Yosemite, USA

19 Aug 2014 (Sat)

Lodging: Comfort Inn Yosemite Area, Oakhurst



4 of 7, fortnight USA trip
Arizona ✈ Las Vegas ✈ Mammoth Lakes ✈ Yosemite ✈ San Francisco ✈ Coastal California ✈ Los Angeles

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Tioga Road

I once thought this place has got something to do with Japanese, as it sounds pretty Japanese in the first place.

Yosemite, a national park in Northern California, is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, owing to its wondrous nature beauty, spreading across over 3,000 km² - it's darn huge.

Tioga Lake

Tuolumne Meadows

Tenaya Lake

Yosemite Valley

Cook's Meadow

We parked our car at Curry Village and took their free shuttle bus to Yosemite Lodge for the Glacier Point tour which costs $25 per person.

The tour was basically sitting on a slower moving bus with a tour guide telling the story of Yosemite in front of the bus. He made a lot of cold jokes, but at some point of time, all of us just fell asleep like nobody's business.

Get yourself a useful shuttle map before kick-starting your hiking adventure!


At some point of time I woke up and fortunately managed to snap this:
The legendary Tunnel View

Glacier Point

So the painful 8-mile trail started here. We're to hike from the peak to the foot, hopefully, before dusk reached.

8 mile ≈ 13 km FYI. The hike was so miserable because of the extreme altitude changes, the inhumane passage paved on rocks and... my injured heel (I jumped down from the Death Valley sign... LOL...).

Half Dome

Little Yosemite Valley

Mount Starr King

Illilouette Creek

Liberty Cap

Mount Broderick

Nevada Fall

Losing footing here costs life...

Vernal Fall

We're finally done with the trail... AFTER SUNSET!!

I think the we spent the last 30 - 45 minutes walking in the dark, with the aid of torch light from our smart phones. If we're not carrying any torch light with us, gosh I don't even wanna imagine that.

Put that aside, my feet hurt like hell!! I was just enduring throughout the trail until the bloody end.

Guys, think twice before committing to hiking the trail. If you have to, go as early as possible and gauge your duration well so you won't end up walking in the dark or get attacked by bears (just pulling leg, but well, there are really bears in Yosemite).

The journey to our hotel really made me worry, Boon Kiat was driving, and I kept dozing off because I was so freaking tired and I was anxious that Boon Kiat accidentally drowsed while driving at high altitude without street light (it's scary to think about the catastrophic accident of car falling off from hillside).

Thank God we reached our hotel safely in Oakhurst, located almost 50 miles away.



Overall, Yosemite is definitely worth visiting, if you're visiting California. In fact, there are more in Yosemite that we didn't manage to cover, like the Mariposa Grove for instance.