Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Weekend getaway to Yosemite National Park

The Group, From Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park, it was this weekend. Thanks to Madhav for planning out everything, and everyone who looked hard for a place to stay. Everything was flawless, until one the members had to back off just 6-7 hrs before we started off!!! This resulted into another one backing off. The head count reduced from 8 to 6, and all the plans seemed to go for a toss. Not to mention the additional $$$s we would have to shell for now unnecessary bookings.

After seemingly endless arguing, cursing, cribbing and yelling... we retired to bed. Thankfully we managed to get some sleep. Oblivious to the fact, we had more sh_t to tackle. We started off, happily, pulled over for a nice brunch at Subway. And the horror struck... One of the 2 cars won't start. Soon we realized that the battery has completely drained. F__k! We were kind of in middle of nowhere. Something is definitely !@#$ing wrong with this trip :( After endless calls to idiots (aka Enterprise Rentals), endless waiting, repeated explanations, hunting for replacement, we finally decided to swap the battery at our expense, after a technician jump-started the car. Damn! 3-4 precious hours of the trip lost. I was almost certain the trip would be a disastrous failure. Thank GOD, I was wrong :)
Beautiful butterfly From Yosemite National Park

The fun of trip was manifold: I was hitting car on American roads for the first time, we had a good Chief Navigator (aka Vikram), near flawless itinerary and despite of sh_t, everyone maintained their cool and were positive of having a good time.

This car sucked, though. From Yosemite National Park

Near endless driving for about 800+ miles a lot of which was on curvy roads across amidst the scenic Sierra Nevada Mountains, seeing all we had intended to... this trip, after all, was more than a success! The best part of the trip was hiking to the mouth of Vernal Falls. The near 1 hour hike and reaching the top was epitome of successful trip!

Mesmerizing Vernal Falls, From Yosemite National Park


Verdict: An amazing place to go, but go while there are waterfalls, which is during mid/late spring.

The whole album...



Photo credits: Atul Talesara (Self)
Equipment: Canon EOS 30D + Tamron 18-200mm

3 comments:

Sumedha Swamy said...

Great pics! Looks like a wonderful place to trek. Did you go up the Half-Dome ?

The Shaolin said...

Thanks Sun!
We didn't trek to Half Dome, it is 17mi trek and very very difficult to do without adequate preparation and practice.

Sumedha Swamy said...

Oh and BTW check out my surfing pics : http://gallery.mac.com/sumedhaswamy#100307&bgcolor=black&view=grid

We must do the Half some sometime! Looks terribly impressive! Look at Point Ryes National Seashore too. That looks like a fantastic and not-so-difficult trek too.