Taking Nothing For Granite

When I picked Matt up on Wednesday night, one of the first things he said was, "do you want to go to Yosemite?" Obviously, I want to go to Yosemite and he meant that we should go this weekend. His friends from Boston had blown into Tahoe and suggested that we meet up there after Thanksgiving. Well, his friends didn't actually get around to coming but we went anyway, despite the fact that they were supposed to bring Matt's duffel bag of tent, sleeping bag, and more warm clothes. I was nervous that the place would be crazy with tourists enjoying a long weekend, but we were able to get an unheated cabin in Curry Village, which is right in Yosemite Valley, underneath Half Dome and Glacier Point. The picture of the village is looking west at North Dome, which we hiked on Saturday.



We arrived at Yosemite, after about a four hour drive from the East Bay and I got my first glimpse of the place. The drive itself was pretty spectacular with lots of farms for the first three hours and then climbing up to 7000 feet for the last hour. We came in on 120, headed east, which leads you right into the Valley where you look up at Yosemite Falls (no running water right now), El Capitan, and Half Dome. It's just crazy to see these rocks looming around, the setting sun keeping Half Dome lit up, and the nearly full moon rising. There was just too much beauty, especially looking up outside our cabin to see Glacier Point lit up by the moon.

There were lots of signs about campgrounds being full and the penalties if you sleep in your car, so I was relieved when we were able to score a cabin. It came with sheets and wool blankets and towels, could sleep five in beds, and was only $53 a night. Not too bad. Below is a picture of Matt on Saturday morning, trying to get warm. We were pretty warm sleeping under lots of blankets and snuggled in my sleeping bag, but it was very chilly once you tried to do anything vertically in the cabin. Since it was dark at around 5:30 pm, we tried playing Rummy 500 before bed...I'm glad Matt decided we should play Rummy 225 and then beat me quickly because I was having trouble holding the cards my hands were so cold. We had aspirations to wake up early and hike the 8 miles up to Half Dome, but we just couldn't force ourselves to get up. We slept in, had a nice breakfast at the lodge, and drove to the other side of North Dome and hiked toward the Valley from the north.