This week’s post is brought to you by Emma :-)
Cold wintery Yosemite
A lot has happened in the last week as we’ve cruised through California and into Oregon. We arrived in the incredible Yosemite National Park, full of waterfalls and amazing rock formations. Wanting to avoid the big crowds and expensive campsites, we opted for a backcountry hike up the snow creek trail. The beautiful views of half dome and incredible waterfalls were slightly dampened by the downpour and thunderstorm we experienced a couple kilometres into the hike. After a few hours of hiking and 1km of elevation gain later, the rain turned to snow and we arrived in a winter wonderland, shivering our way through dinner and making our way into sleeping bags by 7pm. The next day cleared up and we saw and heard incredible avalanches on the other side of the valley the whole hike down.
Soggy and tired, we made our way to San Francisco and had a great time wandering around the city experiencing some of the best Mexican food we’d ever had. Shoutout to Rachel and James who let us refresh at their place and partake in a few spicy games of “Bonanza” (look up this great card game!).
Just north of San Fran, we stumbled upon the secretive community of Bolinas, a place where the locals have taken down all signs pointing to the town to keep this beauty gem on the down low. I pulled out the surfboard for the first time and that evening caught some live music at the local bar filled with people and free roaming dogs.
Power
We continued up the coast and enjoyed windy roads through incredible forests, and beautiful rugged coastline. Northern California is home to the Redwoods, some of the tallest trees in the world. We spent two days exploring various parks dedicated to preserving these incredible giants. Although it wall still raining, we went on some incredible hikes, one ending at the ocean with some of biggest waves we’d ever seen. Continuing north, I had a morning surf in Port Orford, then stopped for the world famous hotdogs of Langlois.
We’re already in Smith Rock, but we’re going to save those sweet details for the next post… Stay tuned!
