We did not go close enough to see the lower half of these falls. I heard that it could be a quite wet experience!

Opps! A pleasant delay, and they were not in any hurry! Nor were they concerned with any traffic.

Bridalveil Falls seen from two different locations.

The rapid waters from the Bridalveil Falls

Recovering the aftermath of fire.

We did not need to go to Ohio for snow, only to a higher elevation! At least it was not cold!

As we were going back south on Rt. 41, there were many creeks caused by the thawing of snow above.

Alder Creek (not snow) here had a turnoff close enough to be able to get out and take pictures. It was beautiful and branched into two seperate paths before going under the highway.

Some were young and brave enough to climb down from our bridge to walk along the water.

This Blog has been a real effort to do. I think that Blogger might have had a problem. I have been trying since Sunday. Today it seemed to go a little quicker, but not at it's best. I could not get spell check to work, so hope that I caught all of the errors! In the process I only lost one picture, so not too bad. Our next big trip is to Sequoia National Forest and Kings Canyon so stay tuned.