Went up at 5 in the morning to get on the train to Merced to have a look around in Yosemite. When I arrived at Merced train station I jumped on the YARTS (Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System) to climb from approx. 45 meters to 1214 meter above the sea level.

And this the view thru the back window of the bus that I went with. So off we go!

It feels strange that you can go with a car into a national park, for me at least. They even have buses going around in the valley of the park. I jumped on a bus to ask the bus driver about the directions to a specific place and went along with the bus, when I started to think “Why am I on bus? Why am I on a bus in a national park?”. So I jumped off at the next bus stop and did what should do in a national park, started walking.

They are very proud of their garbage system, where you have to put the plastic bottles in one garbage can just for the plastic bottles, and so on. But it were just like back home in Sweden, where we have even more garbage cans for everything.

They have their own little village in the valley with everything that you need.

It’s a very different nature compared with Sweden, with very large trees and steep mountains. Even someone that don’t climb would like to grab on to those rocks and start to climb, I guess. It’s was very tempting!

I like my camera setup with my Nikon D70 and just a manual 50mm/1.8 lens with me. Manual exposure and also manual focus, it’s really fun I think.

On the top right you can see the Halfdome.

The water in the stream was not the cold that you can imagine, so I went in the water wearing my shorts to taken some photos. I were planning to get in there to get a bath, but I think to many americans thought I was to crazy just wearing shorts and a t-shirt. It was like a normal summer day back in Östersund I think. So I settled with getting water up to my knees at least.

In the valley you can get a nice view over the peaks around the area.

The upper Yosemite fall from the distance. I really would like to come back here to Yosemite National Parks to have a more closer look of all the peaks and water falls.

A small river bed near the lower Yosemite fall. A lot of squirrels around that area, but hard to catch with the camera, ’cause they are really shy. The only picture I got were on the furry tail of a squirrel leaving.

I used some logs as a bridge over the river bed. A really nice looking bridge what I think.

It’s not often that you can catch wild life like this with a 50mm. There were like 20 of them around me where I was located. I would have liked to see a bear and get it on camera, but then I would have prefered something more like a 500mm lens.

Later a small dog joined me, and by the looks, I think they both were equally scared.

Now some pictures of signs that I saw around the park. Too much signs and regulations for me. Let people think first, and then act, not to have signs all over that should tell you what to do and what not do. The only good sign is the last one!

A long day with many beautyful views made me want to go back to Yosemite. It would be nice to go back-country skiing there and of course I have to try to grab on to those rocks! Be aware all black bears, ’cause I will be back!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 9th, 2007 at 23:18:51 and is filed under The United States of America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.