Day 40 – April 19 – Yosemite Day 2

Rick came over to our camper and said Mary was still not up to par and asked what we wanted to do for the day.

Our camper in at Ye Ole Yosemite campground

I said we should go to the park, you didn’t know what the next day would bring and it would be our last day here.

Rick decided he would go with us, so we headed back to the park.  We waited in line at the gate to show our pass and found out it was a free weekend in the National Parks – not that we paid anyway.  I have a lifetime senior pass I purchased for ten dollars before we left on the trip and Mary has a lifetime pass for being disabled. 

We figured the park would be really busy since it was a Saturday and a free entrance to everyone.  It wasn’t really super busy but there were lots of people – just as there was yesterday.

Our first stop was a view of El Capitan – a chunk of granite that reaches 7,569 feet above sea level - the last 3,000 or so are a vertical face of granite.  There are many American Indian stories about the features of the park.  For example, El Capitan was called Tutokanula by the Ahwahneechee people and the story goes that two bear cubs slept on a flat stone near the river when all of a sudden the rock grew so tall the cubs scratched their face against the moon.  The mother bear asked all the other animals to help get her cubs down and all failed, until the lowly inch worm slowly crawled  to the top and lead the cubs safely down.

El Capitan

We drove on and Dorrie tried to get a picture of the Three Brothers – three peaks in a row named Lower Brother, Middle Brother, and Eagle Peak.  Don’t ask why the last one is Eagle Peak instead of Upper Brother – I don’t know.  Any way, she could never get a good view of the peaks at a place that we could stop for a photo.

After a visit to Yosemite Village and the Visitors Center we drove to Glacier Point for a view above the Yosemite Valley.  It took about 45 minutes to get to Glacier Point but it was well worth the time.  Glacier Point is 7,214 feet above sea level and Yosemite Valley is somewhere near 3,400 feet above sea level.  We had great views of Half Dome, Liberty Cap, Nevada Fall, Vernal Fall, and the surrounding peaks – including Mount Starr King (9,092 ft.), Mount Clark (11,522 ft.), and Merced Peak (11,726 ft.).

Liberty Cap on left, Nevada Fall is the upper one and Vernal Fall is the lower one 

Lots of snow still in the mountains.  The road running across the park east to west is still closed because of the snow

   

Close up of Half Dome from Glacier Point vista area

Half Dome on left, Liberty Cap, Nevada Fall

Another American Indian tail is that a woman and her husband fought and displeased the spirits and the spirits turned them into stone, Half Dome and North Dome, forever to face each other across the valley.  We did not get to see North Dome.

We drove home and found Mary feeling better so we went to the only restaurant we could find – Buck Meadows –, which was back towards the entrance to the park.

So ended our 40th day on this grand adventure.