Yosemite is one of America’s best kept secrets. It is a beautiful national park – unspoilt and not commercialised.
There are many hikes people can do – easy and hard. After our Half Dome marathon, we had a recovery day, seeing Yosemite’s many faces without much exertion. We were in a minibus.
Anyone can drive to Glacier Point and see one of the most magnificent views they’re ever likely to see. We followed up by going to Bridalveil Fall and the foot of El Capitan. The latter was featured in the sweat-inducing film, Free Solo (which I saw on the plane to San Francisco), in which Alex Honnold attempts to climb this 1000m unforgiving granite monolith without ropes.
After a day of sightseeing, it was back to the hikes. We returned to Glacier Point, where there were some trails The most memorable was the Panoramic view trail.
The final trail we did from Glacier Point went down Yosemite valley. The plan was to hike down for an hour or so before returning back up. Some of us decided to hike the four-mile descent to the bottom of the valley then meet the minibus, which would be driving to the visitor centre.
