Bristol to Seattle: a journey of scientific curiosity and christian faith: The Great California Adventure

We arrived in Yosemite a bit before 6pm and had a 35 mile journey to Camp Curry where we were staying. It took us an hour or more because of frequent stops for photos and enjoying the scenery. At Camp Curry we upgraded from heated tent cabins to heated wood cabins with indoor bathrooms. This was a step above even glamping but we couldn’t define a new verb for it, the closest we got was lodging but that has other definitions. The cabins were good and with a fold-up bed all of us fitted two. We had an indoor picnic with some Birthday Cake and then it was time for a goodnights sleep.

Inside our cabin

The cabin had a chest of drawers and a bathroom with shower.
Definitely a step above camping.

View from behind the cabins

Jenny is providing a little scale with the Redwoods and

Wednesday was my Birthday. I don’t think I have ever worked so hard! We met for a breakfast indoor picnic then headed off to the visitors center to get some advice on walks or ‘hikes’. Most of the waterfall walks were marked as strenuous, which had kind of put us off, but on the advice of the ranger we set off by free shuttle bus to the start of the walk to Vernon Falls. The first part of the walk was up to a 400ft elevation where there was a foot bridge. Having survived that part we decided to continue to the top of Vernon falls up 600+ uneven stone steps to 1000ft. We huffed and puffed our way up, saw some smaller falls and spray rainbows, and eventually reached the top in time for sandwich lunch. We considered continuing up to the next fall but lack of water and restrooms made us decided to climb back down. What we hadn’t banked on was the sore muscles that would stay with us for the rest of the visit.

At the Vernon falls foot bridge

Some of the steps on the way to Vernon falls (the white sheet in the background)

Vernon falls with spray rainbow

View from the top!

Quick sketch of the other direction

The bubbling stream at the bottom of Vernon Falls

Deer

Mirror Lake

After lunch we went a little off route and missed the turning for our next ‘hike’ we found our way back and had a quick 2 mile round trip to see mirror lake. A hop, skip, and shuttle ride later we were at lower Yosemite falls and a 1 mile round trip gave us a nice view of the upper and lower falls and a leg stretch for our tired muscles. Next we returned to the center for dinner. They have a cafeteria style eating place. Pizza, root beer, and coffee with hazelnut creamer made a good birthday meal. Our penultimate adventure for the day was to travel to bus stop 11 and see the sunset over half dome. We were told to go to the middle of the meadow to get the best view so we stumbled along over hillocks and tall grass. The sunset wasn’t that impressive (that’s the problem with clear skies). But I have photographic proof that half dome turned pink(ish)! On our way back to the bus stop we realised that everyone else had congregated on the nearby bridge, opps. We got back ‘home’ and had a few yummy chocolate fudge snacks. Most of the evening was used up with a prayer session that over ran a little. The evening finished with some star gazing – hurray for my 30^th Birthday!

Lower and Upper Yosemite falls.

Yosemite (we presume) used to be a ‘v’ shaped river valley with lots of rivers joining to form a larger one. Then came the glaciers and the ice carved a ‘u’ shaped valley cutting off the rivers with steep cliffs that form waterfalls. I can’t help that this is a process familiar to many Christians which resonates with me right now. You are happily getting on with life thinking that your little river valley is really quite nice, God comes along and like a glacier cuts off you pretty little river valley and you are falling off the cliff. The things is that the river looks ever so much more beautiful and breath taking as a waterfall.

Half Dome at sunset

The night sky

The cabins on Thursday Morning

The next morning I spent some time wondering around before breakfast and had time to do a sketch of the cabins. We had breakfast and set off for our last hike on the way out of the park. Bridalveil falls was a short walk away. We had time for a few more silly group photos and some bubble blowing with my Birthday bubbles. I considered the impact of my bubbles on the local environment and decided that a few drops of washing up liquid was probably doing less damage that the car oil being spread around by our feet. With that we wound our way out of Yosemite and back West.