Yosemite is my go-place to leave the world behind, to revel in nature at its fiercest and most beautiful, quiet my mind, and challenge my body. When I’m hiking with my husband, Jack, “challenge” is the operative word. It’s where, as a novice hiker, I followed him on what he promised would be as an easy hike. At the end of a grueling climb (remember, I’d never hiked before),
” I followed close behind Jack, still breathing hard – not from exertion, but from fright–as he pushed through a stand of fir trees onto a narrow ledge. I stopped cold three feet from oblivion, first in terror, then in amazement … Above and below and to my right and left waterfalls roared and tumbled white and wild into the Merced river two thousand feet below: Vernal, Nevada, Illilouette, Yosemite. Granite monoliths carved by eons of glacial creep soared another three thousand feet over my head. That ledge seemed like a perch at the base of heaven.”
Excerpt from A Stroke of Bad Luck and the Potholed Road to Recovery
I learned only later that that awe-inspiring hike–to Sierra Point–had been closed years earlier because it had been deemed “too dangerous.”
This year, Jack and I returned to Yosemite to hike a few “old favorites” as well as a couple of new discoveries. They weren’t all easy, at least not for me, but I rate them “worth every blister!”
Here’s a glimpse of Seven Great Yosemite Hikes.
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Filed under:Americas, California, Places, USA || Tagged under: Featured, Hikes, Yosemite
