Sagers in the Sky

Remember a few posts back, at Mt. Mitchell, when I said that would be the highest point I’d be standing on for the foreseeable future? Well, that turns out not to be quite true.

First, a little background. This winter, my sister found herself in need of someone to drive to Los Angeles with her. Knowing what that route would take her past, I naturally offered to tag along. Of course, along the way I did also manage to take my best picture ever. A few months later she had to come back and stopped at some of the National Park System’s greatest hits. That’s the background.

In her time at Yosemite, most of the park was still closed for the winter, so I kept nagging her that she needed to go back. So the two of us hatched a plan manipulated convinced my mother, who has never been there, that she needed to see it, and that we’d make perfect tour guides. To our immense surprise, she agreed! And we didn’t even have to resort to the hard sell.

So early tomorrow, we head to the airport for our weeklong Sierra suaré. After landing in San Francisco we’ll immediately head to Sequoia National Park for about two days (and more importantly for me, 2 sunsets). Then we descend the ol’ General’s Highway back into the Fuzzy Hills / Central Valley only to head right back up the mountains into Yosemite, where we’ll spend the next 3 days before returning to San Francisco and flying back.

Obviously, this trip will be very different from my previous Sierra Nevada excursion. Having human travel companions, flying instead of driving, returning to parks that I’ve already thoroughly explored are all somewhat unusual for me. We’ll be staying in or around the parks in lodges lodge-like facilities, as well. While the parks themselves will be relatively unchanged, it seems that Yosemite’s waterfalls are in vastly different conditions than during snow-heavy 2011. But I’m sure that won’t be an impediment to what makes it such a remarkable place.

Off we go…