Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks

This is a bit out of order, but here are some of the fabulous pictures we took in Sequoia and Yosemite. Both parks were gorgeous, and we did some amazing hiking in both--3 days of backpacking in Sequoia and day hiking in Yosemite. As we looked through our pictures, we have noticed how truly amazing all the places we have seen on this trip have been. We are very lucky to have this great opportunity to see our beautiful county. California is extremely diverse and kept surprising us with how quickly it could change.

Sequoia N.P. at sunset on the drive to our first campsite

Chris and one of the world's largest trees! This one is probably about 2,000 years old. Sequoia NP is home to the world's largest tree: General Sherman. It is about 36 feet wide at the base and 275 feet tall.


This very friendly baby bear cub was walking down the hill towards our path. We snapped a few pictures before moving on, fearing that the mother was close by.

Here is Yosemite's famous El Capitan ("El Cap"). It is one of the world's largest granite monoliths, measuring over 3,000 feet tall. We met a couple climbers who were attempting to climb to the top over 3 days...crazy!

Yosemite falls from the bike trail. It's 2,375 feet tall and is one of the parks most popular spots.

Half Dome hike: Most of the next few pictures are from a hike we did to the top of Half Dome. This is easily the most spectacular hike we've done thus far. It was roughly 17 miles long, with about 5,000 feet of elevation gain and took us over 10 hours to complete (we took tons of pictures). The last 600 feet of elevation gain are so steep that there are chains bolted into the rock and all hikers have to wear gloves to maintain a secure grip on those chains. Crazy! We took the Mist Trail on the way back down and got to see some spectacular waterfalls and listen to distant thunder safely off the top of the dome.

You can see the line of people going up the last few hundred feet. I had a death grip on those chains the entire time, and we found out later that about 20 people have died since 1920 after losing their grip and sliding down the rock.

View from the top.

Chris and I with the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the distance.



Chris and I with Yosemite Valley in the background.

Waterfall on the Mist Trail.

And finally a view of Half Dome from the valley floor at sunset. Incredible!