Journey to Yosemite, Part 1 of 3: Pictures of Mariposa Grove
The four-hour drive from downtown San Francisco to Yosemite National Park was, in a word, baffling—I'm so used to driving west towards mountains, qua Rockies from Denver, when I have the urge to explore the remoteness and purity of nature. New country lay ahead.
After crossing the fog-engulfed Bay Bridge, which resembled a serpent of industrial grayscale, the California highway meandered southward down the East Bay's foggy dreamscape, like a cement snake slithering down bumpy green terrain. Soon it guided me east into another biome of cloud-spotted blue skies and wheat-gold textures making waves on subtle hills.
It crossed the flat Central Valley of California, a broad grid of small towns, stick-straight roads and limitless fruit fields. Zipping down the single-lane highways, a white sign would appear and tell me what grew in the open sun-drenched food grids; another would invite me in for a tasting of local fresh fruits straight from the branch.
But soon, the highway gazed upward again. Flat irrigated fields would submit to rolling foothills, upon which single trees were perched perfectly for a view of California prairie to the west, layers of mountain range ever reaching higher, to the east.
Next, sharp curves and switchbacks, grasping higher, climbing and reaching for a higher country; it seemed the very air beckoned for the granite backbone of California, the mighty mountains of the Sierra Nevada.
The Sierras and the Rockies share a common ancestor from millions of years ago, calculated for effect, bulging skyward. Two revolutions of granite upthrust from the same subducted tectonic plate. Naturally, they are like distant brothers. I sensed a similar signature driving up the Sierra foothills—the eastward winds flowed through groves of Ponderosa and sugar pine. Familiar villages of granite and gneiss making claim over ridges and bends. A hint of creek flow amidst emerald, still forest.
The Rockies might be the younger, taller sibling; but the Sierras, the elder statesman, may stand wiser, more meticulously carved by the rains and ices of earth-time.
Yosemite National Park is a giant plot of montane geography, almost 3 times the size of Rocky Mountain National Park. I entered by the south entrance and drove up the curvy highway for my accommodations at the Wawona Hotel.
I had read the history and lore surrounding this historic hotel tucked deep in the Yosemite forest; booked it mostly for convenience of time, as it was only a half-hour drive from Yosemite Valley. I walked in and perused the 19th-century Late Victorian architecture, the old sepia framed photographs hanging from antique walls. The enjoyable creak of carpeted green floors; it seemed only the check-in desk had seen new technologies in the last half-century. The rest had remained frozen in time.
The Wawona Hotel’s main building features two levels, around which wrap a deep veranda, for taking in the forest and meadows beyond. I immediately settled into my windowless single room, which embodied all the sound-privacy that thin 19th-century walls could afford. The rooms next to me were separated by mere doors and nothing more. But no worries, I was already off to my first destination, the Mariposa Grove...
After a day’s full drive across my home state, I witnessed a congregation of tall, stoic, proud redwoods and sequoia as they took in the last hymns of light hovering over Yosemite. These wood giants controlled this nook of the forest; they had laid their claim to this land centuries ago. This was terra Sequoiadendron giganteum.
I walked around in silence just after the magic hour, inhaling the fresh forest airs. Brick-hued redwood scattered throughout view, low-lying ferns and pine saplings filling in the gaps. I walked up to a sequoia and knocked on its crimson bark. The slight disturbance released a sweet timber aroma. The forest chanted its muted evening chorus around me.
These sequoia were tough burly organisms built for immortality. Black fire scars hid within the growths of the older wood-giants, survivors of barbarous fires that had swept through the hilly grove back in who-knows-when.
The light crept ever higher up the sequoias, illuminating only their crowns. Soon only the tips of their highest pine needles would embrace the fading hazel light, so I snapped pictures as fast as I could. I was left a forest scene and its rich parade of tree-mosses and meadow ferns, saturated in cool evening blue.
A herd of deer perused vacant wood benches for remnants of tourist snacks and lunches. They paid no mind to my camera or human presence.
I walked around the Grizzly Giant one last time, investigating its otherworldly thick stature; even emerging redwoods gazed up at its height and sheer volume, when no one was looking. A breathing pillar, tremendous tower of wood. The diameter of one branch, bent upwards, measured over 7 feet. Over 200 feet of earth-tree, which would surpass a 20-storey building.
The wilderness, now dark, stretched vast to the northward; sunset had extinguished them out of sight, but not out of mind. I walked back from Mariposa’s Lower Grove to my rented VW Golf, already refreshed by the trees and hills. Yosemite Valley lay next, supreme and undiscovered. From the adirondack chairs scattered around Wawona’s upper veranda, I watched the sapphire night silhouette the forest pines. Moments of anticipatory awe and excitement populated a new day of exploration. My interview with waterfalls and granite crafted by water, gravity and time, is next.
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