Glacier Point...really? ABSOLUTELY!

OK, so this morning as we headed out to go to Glacier Point and try to see Half Dome from the park, we took a turn that we hadn't taken yet and ended up on El Portal Road. We'd read about it in Laurel's instructions on how to get here and that it was very scenic. Well, that little drive took about an hour and a half to get through because of all the amazing scenery. One of the great things about Yosemite is that they have made all these pull offs where they know you're going to want a picture, some are small for just one or two cars, others are small parking lots and you just know there's something good in those. The thing is that with all the waterfalls, rockfalls, rocks jutting into the road...there's a pull off every 100 feet or so. It takes quite some time and you just don't want to miss any of it.

Then we headed off to Glacier Point and we had no idea what we'd find there. There was snow on the ground as we rode up the hill...real snow and it was almost 70 degrees outside. WTH? Along the way we stopped at Washburn Point, it was amazing. From Washburn, you could see a number of the mountain ranges - Clark, Liberty, etc. and a view of the Nevada and Vernal Falls. That was the first place we saw people climbing (or hiking, not sure which) Half Dome. They were tiny specs even with the binoculars, but they were there. It was like, "what's that ant doing on that mountain?"

At Glacier Point, you could see almost the entire valley. It was phenomenal. A true WOW moment! Glacier Point kicked everything's butt so far. There you can also see Half Dome, the lower Yosemite Falls, upper Yosemite Falls, the Yosemite Lodge, the Ahwahnee Hotel, Curry Village, Yosemite village, the other falls from Washburn Point, as well as the Overhang Rock, where people have obviously done really stupid things. We chose not to do stupid things...plus they have Overhang "blocked off" a bit...

At the end of the day we made it back to the house and headed out to the "local falls" to "view" the eclipse. Of course it wasn't a full eclipse, so you couldn't really look at it.

We used R's binoculars to reflect it onto our hands, a box or whatever we could find so we could "watch". It was very cool and lasted quite some time.

The road - and I use the term lightly - that we took to get to the spot where R thought it would be good to see the eclipse was ...hmmm, how do I put it...treacherous! It was worse than the dirt road that we were on for the Skywalk...probably because the only things that have been on this road are 4x4s...so its not very wide and it is very rocky. So not the place for a 2012 Chrysler 300 but she rocked it out. The "road" does go right by a lovely waterfall and there's a 6 ton capacity bridge over the creek there, thankfully! I have no idea where that "road" goes, but it seemed to just keep dropping into the abyss.

We didn't stay for the whole eclipse because...well, we had to get back up that road! We took folding chairs from the house with us and when we got back and got them out of the trunk and shut the trunk...dust flew everywhere...this was NOT a road!