While on my two week work trip to San Jose, I finished up a project early near the end of the first week and my boss was kind enough to encourage me to take today off. I was already dreaming up adventurous outing possibilities for Saturday, but having Friday available to me allowed me to think even bigger. Yosemite National Park caught my attention almost immediately when looking for destinations not too far from the San Francisco "bay area" and I quickly realized it was within striking distance. Some quick googling led me here which informed me to the fact that Yosemite has several very incredible Waterfalls which immediately sealed my plans for taking a road trip.
My only immediate regret was that I did not have my Canon Rebel SLR with my big zoom lens, but I decided I could see the waterfalls with my eyes and take the best pictures I could of them. The rest of this blog post presents photo recaps of my day in Yosemite. Hopefully, Mark Streit's critical "camera eye" will approve of my snapshots.
Coming Out of the Tunnels
There are some tunnels carved into the mountains that you drive through just before you enter Yosemite Valley and once you come out the other side you are blown away with the scale and the beauty of everything around you.
I was happy to immediately find a small unnamed waterfall just off the roadside at this first overlook.
You can also see the Merced River that runs through the (4000 foot above sea level) valley floor from this vantage point.
If you have an exceptionally good eye (and you know where it geographically is), you might be able to make out Bridalveil Fall if you follow the river further and further back. I was thrilled to see this 617 foot tall waterfall with my naked eye so far away. Maybe the next picture will help you find it in the one above.
Bridalveil Fall
As you drive into Yosemite Valley, the first waterfall is (as suggested above) Bridalveil Fall. Like so many others I stopped there first, but my recommendation is to see the waterfalls on the north side of the valley first as my pictures were terrible due to the sun being directly above the top of the fall when I got there around 11am. Fortunately, I ended up coming back at the end of my day to get a few nice pictures of this beauty.
This late in the season, this is really one of only two waterfalls that are getting any decent flow of water. The hike up to this view is extremely easy and a must do when in Yosemite.
Yosemite Falls
The other waterfall that is flowing relatively strongly is the park's showcase; Yosemite Falls. This behemoth has three sections and stands 2425 feet tall even though it doesn't look like in this picture that I took at the start of the short Lower Fall Trail. Yes, this waterfall is almost a half-mile tall and it truly must be seen in person to appreciate its size and beauty.
When you get to the end of the trail you are treated with an insane view of the 320 foot Lower Fall.
Unless you are willing to climb the Upper Fall Trail (described as a "strenuous, all-day hike") you will not get to see the 675 feet of falls making up the Middle Cascades as they are not visible from the valley floor. Fortunately, you get the see the 1430 foot drop of the Upper Fall from MANY vantage points around the valley.
You are also blessed with views of the Upper and Lower Falls from a few spots.
Truly magnificent! Looking at the picture above, start imagining the hike to the top!!
Half Dome
One of Yosemite's most recognizable icons is Half Dome whose peak is 8836 feet above sea level. Yes, Mr Kiser, this is where Captain Kirk was climbing in Star Trek V.
I turned around on the bridge where I took this picture to grab another one looking down the Merced River as it was such a nice day.
Sentinel Falls
I had to hike a bit to finally make it to the base of Four Mile Trail (which climbs over 3000 feet up to Glacier Point; 7214 feet above sea level) to finally find the trickle that was the 1920 foot tall Sentinel Falls.
You might be able to make this almost dried up waterfall out in the picture above, but I can promise you when standing at the bottom of Glacier Point (the tall mountain on the left) in the very bright early afternoon it takes a few minutes to finally make it out. The next picture might help you see it.
As I said before, these pictures really do not due the scale of this place justice. I'm still in awe thinking of how tall everything was around me in the valley. God's Country for sure!!
Ribbon Fall
There is no shortage of "giant rocks" towering above the valley floor which includes El Capitan.
I ended my waterfall hunt looking for the falls that flank it on the east and west sides. Unfortunately, the 1570 foot tall Horse Tail Fall had already dried up, but I was able to barely make out the barely flowing 1634 foot tall Ribbon Fall on the west side of El Capitan.
This is the longest single-drop waterfall in North America!!
I have to admit this was probably the coolest solo day-long road-trip outing I've taken in my life. It was a complete joy despite it being a 14 hour day (four hour drive each way plus six hours hiking around the valley). It reminded me of the beauty that God created for us to enjoy here on Mother Earth.
I'll wrap up this posting with two big thank you's. First, to the National Park Service as this place is incredible and I hope it always stays public land and remains as pure and undisturbed as possible. Second, a big shout out to David Streever for getting me to come work at Hortonworks two and a half years ago as it has offered me opportunities such as this outing.
I feel so blessed and I hope you enjoyed the pictures from this incredible experience.
Additional Yosemite NP pics available here.
Gretchen and I headed up to Transylvania County in North Carolina the Friday night of Father's Day weekend to search for some new Waterfalls. Using this guide, we focused on the easy hikes as we wanted to get a few in before checking out the shopping & dining area of the quaint little town of Brevard, NC (here's another one of their waterfalls lists). First up was one of the most famous of this area, Looking Glass Falls, which stands 60 feet tall.
Next up was Moore Cove Falls which had a very scenic hike to get to it.
As you can see, these smaller (I guess "thinner" is more correct) falls really did not have a ton of water running over them. This was very much the case when we saw just a tiny bit of water trickling over Slick Rock Falls.
When then left Pisgah National Forest and headed over to Key Falls Inn to see the 50 foot Key Falls. NOTE: Do NOT get suckered into taking the hike up to the top of the falls as the little bridge crossing at the very top is closed off; not to mention it is a tough hike!!
We finished up Saturday checking out Batson Creek Falls and Connestee Falls from the nice viewing platform the city of Brevard constructed.
The last two pictures taken from the overlook do not give you and appreciation for the height of these falls; the first one is 110 feet tall and the other one is 85 feet. Speaking of tall waterfalls, on Sunday we saw the beast itself, 411 foot tall Upper Whitewater Falls.
I'll finish up this simple post with a bunch of pictures of this awesome waterfall.
While U.S. Army Basic Training was almost 30 years ago for me now, I CLEARLY remember when one of our drill sergeants started using very derogatory racial slurs during a classroom briefing. Rather quickly he asked how that made us feel and the lecture made a sharp turn to how this kind of verbal behavior is not allowed in the Army. He drilled the point home that the Army could not get inside anyone's head and make them think a certain way, but that the Army sure could punish you severely for things you say.
I know this fact first hand after being part of an Article 15 (the general "punishment" umbrella used in the service) investigation while serving in Desert Storm for a sergeant after he crossed this line in front of myself and a couple of other soldiers and proceeded to make a few very clearly discriminatory statements. In my opinion, he got off pretty easy although I'm sure he didn't agree with me and unfortunately, this probably only more deeply reinforced his belief system.
I'm a realist and do accept that the Army is just part of America and that insane activities such as described in this "Racial Thursday" article do happen, but it still pains me to the core.
I'm writing this article as there are so many people in my US of A during this 2016 political campaign who are so proud to think, and worse yet say, that is is OK to let the little racist voice that unfortunately lives in all of us to be clearly heard. They believe this will somehow make America greater (I don't say "great again", as I do believe we have MANY problems, but we are still a GREAT place to be fortunate enough to call our home) by creating more rifts and divides in a nation that itself was based on a melting pot concept. What that behavior does is to further enhance our sense of being different at an expense of hatred, not at the benefit of being diverse.
I must be clear on my stance on this one. Do not fall into this incorrect belief that the march toward "political correctness" is a bad thing. Yes, you should be honest and yes your opinion is important, but do you really advocate an America that is going backward, not forwards, on how we handle differences & diversity? It easily take hundreds of years for humanity to march forward and accept our differences, but significant setbacks can be made in moments with hate-filled racist (or other discriminatory) comments.
Remember, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
My big kayaking push has been, and still is, my S2S - The Chattahoochee River from Source to Sea epic push, but I wanted to give another nearby river a try. This section is my first on The Etowah River and I have to admit it was actually my single favorite kayaking outing to date. The river looked great right off the launch.
The motley crew I was out on the river with were as excited as I to give the Etowah River a try, too.
We had a beautifully sunny day out on the river.
Fortunately, the river was rather narrow and most of it was in the shade.
Very soon after departing, we came across a cool old abandoned bridge.
When I was preparing for this trip I was surprised to find out that it ran along the abandoned Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory which was in operation from 1956 to 1971. Its initial mission was to see if they could build a nuclear-powered aircraft. As you can imagine, that didn't turn out so well and was eventually abandoned. This article gives some more insight to this site which was also known as Air Force Plant 67. From the river, we could only see a few foundations that were supposed to house the railroad bridges that ran to this USAF site as well as this weird looking structure.
A bit further down the river we saw another abandoned bridge.
About a mile downstream from there was a tiny stream we were fortunate to find and leave the boats to walk inland a bit.
Why were we looking for it? Because I'm a big fan of Waterfalls and my Etowah River User's Guide said I'd find one down this stream, so I went wondering down it.
I'm so glad I did!
It was aptly named. 
We spent about 20 minutes goofing off, but then got back on the river. About a half-mile down the river we hit the only real "rapids" of the trip. In honor of the old USAF site, it is called Radioactive Rapids. Here's a picture looking back at the two ledges we went down.
From there, pretty smooth sailing!
Towards the end we found the rock ledge the river guide told us to look out for.
The last obstacle of the day was slipping through the crack at Rock Island. I really enjoyed hearing Roger squeal a bit when he thought he was going to get dumped over.
As you can see in these last few photos, we really had a blast out here on this beautiful run . We finished up our nine mile trip in right at three hours of time.
I can't wait to get back out on The Etowah River.