Ok, this will be quick. Yosemite sucked.
Thanks John and Stephen for your hiking suggestions. Unfortunately, the park was so over crowded, I couldn't even park at the trail heads. I eventually set up camp and went to Yosemite Valley, which was worthless. People, cars, and RVs everywhere. The only wildlife to be seen was a small group of blacktail deer that everyone was gawking at from 100 yards away. I've been almost close enough to touch blacktails at North Cascades, bison at Teddy Roosevelt, mountain goats at Mount Rainier, whitetails at Mammoth Cave, a freaking grizzly bear at Yellowstone, and here the masses are going gaga over some deer that they couldn't see without binoculars.
And how was camping, you might ask? Let's just say I think I found out how the bear lockers (metal storage bins at campsites you put your food in) work: people make so much damn noise constantly opening and closing them that it scares the bears away.
Ok, rant over. There is a happy ending: Death Valley today was spectacular, and I'll write about that later. In the meantime, I am now in Las Vegas, and it's time to go to work.
5 comments:
Yeah, thats a shame. The last time I went there was before Labor day, so there was still a lot of snow and the Tioga pass road and Glacier Point and Halfdome weren't open. Not many people there at that point, but the weekends were still nuts.
I'm a big fan of them building a parking garage on the way outskirts of the park and busing everyone in to avoid the horrible traffic jam.
Ah, the requisite 100 yards all the NPs want you to keep from animals... in Badlands NP people thought that meant they could keep getting closer to the animals until they jumped off a cliff.
Too bad Yosemite sucked. Wasn't there any backcountry camping?
Are you going to Joshua Tree? It's worth the drive if it hasn't burnt down.
Ah, just to clarify on my breaking the 100 yard rule in the other NPs, I have never deliberately approached an animal within 100 yards or so. All of my close encounters were when I stumbled on them or they stumbled on me.
I know I got with in 100 yards of a Bear and her cubs by accident in Glacier, and I did walk past a Mountain goat with in probably 5 yards in Glacier (at the Logan Pass visitor center). I actually some some people trying to pet a dear in Yosemite last time I was there. The rangers never really did anything about it from what I saw.
Whoops! Bear is one animal I wouldn't want to be within 1000 yards of unless I was in an armored tank.
Bri, I hear ya about the animals approaching you. The marmots we saw were super friendly. I bet they'd make great pets. They would pop out of a hole within 100 feet of us and wouldn't hide even if we talked to them, scuffed our feet, clapped, etc. One headed right towards us, within 10 feet.
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