Saturday, May 12, 2007

Yosemite and the Mighty Merced River

Yosemite is truly one the most beautiful US national parks we have been too.

We hit it at the right time of the year to find it reasonably quiet and see the waterfalls at their best.
While in the park we hiked up to the top of Vernal water fall. A steep but relatively easy climb. At the top some cheeky squirrel tried to climb up Simon’s leg to try and steal his fruit loop… cheeky rascal.


Throughout the park runs the Merced River.


While illegal to run in the park, it is fine outside. We scouted it from Road side and decided that From the park sign down was good to go…above that and it was serious class V+.



Cheryl put in by the El portal Garage for a less hectic paddle or so we thought.
I guess scouting from the road even if we were only 20 ft above the river didn’t show it’s true scale.


The river provided some excellent continuous class 4+ for a mile or so before mellowing out slightly… we did wonder why all the other kayakers were putting on 5 miles downstream.

Finally a Yosemite bear attacked and broke into our Vehicle and decided to join us on our journey, meet Growler.. (an official Yosemite black bear)

2 comments:

Laura H-W said...

Hello Si & Chez...
Lovin the piccies esp. your grizzly bear! The scenery is amazing and cheered me up whilst sitting at work and it's rainy outside. Be careful, luv Laura xx

Hayley said...

I've never heard it called a fruit loop before, still... whatever turns you on :-)

More pics of snakes please - they make Hayley shiver. Cool!

Ken