Sunday, 7 September 2014

Road trip: San Francisco via Glacier Point & Mariposa Grove

When we went to bed it was a warm 30 degrees but during the night it dipped to 7! We were frozen when we woke up and shivered into the communal showers at 7am.

We were packed up pretty quickly and ready to hit the road. Our trip would take us first to Glacier point which overlooks the Yosemite Valley, then south east to Mariposa Grove with the giant redwoods before heading north to San Francisco.

On the way up to Yosemite Valley we stopped at Tunnel View for our first stunning picture of the day.
Just after Tunnel View there was literally a long tunnel. Much to Fiona’s displeasure I revved Bobo and wow it sounded great!

We reached the turn for Glacier Point fairly promptly but were shocked to see it was a 16mile drive. Lesson of the day Google maps makes everything look closer than reality. Undeterred we drove up and it was actually a fun drive and surprisingly not too twisty. The best bit about it was that we saw a bear. I actually spotted it before it bounded towards the car in between the trees, and as we drove past it we were able to see it cross the road behind us. It was quite small, possibly even a cub.

High on adrenaline from our bear encounter it felt like seconds later and we were at the top. I’ll let this panorama do the talking:



After taking hundreds of photos we drove back down (no bears unfortunately) and onwards to Mariposa Grove where the giant redwoods reside.

When we arrived at Mariposa Grove we again discovered that a walk around the redwoods would be far longer than originally thought. We were hiking for 1hr 20 ascending 1000 ft without really the equipment for it. And it was hot. Despite this seeing the trees were amazing. We were ants in comparison.



After Mariposa Grove the rest of the drive was uneventful apart from the slightly scary end of navigating the Bay Bridge (5 lanes wide and full of traffic) and driving into San Francisco but we made it safe and sound.

Miles: 279.8. Time: 6 hrs 22 minutes. MPG: 24.7

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