This post isn’t exactly a story or an adventure, just an experience. Something I had the opportunity to see and to do—one of the many things I will recommend you going to do at least once in your lifetime.
Yosemite is one of those places that is passed of as almost mythical—like a fairy land or Atlantis. It’s the ‘Holy Grail’ of National Parks, and the essence of American outdoor culture. People seem to talk about it in hushed tones, using a reverence usually reserved for cathedrals, war memorials, and cemeteries. And, ever since I wrote a paper in 8th grade about my photography idol Ansel Adams falling in love with Yosemite, I have wanted to go.
And, as expected, it is stunning. It surpassed my expectations of grandeur and further deepened my appreciation for the National Park Service and all they do to preserve the beautiful places in this country.
The whole valley is much deeper than I expected it to be, filled with water and tourists and tress.
The “main attractions” are very magnificent, and it’s easy to see why so many people visit the park each year. Half Dome is beautiful and massive and makes one want to climb it just by laying eyes on it. It awakens some ancestral hunger—a desire to conquer to climb and to experience it in an intimate, wild way.
El Capitan is, in my opinion, very under-rated. It is incredibly massive, and I know that it’s large in photographs and in paintings but they can’t do it justice. You can’t see the top of El Capitan as you drive across the valley floor if you don’t smash your face against the car window. And then you can only just catch the sky above it. It’s the last thing to be touched by sunlight every evening, and the guardian of the valley.
The view looking down the valley is one of the most spectacular glimpses of natural raw earth you could imagine. It’s a swoosh of stone and evergreens, with waterfalls spilling off the edges. It’s almost too amazing to believe is real—it seems more like a scene from C.S. Lewis’ head or the writings of Tolkien, than an actual place.
There are so many waterfalls and not small rippling ones like on the east coast. These waterfalls literally fall off the edges of the earth. They plunge over the valley rims and pour down into the bottom with this delicate, powerful elegance usually reserved for water Lilies and flying eagles.
And that was the quick tour. I’m planning on going back sometime this summer and trekking into the back country, away from the crowds and away from the majority of the visitors who come to the valley to look but not touch. I intend to be swallowed up by Yosemite, and come out on the other side with an adventure to tell.
Aperture & Eloquence 