This overview of a stay in Yosemite National Park and a hike at Point Reyes serves as a guide to the photographs that follow.

By the end of April 2021, the first wave of Covid 2019 had diminished enough so that air travel was relative safe and more common. The visit to Yosemite started through the town of El Portal and the first stop was to look at the sun setting on the Bridalveil Fall from an area called "Tunnel View." The crowds were very small compared to pre-Covid times.

After a good night’s sleep, we got out in time to see the early morning sun striking the face of majestic El Capitan, with the Merced River meandering at its base. It was hard to fathom that anyone could free solo climb El Capitan’s 3,000-foot-tall sheer wall of granite, let alone in three hours and 56 minutes; this record was set in 2017. Nearby, also along the Merced, stood the granite peaks called the "Three Brothers." We hiked the John Muir Trail up toward Vernal Fall. Where the bridge crosses the rapids there is” a great view of Vernal Fall above and Liberty Cap (7,060 feet) behind the Fall. Another pretty spot was at the trail head down near where forks of the Merced River join.

Next came The Ahwahnee Hotel, which opened in 1927 and remains an architectural jewel of the national park system. "Ahwahnee" means "land of the gaping mouth"; the first residents here fittingly gave this name to the area and the builders of the hotel appropriated the name. The hotel’s visitors have included many notables, such as Queen Elizabeth and John F. Kennedy. After the hotel, was a hike to nearby Mirror Lake, with Mt. Watkins and Half Dome standing proud behind the Lake. Later, back at our lodging, we had dinner while enjoying a wonderful view of rapids in the Merced River, running less than 100 feet from our balcony.

The next morning, we headed through Yosemite Valley to the Yosemite Falls, which are fed by Yosemite Creek. Some fit hikers go to the top of the Upper Fall, which has a 1,430-foot plunge while others stop tat the Lower Fall, which drops another 320 feet, and and on this day treated spectators to a stunning rainbow. In between these two plunges are the Middle Cascades, which drop another 675 feet; together with the two Falls, the total plunge is 2,425 feet. Subsequent stops were at Cathedral Rocks from Cook’s Meadow and the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite Village. Ansel Adams (1902-1984) is famous for his black and white photographs, including many taken in Yosemite. His family still runs the gallery.

Following lunch, we drove up around 3,200 feet from the Valley floor, with many switchbacks along the way, to reach Glacier Point (7,214 feet). The National Park Service permitted access to the road to Glacier Point, following clearing the winter snows, just the day before. The wide, stunning views from Glacier Point include one down to the floor of Yosemite Valley as well as across to Half Dome (8,839 feet), the Clark Range (Mt. Clark rises to 11,522 feet), Mt. Starr King (9,091 feet) and Nevada Fall.

The morning was spent enjoying Mariposa Grove, home to some of the largest sequoias in the world. The National Park Service had just reopened the Grove for 2021. The base of the Tunnel Tree, through which cars were driven in the early 20th century, still stands. The sequoias, a few of which may be more than 3,000 years old, towered above us. As the location of the Grizzly Giant sequoia is intentionally not publicized or marked, it is unlikely that we accidentally saw it.

As explained in historical accounts, a 1903 visit to Glacier Point and the Mariposa Grove by an adventuresome president played a critical role in the preservation of Yosemite. President Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir camped the first night, May 15, 1903, at Mariposa Grove under the Grizzly Giant, with the president bedding down in a pile of abou 40 wool Army blankets. The second night was spent at Glacier Point overlooking Sentinel Dome during a snow storm that left five inches of new snow on top of the existing five feet of snow. The third night of camping was at the edge of Bridalveil Meadow in Yosemite Valley, where President Roosevelt was Muir’s captive audience to hear a convincing plea for the Yosemite wilderness and for setting aside other areas in the United States as parks. That night, during the campfire discussion, Muir’s main focus of conversation was not only the need for forest preservation but also his concern that the California State Grant of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove, surrounded in 1892 by Yosemite National Park, be receded to the United States for inclusion in the park. Roosevelt agreed that two controls made for "triple troubles". Eventually, their discussion prompted the presidential signature on the Yosemite Recession Bill in June, 1906. This Joint Resolution accepted the recession by the State of California of the Yosemite Valley Grant and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, now the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, which withdrew them from state protection and put them under federal protection, making them part of Yosemite National Park.

Mount Reyes ADD