Day 9: Lions and Sequoias and Bears

After a restful night in Merced, CA, we came back to Yosemite National Park today in the hope of seeing the giant sequoia trees that grow there. As you will discover below, we were well rewarded in our quest.

After eight days of travelling, both of us are growing tired of all the driving. It seems a little surreal how much we have seen, and how much distance we have covered. Don't get me wrong -- it has been a great trip, and we've both had lots of fun. But now that we are nearing the end, we're looking forward to stopping.

Yosemite National Park is a popular destination, even on a Sunday in September. Or perhaps especially then. The roads were positively jam-packed with RV's. Local residents, for whom the roads through Yosemite are essential transportation, are obviously somewhat frustrated by this particular behaviour. On numerous occasions, we and other travellers were passed at high velocity by cars bearing California license plates.

We came to visit the sequoia trees growing in Tuolumne Grove, not far from the entrance to the national park.

Michael is standing to the right of this tree, to give you a bit of perspective on how big these creatures can get. The opening you can see on the opposite side is big enough for Michael to stand up in.

Here's David, having a look around.

Tuolumne Grove is a mile or so down the slope. It turns out that the range of altitude in which giant sequoias can grow is very narrow. Too high up the mountain, and it will be too cold and too dry for the seedlings to survive to a size sufficient to withstand a forest fire. Too low, and it is too soggy for their taste.

This stand has been fenced off to keep us from trampling on the roots, which turns out to be harmful for the trees.

Of course, not all the trees around us are sequoias, and even those which are vary in age greatly. Giant sequoias can live as much as 3000 years. While not the oldest living things on the planet, they are certainly the largest living creatures currently known.

They sure do grow trees taller out here than they do back at home in New England.

Is it a fallen sequoia, or a giant squid?

You decide.

Here's the base of the fallen sequoia. Michael stands 74 inches in height without his shoes on, and this tree is more than twice that in diameter, even in its narrower dimension.

Here we see the brain of the sequoia tree. Note the profusion of intricate convolutions, suggesting a highly sophisticated cognitive capacity, and possibly higher order reasoning facilities, especially in a specimen of this obvious age.

The posterior region of the sequoia's brain is surmised to control motor functions. Fortunately, most of what a sequoia does is to kind of sit there and be a tree, so the obvious simplicity of this particular structure does not impair it greatly in that regard.

Egad! Apparently, the sequoia grove is guarded by a fierce yeti-like monster! Here we see it bearing its cruel fangs at David, who is filming bravely, even as he runs for his life!

Having survived the monster's attack, David poses for some press photos.

Not far from the sequoia grove, you can take a path that leads up to the Lower Yosemite Falls. Here is a sign warning you not to scramble on surrounding boulders and cliffs.

Frying or poaching, however, is generally considered to be safe.

Unfortunately for us, the riverbed was dry when we went up the path, so nothing was falling down the waterfall at all.

We were singularly dissatisfied with the lack of water coming down the waterfall. But David is an electrical engineer, so he strode over to the computer that controls the water flow throughout all of Yosemite, and opened it right up.

Here we see David gleefully pulling out circuit boards, attempting to find the manual override that will turn the waterfall back on.

We were forced to abandon our attempt to re-start the waterfall, when we learned that a wild mountain lion was on the loose in our area.

Their advice to a traveller assaulted by a mountain lion? Stand and fight, you coward! (No, I'm not kidding either ... click on this picture to get a bigger version, and read the sign!)

On the way out of Yosemite, we took a wrong turn, and wound up in a tunnel leading straight to Hell. We should have realized, since the car ahead of us has Nevada license plates.

The view when we finally got back on the right road was much nicer, however.

The road out of Yosemite is quite tortuous. Here there are guard rails, but there are often none at all. I guess they are more litigious back East than out here. Either that, or they figure anybody who drives off the road won't survive long enough to sue them, if there aren't any guard rails.

At some points, it was clear that the engineers who built these roads got sick of going around things, and decided to drill through instead. It's not entirely clear what made them decide when to drill and when to pave, but we've learned not to ask.

Here's a view of the valley below, where you'd land if you happened to miss one of the many tight corners along the road down.

We just thought this was beautiful. No explanation is really required.