Spring trip to Yosemite Valley

Driving into Yosemite lifts my heart. The slower road inside the park allows me to roll down the windows and breath in air scented with pine and hot Sierra soil. Grand views are just a plus, inevitable and glorious; but it is the air that draws me back.

Or is it water? Rushing, still, falling, flowing, cold, clear, green, reflecting vaulting valley walls. Yes, it could be water pulling me back.

Streams divide the valley making private places which are filled with bird song. These divided spaces make each bridge a precious thing connecting one stillness with another.

Yosemite valley invites me to walk slowly hearing sounds from my own footsteps in oak leaves and pine needles. I see a bicycle at a tree near the Merced its owner raptured away. I hear boisterous childern singing and whirling each other about with camp songs and orchestrated foolishness here in these private places.

A rocky trail past Tenaya's rushing flow leads to an open quiet, pools of nearly still water bounded by screaming yellow green leaves more than ready for spring - mindless of summer's heat to come. Under the wall of Half Dome are birds again engaged in endless talk. But people are passing without words. Are they like me, bursting with joy inside? Some certainly.

Finally a waxing moon in tree tops. The sounds of people at dinner noisily following talk more winding than the Merced in Happy Isles. Then to food, a propane heater, a shower in the hot humid bath house (then outside the feeling of clean skin in fresh warm air), my tent, sleep and still tomorrow Yosemite.

Full picture gallery - thumbnails.

Full picture gallery - galleria.

(rlb)