More on that view in a moment. Our drive from Fresno to Yosemite National (Yo-sem-a-tee) is straight forward. What is not straight forward is arranging camping accommodation. We have become conditioned to just driving up to a campground, picking a site from the dozens available, filling out our form, putting in our money. Done.
Not at Yosemite. No sir, Smokey The Bear. Even in late September, the waning period of the high season, the campgrounds are packed virtually every night and reservations are essential. And to add to the fun, Yosemite has shut a few of their campgrounds already for the season while a raging forest fire has shut others. This makes securing a site a little tougher for everyone. After an arduous process on the Yosemite website while in Fresno, we manage to reserve a spot at the Wawona campground for our first night. For the remaining nights, we'll just wing it. We've read in our guidebook that as long as you get your tent and gear to a new campground before noon, you should have no issue securing a spot.
We hope...
Arriving at the Wawona campground in the morning, we find an amiable ranger at his station. He crosschecks his list with our reservation number. "ID please," he asks. He scrutinizes my driver's license like I'm sixteen and trying to buy a keg of beer. Then he proffers a whole checklist of bear do's and don'ts to be read OUT LOUD (the ranger insists) and then SIGNED indicating we will duly follow the rules. Next, we get the campsite do's and don'ts. Then finally a map to our site. We are quickly learning that the Yosemite folk are a touch more uptight than they are in other parks when it comes to putting down a tent.
Our site is fine — small, but far enough away from the other campers. We only had a tiny photo online to go by, so we think we've done quite well. With camp set up, we down a quick lunch and head back out to see the Mariposa Grove, one of the main attractions here at the park.
"Better take the shuttle," the rangers tells us on our way out. "It gets pretty packed up there in the parking lot. Yesterday, I set out at 4:00 p.m. and I couldn't even get up the road."
Shuttle? In the woods? The Yosemite shuttle, we discover, is really a big city transit bus that chugs its way up the mountain to the Mariposa Grove. In the end, it's not too bad a way to ride and the bus driver is chatty and full of fun grove facts.
The Wawona area of Yosemite NP is located just inside the South gates and was the first area to be developed in the park. The Yosemite Valley, the park crown jewel and displayed in the top photo, is about 30 miles further in. Due to those stunning rock face views, The Valley can get extremely congested with visitors, so we decide to hold off visiting for a bit and see how we want to tackle it.
Mariposa Grove, located in Wawona, hosts the biggest and most impressive cluster of massive sequoia trees in Yosemite Park. In 1855, James Hutchings built himself a cabin in the woods amongst these great trees and it was Mr. Hutchings who wrote to President Roosevelt, describing the Yosemite wilderness and requesting he ensure it remain protected. Thus the creation of Yosemite National Park.
There are indeed lots of people and cars at Mariposa Grove, but we don't let it deter us and begin the two mile ascent to the upper grove where the best trees are found. Along the way, we catch the star of the show, The Grizzly Tree, which is indeed mammoth and dated to be some 2700 years old. Got to give the Grizz his due! No photo, though. How many tree shots can you take?
Past the Grizz and the higher we climb, the more the crowds thin. Crossing over a ravine by log may slow down a few people, but not Jenn.
At the top, in the upper grove, we find Jame's Hutching's original cabin which has been converted into a small museum. The guy knew where to build a cabin — all around are beautiful, soaring sequoias. Can you see the cabin in the photo just below?
We walk about, taking in the grove and stopping at the featured trees such as the Fallen Tunnel Tree which at one point you could drive a car through — until it fell down. It was this tree that began to draw people out to Yosemite and see this very feat of a car going through a tree. There's also the Telescope tree which is still alive and lets you step inside and look right up through it into the sky.
Now all by ourselves, we climb a little higher to Wawona Point and are rewarded with a great view of the Wawona Valley.
It's an ideal stop for a snack and the perfect capper for our first day in Yosemite. We were anticipating hoards of people and, yes, there are quite a few, but we are able to duck around them. For now.
Down we go, back on the shuttle to our campsite where we whip up a deluxe salmon dinner on our little camp stove. Beat that, Martha Stew!
Yeah, I bleed red, white and blue...
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