You may follow along in our journey by visiting Julie's Journal page. It will include photographs, suggestions, mishap adventures and our experiences on the road and back-country trails.

If you would like to know more about the history of our adventure click here for the history page. How we planned, saved money, chose our equipment and prepared for ten months on the road.

These are some other web sites we found useful and/or have recpical links with.

Yosemite National Park, California
April 23, 1999 to May 1, 1999

written by Julie Hackler and Dave Fink

Once you take a drive into the valley, there is a lot to see. But the roads to get there are a bit curvy. Dave and I ran into a slight problem when turning a corner, we noticed a minivan coming right towards us on our side of the road. We immediately slowed down, blew the horn and the minivan driver corrected himself and got into his lane. Turns out he and his wife were visiting from a foreign country and had a sudden relapse of what side of the road to drive on. After no harm was done Dave and I laughed about it for a long while, and prayed no one else from a visiting country would have the same loss of memory.

We made sure we hit all the good spots in the valley. El Capitan was a grand sight and it was neat to watch the mountain climbers. We picked a nice spot to picnic and watch the climbers. Right across from El Capitan is a field called Valley View. Don't forget the binoculars. Don't miss the Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls. The top of the Upper Yosemite Falls can be reached by a 7 mile hike, but we weren't able to get to the top due to a rock slide only 4 days before. We did get a great view from Columbia Rock of Half Dome. The Lower Yosemite Falls is an easy 1 mile hike, and boy this time of year was it a mighty flow! During the summer months they said it is not quiet as spectacular. We also made it a point to see Mirror Lake, this is another one that might be dry in the summer. The pools reflected beautifully the granite mountains that make up Yosemite Park. Vernal and Nevada Falls were both visionary. The top of Vernal Falls could be reached by traveling up the Mist Trail. 600 steps vertical! A steep one, also wet - they don't call it the Mist Trail for nothing. We decided to hike a little further to see the Nevada Falls. Instead of taking the 600 slick steps back down we opted to follow the John Muir Trail. I thought the views from the John Muir Trail were some of the best in the park.

Although we felt we benefited greatly from coming off season we did miss some of the park due to the closed roads. Snow was still abundant at 6000 feet or higher, so the Tioga and Glacier Point Roads were closed. We could have easily missed out on more of the park, but thank goodness we did our research before the trip. Neither the Visitor Center nor the Wilderness Center offered much info on the 800 miles of trails in the park. You could buy a book, of course, for $20 or more, but who wants to spend more money than they have to? We got a lot of free information on the hiking trails off the internet before we came. So unless you want to spend an extra $20, do your research.

I am really glad we decided to make Yosemite a stop in our travels, I'd recommend it to everyone - even if you have to come during peak season!