Thursday, May 26, 2011

Day 4 - Modesto - Yosemite National Park - Visalia



View Modesto - Yosemite - Visalia in a larger map

8:30am: We left the hotel in Modesto and drove 2 hours to Yosemite National Park. In the park we made a couple of stops to take some photos of the impressive mountains and the famous waterfalls. We were lucky. The spring is best part of the year to watch the waterfalls. Because of the melting snow on top of the mountains.
After parking the bus close to the Yosemite Lodge, we took a hike to the The Yosemite Fall which is slit into three sections: Upper-, Middle- and Lower-Falls. After hiking for about 2 hours, it was time to get in the bus and head for the next great thing of the day: The Giant Sequoia's!
Mariposa Grove

In the afternoon we visited the giant Sequoia Trees. We where very lucky because the road was just open for a few days. Last week the road was still closed because of the snow. We made a 1 hour hiking tour. We stopped by the Fallen Monarch, Bachelor and Three Graces (couple of trees together), the Grizzly Giant and the California Tunnel Tree. The Grizzly Giant is the oldest and biggest tree. We made nice photos from the trees. After the hiking tour we went back to the bus and we start with the ride to Visalia. On the way we watched the movie The Hangover. We arrived at around 8:15pm at our hotel Holiday Inn in Visalia.