August 31st, 2001, Friday
I came back early from office by 1:30 PM, packed my back-pack for the three days and left to the Airport by 2 PM. Had to first return my car at the airport and then take the 5 PM flight. Since it was a long weekend over here, thought the traffic into airport would be heavy so left by 2 itself. But, was comfortably at airport by 3:30 PM. Since I had an electronic ticket, I had to get the boarding cards. Electronic ticket, is wherein you don’t have a actual ticket at all. When I made the booking online (through the web) they gave a confirmation number and that is all, no actual tickets. You will not get any tickets at all. Once you give the confirmation number and photo identification to match the name and date of birth, they issue you a boarding card. Over here in US this type of paperless (or rather ticketless) travel is 90% prevalent for all within US travel. Also, it is good enough to be half-an-hour early before the scheduled departure. So I was a little early, so started reading my novel.
Then the journey was for total of 6 hours with 2 hours of waiting in between at Salt Lake City. I had to take two planes to reach San Jose (pronounced as San Husse). I was at San Jose by 11 PM. My friends G & V were waiting at the gate for me. G had arrived one hour earlier at San Jose from Chicago (where he lives). San Jose is a much smaller and older city, so was the airport, as against all the sophisticated really huge airports in US over here, this was a small one, closer to airports in India. Even the roads here were not as in other places in US. It was with pot-holes, reason why they haven’t repaired is, it is busy 24 hours and very narrow and hence they cannot do much.
From the airport we went and did some shopping like some water, pepsi, fruits, granola energy bars, bread, jam etc.. for our trekking. Then we finally reached V’s place by 1 AM. We then ate dinner, along with Minsara kanavu video songs playing. V is staying as paying guest at his friends place. His friends wife had cooked very good (Madrasi sambar), poriyal, rasam. But, they had also gone out to New York for the long weekend to meet someone. So just when I was leaving Phoenix, they had left San Jose. So I did not even meet them because same thing happened on the return. But we had a good dinner.
Then myself and G were talking for sometime and finally we slept by 3 AM.
September 1st, 2001, Saturday
We had to start early since we had 4 hours of driving to Yosemite National park our. So we woke up by 6:30 Am, finished our morning chores quickly and were ready after a quick breakfast of Cereals and milk by 7:30 AM. We went to R and Sagar’s place, who were supposed to join us. They were also G’s classmates at Engineering college. I only knew V from Bangalore itself, had met him at G’s place. But he was also at New Jersey when I was there last year. So we had been to Washington DC and other places together.
So the team of 5 was all set to Yosemite National Park. Click on this document attached for an insight into Yosemite and nature richness.
It was about 4 and half-hours drive from V’s place to Yosemite. We took a break in between for lunch or brunch for R and Sagar. Ate some sandwiches and some cold tea and continued our journey. Since V’s CD player had conked off, music was out of question. So we were back to our good old engineering days each one reminiscing their best moments.
We finally made it to Yosemite by 1 PM. Team decided to start exploring all the sight-seeing areas and a little warm-hiking for the day, so that we can do the toughest hike the next day. So first we drove to bridal veil falls. Since it is end of summer, there was not much water, but still it was a very good view of the falls. We did climb up 1/4th of the falls to an in between area wherein the falls first touches the ground. This was a climb in between the rocks and we relaxed ourselves in the cool water. We climbed because that was the place where we could get to touch water. Water was really cold. After photo sessions with G’s camera, we climbed down and then continued our drive to Glaciers point.
Drive all the way up was very scenic and they had a lot of in between stop areas called as scenic view point areas. You can stop your car over here and enjoy the scenic beauty and we took some photographs all along. There were 3 tunnels and we were finally at the Glacier point. Had some good ice-creams since we were kind of little hungry. Also, ate some chips that we had purchased the previous night.
Then we did a small hike which was actually one of the routes which would have taken us all the way down, which we had climbed with our Jeep (V’s car). We did not go all the way down because it really takes one whole day to climb down and back. You can also, climb (hike) all the way up through this jungle trail. But we had our car already up, so we climbed down a little since it was late 5 PM already. Sun sets here by 7 PM, so we had to be back by then. We saw one bear and two cubs on the way back. We all were a little afraid, but we silently and slowly hiked up and bear kept on looking at us. It was protective of its cubs I guess, but it was very close to the trail.
Then we drove back down and came to Curry Village. This is the camp-site where we had our cabins (or rooms). V had the booking done already, it was very busy and lot of people around. We dumped our luggage in the cabin and headed directly for dinner. It was 8 PM already and we were already tired. Pizzas were the only food over here in only one restaurant. We ordered 3 large pizzas, which was really plenty and would actually suffice 8 to 9 people, but all of us were hungry and 2 and half of this disappeared in just 20 minutes. Then we returned back to our cabins and were all instantly asleep.
September 2nd, 2001, Sunday
We were all ready by 7:30 AM, after our mini-breakfast of bread that we had brought. They had a common bath area, since these were cabins right in the middle of the jungle. There was small queue for the bath, but that was Ok. I found a small restaurant for coffee all of us enjoyed the coffee and then headed off for our hike trail.
We took the free shuttle bus to our hike trail starting point. We started hiking by 8 AM, towards Half-dome (8,842 ft.) peak that is a distance of 16 miles (to and back). I wasn’t really sure if I would be able to complete this hike, because I was out of touch for the past two years. But R and V were with full josh and were all set. Myself and G thought if it gets really tough we would stop in between at Vernal Falls (which is like half-way) and let others complete it. So with this plan we continued. It was really a tough hike given the state we were in. But the scenic beauty and small falls all along and the jungle smell and fresh air was more than sufficient to keep us going. We reached Vernal falls by 11 AM. We took a break and ate some biscuits and granola energy bars. We were already at the top of the other side of the falls that we saw yesterday. This side was called Vernal falls. Stream of water was much stronger over here and it was really a different experience to be watching the falls right from the top of it. We relaxed for 30 minutes at the water stream, which is just before it falls of the cliff to become the falls if you see from bottom. Then we continued our journey. Myself and G had gained our energy by looking at the nature and did not want to be left out all alone and split our water and food and other things. So we continued, leaving R and V to take lead. We were making progress a little slower than the early morning, took more breaks in between for water. My legs were telling me that it cannot climb anymore. It was on average 45 degrees steep climb. But my mind kept on pulling it. We somehow managed to reach the top by 3:30 PM. Ate some apples and some more cookies and then took some rest till 4 PM. But now we had to climb down by 7 PM before the sunsets. None of us had torch, I actually did not even know that it is going to be such a hike.
So we started off early after all the photographs and savoring the view from the top of the mountain. It was the tallest point at Yosemite and it was really awesome view. Since getting down was a little easier for me, but still you knees are the ones that are under constant pressure while getting down, since it has to withstand your complete weight and it is 45 degrees steep. We reached vernal falls by 5:30 PM. Took another break over there till there we did non-stop. We knew we had another 1 and half hours. We finished up all the food we had, but we were still very hungry and exhausted. Drank more water from the cool stream and relaxed our legs in the cool water and started off. We were back by 7:15 PM back at Curry village.
We had another shower with hot water, which was a little relaxing, then headed straight to Pizza center. I was ready to first eat and then shower, but there was a queue at the Pizza center, so we had to wait anyway. But finally once again the Pizzas arrived and disappeared.
Now we had one more problem, we did not have the cabin to stay for today night also. V did not anticipate that we would be scaling Half-dome so he had booking only for one night. We checked again but it was all full. So we had to drive back and V was the only driver, since others cannot drive his car because he is the only one who has insurance and rights to drive. So we took some rest and started off by 9:30 PM towards San Jose.
We kept on making as much noise as possible to keep V and all of us awake and took two breaks in between. We were all back by 1:30 AM. We dropped off R and Sagar and then we returned to V’s place and SLEPT….
September 3rd, 2001, Monday
Woke up late by 10 AM and got ready. G wanted to go to San Francisco. So we three got ready and headed to San Francisco. I had seen this place last time, but G wanted to see. It was 1-hour drive from San Jose. But it was only sight seeing and we headed straight to Golden Gate Bridge and took some pictures and headed back. Went to Udupi restaurant and had our lunch. Lunch was really good.
I had my return plane starting to Salt Lake City by 5 PM, so reached back Phoenix by 9:30 PM because on the return there was only half-an-hour wait at Salt Lake City. So was back home by 11 PM from airport and SLEPT…
Kannan's Blog 