Yosemite

This last weekend we had our friend Laura come visit. It was fun to see her again and reminisce about our stay in Scotland where we met. We went on a day trip to Yosemite and had a lot of fun hiking and picture taking.

Yosemite is home to the giant redwood trees. They don't look too big here...
But look at the roots of a fallen tree! The roots are very shallow since it is so dry here, so we couldn't get really close to any tree (walking close unburies the roots and the tree falls eventually.)
Here we are by some burned trees. They were cut with a path between fallen logs. Fire is a natural way of helping the redwoods maintain a healthy forest.
This is not a redwood pinecone (they are small). It came from a sugar pine which is also a large tree, but not as big as the giant redwood.
A tree blocked the path.
By one huge tree. A lot of trees were black in the center, but still alive. The black may be from a fire, but more likely from the sap which turns black over time. The inside part is dead, but the nutrients go up the sides.
This is one tunnel tree; not the one that was famous and is on postcards with old cars driving through (although buggies did drive through this tree too). It is lower down, so when there is a lot of snow and people couldn't get to the other famous tunnel tree, they could come here. Now it is the only tunnel tree in the park. The famous tree fell down in the 60s. We hiked up to it--a long way for us with Alianna wanting to walk, but it didn't look like much.
Alianna fell asleep on the drive to the valley. You can see Half Dome to the right of Mark. A beautiful view. It was huge when we got closer and we wondered why people really like to climb up such steep rock.
Here you can see El Capitan on the left and Half Dome in the background.
Another beautiful view.