Clouds Rest aka day two at Yosemite

Clouds Rest. Sounds like a lovely place doesn't it? And it is. The views are spectacular as you look out across the granite carved structures that are Yosemite Park. Including Half Dome, which looks like a giant thumb. People rock climb up the side- I even know one of the nutters who has done it that way. Not as bad as El Capitane though, which you need to sleep in a hammock because the rock face takes more than one day to climb.
Bugger the rock climbing. The last 200 metres of the 7.5 miles of the track to Clouds Rest is bad enough with sheer drops just a couple of metres either side of you. The trek up had been pretty brutal in one part so I wasn't sure my legs would make it either. I was channelling my sister and freaking out a little. Forest took pity on me and took some photos with my camera from the edge.

Only four of us, Forest, Ross, Sarah and I made it all the way but we shared the peak with two women dancing to Lady Gaga 'baby I was born this way'.

It had taken us 4.5 hours to make it to the top, 2 hours for the first 2.5 miles alone which was just up up up. It was also stinky hot and mosquito filled. If anyone ever does this track my key piece of advice is to bring the Bug Off!!! We did cool down part way up when we encountered snow. I cooled my butt off for a bit getting a photo in the snow, followed by the obligatory snow fight, the boys practicing their baseball pitching and a wee challenge to Ross the competitive welshman.
Once we conquered this first hurdle and had some lunch, most of the group turned back but I really wanted to make it to the top. The walk along the way made it worthwhile. Tree and boulder filled meadows, a mirror lake, tree dotted granite mountains and views for miles and miles. It is a track definitely worth doing.

The only bugger is that once you've made it to the top, you have to turn around and walk 7.5 miles back again. It took us about 3 hours down so it was after 7pm when we reached the road again. We once again had to run the gauntlet of the mosquitos.  The only thing that kept us going was the thought of the nice lake at the bottom.  We couldn't wait for the van to arrive with swimming gear so in our underwear we went.  It was sooooo nice/freezing.  We sat still in the water and it was bearable - apparently, according to science teacher Harvey, the water acts like a wet suit - until we moved then it was freezing again.  And of course, we couldn't get out cos the mossies would find us. 

Eventually the cold got the better of us and we headed out to the waiting van take us back to camp.