Note: Never drive up to and back from Yosemite in one day...especially if you get altitude sickness.
Ok so me and my friend Belen woke up at before the crack of dawn to drive to Yosemite for a day trip. The drive went by pretty quick considering it was a 200 mile drive there (a small distance in California terms). We went there to see the fall leaves but we found out when we got there that they weren't quite ready to be photographed. That was fine though, we thought, "Hey we can hike up to a waterfall of something." HA! We got both out of the car, walked two steps and almost fell over. It felt like gravity had multiplied by 4 times. I had drank two cups of Coca tea which is a Peruvian tea that helps with altitude sickness...and is also related to crack, lol. Well that wasn't enough to help me because I guess we went up too high, too fast and all we could do was sluggishly drag our feet at .001 mph. We took a shuttle to Yosemite Falls and we passed by the Ansel Adams museum which I really wish we had gone to because apparently Belen doesn't know who Ansel Adams is! I'm mean, she is from Equador, but isn't Ansel Adams WORLD famous??? Anyway, the waterfall was completely dried up except for a slight trickle so we just rested on some benches for a while while people jogged and rode bikes by us which really made us feel even lazier, lol.
Later on we decided to go up to Glacier Point to see the view and snap some pics before sunset. Yeah well we were already at 4,000ft and Glacier Point is even higher...by about 3,800. So I drank more tea and we sang all the songs that have to do with air, height and breathing so we wouldn't pass out while driving. Some songs were: "No air", "Breath", "Higher" and "2am".
When we finally got up there, I was full on panting, borderline hyperventilating and I couldn't really talk. Belen was better than me but we still had to walk hella slow up to the viewing area. It was very nice once we got there though and the sun was setting so it illuminated Half Dome witha pinkinsh-gold color :) Very pretty.
Then it got dark and we left...but we got lost in the park for 45 mins which really freaked out me and Belen (Belen more though, lol). We finally got back to lovely sea-level Bay Area around midnight and had a great sleep. Unfortunately the next 3 days I was coughing like crazy, had a headache and still felt 'heavy'. I found out that I had gotten a moderately bad case of altitude sickness and had a little bit of fluid in my lungs. It was good that we left and desended when we did or I would have been a lot worse off.
All in all I LOVE Yosemite to death, but will never again go up there if I don't have time to acclimate first.
I took this when we were driving to Galcier Point...I think it's El Capitan but I'm not positive.
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites