Yosemite: Mariposa Grove, General Sherman, Moro Rock & Crystal Cave

Man, I really need to get better at writing right after my adventures. I don't remember much by way of details anymore, but it's a good thing I have pictures, right? So here are pictures from Mariposa Grove, General Sherman, Moro Rock, and Crystal Cave.

We paid a visit to Mariposa Grove before heading out of Yosemite for Sequoia National Park. We decided to hike instead of taking their shuttle around the area.

Even the parking lot is surrounded by trees!

You definitely have to get there early to find a parking spot. The spots fill up very fast and the rangers close off the lot once it is full.

The roots of a fallen tree.
That kid in the leopard print though...hahaha!

The Grizzly Giant!

I don't think this tree had a name, but it was still huge!

The Tunnel Tree.

We found this little guy enthusiastically munching away on the pine cone.

Twinsies!

Such a beautiful little grove.

We got to the Mariposa Grove Museum and this nice, old lady was explaining how the trees reproduce and spread their seeds.

Mariposa Grove Museum.

After leaving Yosemite, we went straight to Sequoia National Park to set up camp. The visitor center was about closing up when we arrived, but we got good information on what to do around the area. On the following day, we ended up using their free shuttle service to get around so we didn't have to worry about parking and such.

First stop: General Sherman.

There is just no way to have the whole tree in one shot. It's way too big!

Top of General Sherman.

At the base of General Sherman.

Next stop: Moro Rock

It says trail here, but I just remember it being a whole bunch of stairs that kicked my butt!

Another one of those placards that tell you which mountain is what.

Here are the mountains.

Like I said, stairs.

And sometimes going through little spaces like this.

Finally at the top!

And a pretty encouraging sign. :)

Yay us!

Lastly: Crystal Cave Tour

We were there early so we got to hang around and browse their little store.

No, really, it was a really small store.

Our cave tour guide.

After being briefed and disinfected our shoes, we headed down the trail to the cave.

The entrance to the cave.

Everyone was given a flashlight to use while in the cave, but the moment the guide turned on the light for the entire cave, it was magnificent!

At one point during the tour when we were all in a big chamber of the cave, the guide told us to turn off all our lights and experience total darkness in silence for a moment. It can't really be compared to anything I've ever felt before. You've never been in total darkness until you've been in a cave.

Overall, this trip was wonderful and I can't wait to visit again!

Yosemite & Sequoia Overview

Two weeks before school started (three weeks for Tony), we decided it would be a great time to go on vacation! :) We both had five days off from work on August 11 - 15 (Mon. - Fri.).

It wasn't until the week before those days off that we finally settled with going to Yosemite and Sequoia National Park. I hadn't ever been to Yosemite and wanted to see what all the hype was about. As for Sequoia, I wanted to see the biggest tree in the world, General Sherman.

But if you know anything about Yosemite at all, camp reservation within a week before arrival date is just impossible during the summer, especially around Yosemite Valley. And because we are frugal (ahem, broke), staying at their hotels/cabins for $90+ a night is out of the question.

I was devastated when I finally looked at availability for camp sites around the area. The three campgrounds around Yosemite Valley were all reserved. The only ones with available sites are all 45 mins to an hour away from Yosemite Valley, such as Crane Flat and Tuolumne Meadow.

Well, you know what? I gots us camp sites IN Yosemite Valley, IN one of the three all-booked campgrounds. Booyah! Here's how I did it...

TIP ON RESERVATION:  You can still book camp sites last minute, even during the high season! The best time of the day to look for available camp sites is during lunch time (11:30am - 1:00pm). The people that have to cancel their reservations will do so during their lunch break, opening up random spots on random days.

In the end, for the three nights that we were at Yosemite, I reserved three different camp sites, but all were in Upper Pines Campground. The most wonderful thing is that it's right next to Happy Isles and the trail head to Half Dome. What's even more spectacular--and unexpected--was the fact that it only costs $20 per night!

Camp Site #143, conveniently right by the bathroom.

TIP ON FOOD/FOOD STORAGE:  If you're a hardcore camper and need your meat grilled at a campfire, by all means, bring all your food and store them in the provided bear locker at your camp site. You can even buy ingredients from the grocery market if you don't feel like hauling everything on the road with you. But if you don't mind buying food, they have restaurants, a cafeteria, and a little pizza parlor on the valley floor. My point is you won't starve if you forget to bring food. Bear lockers are provided at camp sites and trail head parking lots.

We brought a tub full of food thinking we'd cook every meal when we were there. We ended up making oatmeal the first morning and bought food for the rest of the trip. It's so much more convenient, you know.

TIP ON HYGIENE:  They have showers there! And a pool! Granted you need to pay to use them. For the price of $5, you can use both the pool and the shower (even if you just want to shower, it's still $5, so you might as well take a dip in the pool). The women's showers were all clogged from a massive amount of hair going to the drain. Other than that, it felt pretty good to go to sleep clean. Toilets by the camp sites are generally pretty clean and toilet paper is provided.

A pretty good view for a swimming pool!

TIP ON GETTING AROUND:  If you have bikes, bring them. It's so much easier than trying to find parking spots wherever you go. They also have free shuttles, but you know public transportation, it's never on time. They also have bike rentals, but they're super expensive. Bottom line, bring your own bike!

So we drove up Monday and did our tourist bit at Tunnel View.

Tunnel by Tunnel View

There's the view (and the sun)!

The unobstructed view.

After that, we literally did a hike a day. Whatever time we have left after the hike, we would spend exploring the valley. On Tuesday we did the Vernal and Nevada Falls hike, on Wednesday we hiked down from Glacier Point, on Thursday we visited Mariposa Grove before driving down to Sequoia, and on Friday we saw General Sherman, went to Moro Rock, and did a Crystal Cave Tour. I will go into more details on each of these hikes in other posts, but here are some preview pictures:

Vernal Fall

Glacier Point

General Sherman's top

Entrance to Crystal Cave
(Spiderman lives here! No, not really.)

WEATHER AND WATER CONDITION
The weather was actually perfect when we went. Warm during the day and cool at night. However, because of the ongoing drought and lack of snow last winter, the falls were all pretty dry. The Mist Trail wasn't misty at all. While Vernal and Nevada Falls still had water, although very little as you can see from the picture above, Yosemite Fall was chalk dry. If you want raging water, I suggest going earlier in the summer or late spring.

There's Upper and Lower Yosemite Fall for you.
You can kind of see the dried water stain.

Overall, I love love LOVE this trip. I love that I get to unplug for five whole days (no cell signal or internet). I felt so refreshed and wholesome once I got back, it's incredible! There are also certain things that I'd like to do next time I visit. I'd like to hike Half Dome in a day, do the Four Mile Trail up and down, and hike to Upper Yosemite Fall. :)

One Year Anniversary: Pine Flat Lake

I know I literally suck at keeping this blog updated. Should probably make it more of a commitment. Oh, well. School work is really bogging me down. But here I am again! :) Considering it's Thanksgiving Holidays and all.

Let's start with my one year anniversary with Tony. We really couldn't decide where to go until the very last minute. We wanted to go camping by Lake Tahoe (my favorite place in the whole wide world! Second to Disneyland anyway), but all camping grounds are close during the winter season.

I've just been stuck indoor for the past month or two so I really wanted to spend a night in a tent out in the wilderness. You know, just to get away from the city. But it was a lot harder to find new places than we expected because we had to bring our dog, Chewie, with us. And I was being a little picky about the location too. I wanted to get well away from LA. An hour drive was still too close for me, hahaha!

What ended up happening was I found this campsite by Pine Flat Lake in the Sequoia National Park. It was like a four and a half hour drive. The place was right by Fresno. Pretty crazy for a one night camping trip I know.

It was a beautiful lake when we got there. And apparently I chose the furthest campsite from civilization AND the lake. You can see the lake, but it's a little hike down from the site. It's like one of those plateau you see from the water drying up so much.

A view of the lake when we stopped to take a picture break.
Pretty :3

The little Chewman stretching his short legs :)

There were cows along the way too!

When we got to there, the campsites were very interesting. They were extremely close, as in right next to each other, the ten of them. However, the campsites were very clean and well kept. Apparently Pine Flat Lake is predominantly for fishing. No real hiking trails. It was nice nonetheless. Where we were was right at the river bend.

Our campsite!

Fish stand to clean the fishy you caught
(assuming you went fishing, which we didn't)

Chewie, the fluffy dog :3

The tent ground.

The entrance to the campsites.

There was actually a bathroom house with running water and light. You can actually  shower there. And it was cleaner than I expected. Good accommodations I would say. :)

And guess what? Tony didn't bring the two essentials on this trip. A can opener and fuel canisters (for our Jetboil). So what we ended up doing was.....

Yes, that is a hatchet.
And yes, we are opening a can of beans with it.
Look at Chewie waiting for some scrap :)

Woo! Campfire dinner! Thankfully we didn't melt off the plastic covering the handle.

And what can be better than to spend the night eating roasted marshmallows, drinking hot tea, and playing a game of Boggle in the tent?

Yay, campfire!!

And we had a neighbor who stayed until very late at night blasting country music with the occasional pop of a beer can. Apparently, he dragged a very large tree trunk to his fire pit, lit it, and left it there. So we made it our duty to put that thing out before it started a brush fire or something.

Our music provider for the night.

The abnormally large tree trunk that doesn't even fit in the pit.
Still incinerating from the inside as signaled by the smoke.

Tony putting out the fierce fire! Moohahaha!

Because we, I mean Tony, forgot to bring the fuel canister, we didn't want to bother starting another fire to heat up our oatmeal so we ended up going to eat at the nearby diner (the only diner really), which was 15 minutes away.

Then we were on our way home!