Yosemite revisited

I went to Yosemite again this weekend and camped out in Wawona, which is not too far outside Yosemite Valley. The campsites in the valley were completely booked up. Luckily, Chris was able to make reservations for Friday, but all the Saturday spots were filled up. It was drizzly and cloudy when we got there, but atop Glacier Point, it was sunny and pretty. You couldn't see Half Dome very well though, since it was covered by clouds. But what a view! When you are standing on top of Glacier Point, everything in the valley looks so tiny, since you are over 3000 feet above it. It is an amazing sight. You can see Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls, and Mirror Lake from up there. Last time we went, Glacier Point was closed. Tioga Road was closed too, but the ranger said it would be open by the 4th of July probably. I can't wait to see Tuolumne Meadows. I heard it is pretty up there. (I just looked up some pics of it on the net, and yes, it is pretty up there - lol). We went on a hike to Vernal Bridge while we were up in Yosemite. It was a decent hike (.8 mile to the bridge), and mostly uphill, so it worked out my calf muscles - lol. We would have gone up to the top of Vernal Falls, but Chris has been having back problems so we went back to the valley after that hike. It was almost tougher going down than going up - lol. After that hike, we were ready for some food, so we went to Curry Village and had pizza, then headed down to the campsite.

On Saturday, we knew that we would have to find someplace to stay the night, so we headed on out of Yosemite, to check out Fish Camp and the Bass Lake area. On the way out of Yosemite, there was a line of cars going into Yosemite, and this was at 10 am. It looked like at least a 45 minute wait to get into the park. It was pretty much a sure thing that we would not find any place to camp in Yosemite, so we decided to head up to Bass Lake. After some searching, we found a spot up above Bass Lake in the Sierra National Forest, at a campsite called Rock Creek. It was a nice little spot right next to a stream and it was quiet. No flushing toilets though - lol. But that was ok with me. We never had flushing toilets when I went camping as a kid anyhow. After we set up camp, we drove up the road to check out the sights. We went down to Mammoth Pool and checked out the dam. That was cool. Although it was 2 miles of unpaved road...rocky, dusty and bumpy. The water was roaring down over the spillover and the spray was coming up and hit us, and man was it cold! After that, we drove up to Clover Meadow. That was really pretty . It was pretty high up, so there was a lot of snow still on the ground off to the side of the road. There was absolutely no one around either. It was like we had the whole place to ourselves. When we came back down, we checked out Arch Rock and the Mile High viewpoint. That was an awesome view of Mammoth Pool and the Minaretes.

After a long day of driving, I was ready to hit the hay when we got back to camp. I got bit by a few skeeters, so I am all itchy - lol. I had a great weekend. I took lots of pictures and posted a few below, and more in my Yahoo Photo Album. I will be taking even more pics when I hit the Grand Canyon this week. I love vacations!!!!!