Back in the USA: Day 6: Yosemite to Monterey

We had a 'lie-in' until about 6.00 am and then headed back into Yosemite and towards Glacier Point. We hadn't had any phone signal since we left Half Dome Village last night and there wasn't any free WiFi at the hotel. We decided against paying for it as it was $10 for 24 hours and as we hadn't planned on being there long it didn't seem worth it. Anyway, as we drove back into Half Dome village my phone pinged into life and messages came through from our son and daughter asking if we were OK. What we hadn't realised was that the day before there had been a fatal rockfall at El Capitan and our son and daughter were desperate to hear that we were safe as the media had only released details that it was British couple involved that were holidaying in Yosemite. We felt awful that they'd worried all day about us and if we'd known about the rockfall we'd have happily paid for the WiFi to let them know all was well. As it happens we would've been on our way down from Half Dome at the time of the rockfall.

News broadcast

We stopped off at Tunnel View and there were two news crews in the car park reporting on the previous day's events at El Capitan.

Dawn at Tunnel View

Then we continued on our way to Glacier Point which is down a 16 mile dead-end road leading from Wawona Road. Just before we reached this turn off a bear walked across the road in front of us! Mark braked hard but by the time I got my camera out, the bear had wandered off into the bushes and I just managed to capture a short video of its backside sticking out from the bush. Arrgghhh! It was sooooo cute! Really glad we were inside the car though. 😆

Glacier Point road was actually closed a week ago due a wildfire and poor air condition. We turned off Wawona Road into Glacier Point Road and found ourselves in smoke!

After about ten miles we were beginning to get a bit worried as we had not seen any other vehicles and when we saw a roadside tree actually burning, we decided that this was getting too risky and turned around and headed back along the road: we had visions of burning trees falling across the road and blocking the only exit route...but all the while we kept thinking surely the road wouldn't have been reopened if we were in any danger.

After a few miles, we started to see a few other cars heading towards Glacier Point so we decided to turnaround again and head that way. Safety in numbers and all that! :) ... and we really didn't want to miss this part of the trip as we knew it was going to be amazing.

A short while after we'd passed our previous turn-around point, we noticed signs warning of smoke on the road and then nearer to glacier point there were signs saying that it was managed burning and asking not to report it! Doh! It's a pity these signs hadn't been placed earlier along the road.

The view from Glacier point is A-MAZE-ING, a bit hazy but absolutely breathtaking!! You can see one quarter of Yosemite Park and it offers an incredible view of our new best friend.... Half Dome💓.

We both agreed that if we had visited Glacier point BEFORE ascending Half Dome it would have probably unnerved us somewhat.

Yep, I've hiked to the top!!

We had planned to ascend Sentinal Dome befoe leaving Yosemite but the smoke-related faffing around earlier meant that we were running late and we didn't have time. We'd love to come back to Yosemite one day so maybe we'll get chance then.

We finally arrived in Monterey in the early evening and decided to explore what we could of the Big Sur CA-1 before sunset. When we first booked our flights and hotel months ago, the intention was to drive the whole way down CA-1/Big Sur but a landslide in March mean that it was totally impassable after about thirty miles.

Landslide footage here>>

Anyway, the part we did explore was amazing!