This is mountain driving so you don't get anywhere very fast. The Wawona Road that we traveled today seemed to be the gauntlet for the fire fighters. To our east and up the hill was a red substance that we assume to be fire retardant.
To the west and down the slope it's ashes.
In reality, we saw very little fire damage but there were valley vistas in a couple places that had significant burn areas. Nothing is burning now that we know of.
We continue down Wawona Road and catch a glimpse of "Half Dome" in the distance beyond the valley. It's one of the signature formations in the park.
The road runs along the edge of the canyon and passes through a few tunnels.
After a couple hours covering something like 70 miles we arrived at our first destination, Mariposa Grove.
We parked at a visitor center and were shuttled via park bus to the grove area. Once there we were off on a 2 mile hike through the redwoods there.
The redwoods are big and straight as an arrow.
There are several trees in the grove scattered here and there.
The main attraction in this grove is what they call the "grizzly giant". Here's a plaque with some specifications.
Here's the tree.
It's a gnarly looking old tree.
The trunk is mammoth. The black is where fire has eaten away at the bark over the years. That phenomenon is common on the larger redwoods throughout the grove. The ranger said in many areas, the ground cover burns every ten years or so from lightning strikes. It's sort of a natural cleansing.
A tree nearby, has had its core eroded by fire and other natural events so that you can walk through it.
We saw several deer on our trek through the woods. They weren't too concerned with our presence.
Kathy poses near one of the trees to show its size. I know she's a pretty big gal, but just the same, that's a big chunk of wood.
Of course, giant trees produce giant pine cones. It wouldn't take too many of those to complete the Christmas wreath.
That completed the hike in the redwoods and we climbed back in the car and wandered back toward the RV park. Along the way we enjoyed views of some of the things we planned on seeing tomorrow.
There's names for a lot of the rock there but I don't know them other than the "half dome" formation I mentioned earlier. We just stopped and snapped photos when it looked scenic.
The park we've seen to this point doesn't offer the epic mountains or the lush greenery of some others but it is worth the view to a Michigan flat lander.
We had a little extra time on our hands so turned into the "Bridal Veil Falls" site to see if there was any water in the park. This site was on tomorrow's schedule.
There's not a lot of water there, but there is some that does create a veil of water down the face of the mountain.
Here's a close-up of what's going on up there. It looks like the wind takes the water and blows it off the ledge...interesting.
These are a few more shots of the mountains that we saw on our way out of the falls area. These actually look back toward the falls.
I tried to get some of the reflection in the stream.
The falls are right in the middle of this photo where to darker (wet) rock is. I'm sure this is much more scenic in the spring/early summer before everything dries up.
This looks down the stream bed.
And a couple views along the route as we leave the park.
The line along the mountain face (left center) in the photo below, is the road. No guard rails here. Miss a turn and you've got a problem. It's amazing how many people seem to want to race down these mountain roads.
And finally back to home, where I spend the next few hours putting this together when I have the connection to get it done.
Tomorrow we're headed into the main area of this park...Yosemite Valley.
May the attractions be close to the road and the trails be level.
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