I'm in love with everything Yosemite.
Here is a link to LA Times article, showing beautiful photos year round at Yosemite National Park
The photos are stunning!!
Another great way to see Yosemite from afar is the Facebook fan page: Yosemite Facebook where you can see fellow nature lovers different views of the amazing backdrops and hear stories of hikes up half dome or back country. My personal story would be the hike to Vernal Falls on the Mist Trail where my boyfriend popped the question. I was so awestruck by the pounding sounds of the waterfall and the beauty of the area that I didn't notice he was messing around with his pockets trying to get something out. I also didn't realize that my brothers, "Oh my god!" and "This is so great!" were actually in reference to his taking a knee and not to the awe in which I was still sucked in to. I thought my brother was taking a photograph of us so when I turned around and saw my man down there, I though what are you doing, he won't be able to get both of us in the photo ... Then it finally struck. And the story went down in the books.
Even beyond our romantic tale, it truly is a magical place just sitting in the valley, looking out. It's the kind of place stories come from! It is by far the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It is a place that instantly upon sight, conjures mystical tales of adventure and fantasy and displays how the power of nature can effect us. I'm a firm believer everyone should go at least once to take it in for themselves!
When it comes to the history of such a treasured National Park, we can heed our thanks to the early champions for its virginal nature and environment such as John Muir, or naturalist enthusiasts like Henry David Thoreau. We now have monumental parks that we can stand in the midst of and continue standing in awe of; in the wake of this natures beauty. And it is because of the nature lovers before us, like these. These are examples of writers that gave us knowledge about the power of the outdoors to move us and reasons why it should be protected. In Thoreau’s Walden, he proclaims that “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
In this same way, I suppose that drive is also what led us to the Northwest for a two week trek into nature; visiting natural places of wonder. One of the first stops was a grand entrance into the majestic Yosemite. The roads, little by little, became more and more winding and smaller as the drive went on. The hills turned into mountains within a few measly miles, and the fight against car sickness was inevitably getting tougher as the turns, turned to hairpins. But then it happened, we cleared one particular turn and there it was—the most beautiful scene I have ever laid eyes on. At this point it was evident that we were not the only ones dumbstruck by its immense beauty. As we pulled off the road to stare at the sight, car after car did the same. We would get out of our cars, eyes fixed ahead over the valley's of streams hundred’s... no, thousands of feet down. They were surrounded by tall, regal-like granite walls, white and reaching to the heavens. Waterfalls cascaded over the edges, falling gloriously to their fates below.
I think even just in recounting this conjuring memory...this is what Thoreau must have meant, for I surely felt alive at this moment. It was easy to see why John Muir fell in love with this place; why he felt the landscape spoke to him like the gospel, and its words reached his very soul. Its descriptions are insurmountably indefinable, even within the definitions of beauty and awe.
