Yosemite

Over the years I've attended training courses on all manner of subjects.  Much to the chagrin of training professionals, like most, over the long term I probably remember about 5% of the material explained to me.  One term that has stuck with me however is 'generous listening', that is devoting 100% of your attention to someone when they're speaking.  I think this term stuck with me because I'm a bit rubbish at focusing on what people are saying without my mind wandering off and thinking about a whole of range of other matters that bounce around my head. 


I've tried to improve and be a generous listener, but when my fellow travellers told me how amazing Yosemite National Park was and how they wished they could have stayed longer my generous listening was obviously slipping as it wasn't until I arrived there that their conversations came flooding back and I appreciated how stunning the landscape is. From every direction there are amazing landscapes, from outcrops of granite to surging waterfalls and dense groves of pines and giant sequoia. 

Half Dome from the Upper Yosemite Falls Trail

Yosemite is nestled within the Sierra Nevada range and I entered from the Nevada side over the Tioga Pass and then descended on a windy road to the Valley floor where the majority of people stay. Yosemite seems to hold a special place for Americans in terms of its relationship with the Sierra Club, partly formed in 1892 by John Muir to campaign against the reduction by 50% of the extent of the Yosemite National Park, and regarded as first 'environmental' organisation.

Checking in to my canvas tent for the evening I was provided with a guide on the many trails accessible from the Valley floor.  I chose the Upper Yosemite Falls trail which takes you from the Valley floor to the top of the highest waterfall in the US. 


I was to read later that the Lonely Planet describes it as gruelling, and I could not argue with that. At the commencement of the hike is the very helpful Mountain Lion warning sign, with the final insightful advice of if attacked, FIGHT BACK!

I personally would have preferred a bit more advice on the best fighting style when going toe to toe with a mountain lion, two left jabs followed by a right round house, a half nelson, or the preferred approach of a cornered Australian, the squirrel grip?

With one eye on the ground and the other on the rock face scanning for mountain lions ready to pounce (and the odd bear) I ascended the Upper Yosemite Falls Trail.  There were times ascending on the 11.5km round trip that I forgot about the waterfall altogether such was the relentlessness of the journey up, but the views along the way, and at the end were worth it. Even better, being able to put my aching feet in the water before it tumbles to the Valley floor.


I woke the next morning sore and intending to take it easy and check out the Vernall Falls, but after reaching Vernall Falls I was feeling pretty good, so kept climbing to the Nevada Falls that are located just up stream.  Descending I met a party from San Diego who preceded to tell me that 80% of injuries occur on the way down and then all the ways people have perished over the last year on various Yosemite trails, from being swept over waterfalls to struck by lightning and plummeting to the Valley floor. I was grateful for this information, and fortunately did not to suffer anything except for a slight increase in my fitness and to witness a series of exhilarating views. 


It did make me think further about the Hetch Hetchy (or Hetchy Hetch) discussion at the start of my trip and even having been to Yosemite I feel the long term benefits of keeping the existing dam outweigh those from creating an additional valley within the existing National Park.

Yosemite Falls