12/6: So we had reached the last destination on our roadtrip. Yosemite National Park. And really, there isn’t much to say. The pictures can barely give you a feeling of the magnificense of this natural wonder. But never the less, I will try to show you.
As the geography nerd I am, this sight made sentences about ice ages and glaciers and fjords and million year extrogen processes flow out of me. I couldn’t control it. Hanna listened patiently while she enjoyed the magnificent view. To appreciate beauty, there’s rarely any need for explanations and analyses. Hanna knew that, but I just couldn’t help myself.
You see, Yosemite Valley is like a fjord but without the ocean. Oh, it was breathtaking.
We also went to Mariposa Grove, which was supposed to be the most easily accessible grove with huge sequoias. Tht turned out to be true, but what we weren’t told was that the number of tourists on these trails outnumbered the number of sequoias in the grove.
It was crazy, the amount of people that were there. And the heat was suffocating.
So, to try to get rid of the crouds, we decided to take a longer trail up to the upper grove.
Mariposa means butterfly in Spanish. At first, I found it pretty strange. Why would they name a sequoia grove after an insect? But right here, by the flowering bushes on the more open slopes of the upper grove, I understood why. There were butterflies everywhere! Yellow and orange, fluttering around the white flowers. It was beautiful.
Odd flower that grew next to the giant sequoias. Dinosaur flower, prehistoric remnant, I would say. Just like the trees.
The lovers.
And the forest was full of squirrels and ravens. They are incredibly beautiful birds, ravens.
The upper grove trail turned out to be a perfect, shaded and tranquil forest walk. We didn’t meet a single person. Almost all the tourists didn’t stray far from the parkinglot.
Yes, Yosemite was a beautiful place. But going there in June, in the beginning of the high season, might not be the best choice. Both due to the heat and the crowds.
Katja Malmborg 