http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b300/Xuphansa/Yosemite/
:mad: [and that was my face when I reached to the top]
It was a pretty crazy hike - six hours round trip. The elevation all in all was 3650 ft and ****, it was the hardest trail I've been on.
If anything, the trail should be divided into two sections. One of them takes you to the lower region of the falls where the water falls down first into this crevice within the rocks, then it goes onto the bottom.
The first part, while tiring [as it is very steep] was relatively well-maintained and safe - the second part, however, wasn't very cool going down. Mainly because of the smooth rock and gravel Yosemite has used to built these trails and then the wind blows the water onto these rocks, if you were to slip and falls, there are cliffs to await you. Also, there were times in which there was running water down the steps, which made the situation worse. You can see why going up was way easier than heading downward - in fact, I slipped as I went down and also fell off the trail. Though my life was in tact, I hit my patella on a sharp rock, scraped both hands and made a large cut on my ankle which bled a bit at first. I think the main reason why it was so difficult for me was because how unprepared I was, I only had one water bottle, not NEARLY enough for this hike. Worst, most of the people who went up to the top had nice proper shoes and a stick, I had neither. My shoes were old and worn and the bottom of it made me feel as if I was walking on soap.
The animals there ... well, whatever was left of them, was pretty brave and would come up close - hell, they will even eat out of your hand if you have any goods. There weren't too many people in the latter half of the trail. When I was up there, for some strange reason, almost all of the people were either Asian or European - there were a few American-Caucasian men that went down as I was going up. I remember when I asked some man while struggling upward, "How much is left?" He answered in French ...
At the top, the view was amazing. Half Dome - all those other ****s were there. I decided to take an unorthodox path and sat onto of a rock that overlooked the falls going down. I took a few photos of it ... not sure if I hosted it yet. Getting to that spot was a tad hard since I had to go on all fours and times and climb on the rocks.
Despite the fact it was a crazy trail, I think the view of being on top of the entire park was worth every step. I think the thing that ****ed me off the most was that I forgot to turn on a certain mode - so now the pictures have lost their orange tint from the evening light. They can never capture what I saw up there.
[IMG]http://www.localhikes.com/images/MSA_0000/YosemiteFalls/YosemiteFalls_Topo.Jpg[/IMG]
That waterfall is magnificent, and all of the landscapes are absolutely gorgeous. It sucks that it was such a dangerous trek on the way back (does your knee and ankle still hurt?), but I'm glad that you were able to take such beautiful pictures. Even on the "wrong mode", they're definitely good enough, and probably more than I'll ever get to see. Go take more :cool:
Beautiful. ...I'd like to take pictures of the beautiful CO landscapes, myself.
If you like hiking, you should try a fourteener sometime. I don't know how many there are in CA, but, if you can.
..Or, you could just come to CO, where we have 54 =p
Yeah, Colorado is an excellent place for hiking. I went up there 2 summers ago and plan to go back sometime in the near future.
As for the pictures, really nice. I plan on visiting Yosemite sometime in college...or possibly later. Too many places I want to visit. I'm going to London-Paris-Rome next summer and maybe Hong Kong or Tokyo the year after that.
I WOULD, I WOULD
Give me a year to save up. :)
I would, bby :-*
Actually, I was about to hike Pike's Peak today with some people. It didn't go through, though.
When I reached Upper Falls there was a split in the trails, sadly, I had to take the short one because the time constraints. :( If I ever come back, I'd like to go all the way to the other side.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b300/Xuphansa/Yosemite/11.jpg
aww how cute
Hmm, I went on a hiking trail today! It's nothing compared to that of Yosemite. But it was a nice trail that snaked into the hills of Thousand Oaks. Eventually made it down to the bottom about an hour later to this really nice waterfall. I'd say it was about a 30 feet drop. Sat there at the base of the falls for about 15 minutes. Afterwards, we decided to take a different route back. So we followed the stream at the bottom of the the canyon, and basically followed the stream all the way back to where it eventually broke off and lead up the big *** hill to the parking lot. It was an extremely quaint trip. Took a little more then 2 hours. The only complaint I would say about it is that there are houses on some of the top of canyon in the beginning. Kinda ruins the atmosphere of the whole thing. I'd like to go back sometime soon though. Crazy how beautiful things of nature can be only 20 minutes away while I sit here in the middle of a big city. :)
Hiking on the prairies just isn't the same (although Spruce Woods is pretty grand). Those pictures are gorgeous, and I'd love to go there someday.
[quote=Dexter]I was talking to Xenos about it, and since we are inevitably going to go to California sometime in the future, I thought it could be a possibility to take this beautiful hike, but I didn't think it would work because of your feet. :(
MY FEET ARE NOT BROKEN ANYMORE :mad:
Xenos, don't listen to this man. When we get there, we're just gonna leave Dexter to go take pictures of Wolfy by the waterfall, and we'll hike for TWO DAYS STRAIGHT.
edit: nevermind, I can't do that to him. But you know what? He'll probably wander off anyway, so my point still stands.
Half-Dome trail is even worse than this one. 11 hours. ;) But I hear the view isn't quite as great and you better Lisa.
k, so we'll hike that four times, with an hour break between each :)
[URL="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b300/Xuphansa/Yosemite/1Yose.jpg"]very beautiful.[/URL]
when I was there my friend and I started up the trail to the lower falls. I gave up about halfway there (wow, talk about steep!) when I found a nice big rock to sit on. amazingly enough, I saw the same squirrel you did on that trail!
[URL="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b300/Xuphansa/Yosemite/11.jpg"]squirrel 1[/URL] [URL="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/ecoli742/Road%20Trip/Yosemite/Yos8.jpg"]squirrel 2[/URL]
my friend made it up to the lower part of the falls and was sopping wet and bright red when she got back to me. like you, we weren't really prepared for a hike and unfortunately didn't have 6 hours to devote to the park. i'd definitely like to go back one of these days and spend a full week in the park instead of just a few hours passing through on the way to San Francisco.
