February 2nd - 4th, off to Yosemite National Park

Now it was my turn to vacation with Colin and Jackie as we packed up the trailer and headed towards Yosemite National Park for 3days http://www.yosemitepark.com/ . Yosemite is a mountainous park region that is very beautiful, lots of places to hike, waterfalls, good views, and big trees. And that is pretty much what we did. Wednesday was our only full day at Yosemite and we did pretty good. I think we hiked about 18 - 20 km mostly straight up - we ad sore muscles that we were not even aware could be sore but it was all worth it as the waterfalls and views and nature were stunning. It was to bad that a lot of there attractions were closed for the season - even some of the trails but as you may have noticed in the pictures the trail closed sign did not stop us. Turns out being total rebels and ignoring the signs pays off - because we had the best views of some waterfalls we otherwise would not have been able to really see up close. Unfortunately we did have to stop eventually because the mist from the waterfalls was freezing on the trail steps and we deemed it best to turn around before someone got hurt and we had to get help to come to the closed trails to get us!

As the day came to a close we started the final 7km (about 3.5km each way) of our hike at 5pm with the sun setting on us (we are not so bright). We were desperate to see the sequoia grove - a forest of really old and giant sequoia trees. some of the trees are 2,500 to 3,000 years old, measure up to 35 ft (11 m) in diameter, and tower to heights of 250 to 300 ft (76 m to 91 m) above the ground. Single sequoia limbs may be larger than record-size trees of other species. There seem to be no limits on the trees' growth. Sequoias typically do not die of old age: they usually die by toppling. Unfortunately we only made it to the trail head and it was dark - best not to venture another 2miles into the forest at night. So we snapped a few pics of a pretty big tree at the trail head and headed back the 3.5km to the truck in the dark.

We left Yosemite sore but really satisfied with what we had seen with still more to see we have another excuse to go back!!!