Located in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, Yosemite is somewhere that I wanted to visit the moment I saw a picture of it.

I first saw it on an earth porn website and then every time I would see a picture of it without reading the title, I would say to myself, “What is this place? I need to go here.” Then I would look and sure enough it was in Yosemite.

So I went.

I spent two days in the park, the first day, I visited lower Yosemite Falls and we just did a little bit of light hiking. We did a few trails and went off track a little bit, exploring the nature.

For a car of people it costs $30.00 for a 7-day pass into the park. Whereas per person the cost is $15.00 USD

95% of Yosemite is undiscovered by humans right now, and it’s encouraged that you go off trail and find your own way around and find beautiful views.

We only did light hiking on the first day because the second day we did the Panoramic Trail, which encompasses walking around the entire perimeter of Yosemite National Park.

Allegedly this trail is 24 kilometers from the start until you reach Glacier Peak, which offers the final beautiful view of the park. From there you finish the hike by taking the ‘Four Mile Trail’ to get to the bottom.

However, we got lost and ended up taking 29 kilometers to get to Glacier Peak, this was discouraging but we kept on pushing. On the way to Glacier Peak all we could think about was how good it will be there, and asked travellers that we passed on the way how much further it was.

It felt good as the time dwindled from 1.5 hours, down to thirty minutes, and finally to ten minutes. People we encountered at first told us that there was water there, which was a welcome surprise. Then we found out that there are also buses that take you down from Crystal Peak, which sounded incredible after a long day of hiking.

When we got to Crystal Peak it was a little underwhelming because it was very touristy and crowded. The views on the way to Crystal Peak were also so fantastic that there was nothing really new when we arrived.

So if you are going to take the Panoramic Trail, just remember that the beauty is in the journey, and the views are absolutely incredible throughout the trip.

Once we reached Crystal Peak, we tried to find how to get on the buses down, because we were over hiking by that point. However, we were told that if you hike up, you have to hike down, and that if you bus up, you bus down. So it was down the Four Mile Trail we went.

Apparently with how steep the Four Mile trail is, there is a higher chance of encountering rattle snakes, as they can be found more often in places where there is a large altitude change. We didn’t see any there, but we did see one on the main part of the trail at the halfway point. It was weird hearing a rattle and then looking around wondering what that was when you know deep down.

Then once we hit the bottom of the trail, which made us at 36 kilometers for the day, we found that the shuttle bus had stopped running by that time, so we had to walk another couple of kilometers to reach our car. It was abysmal.

Overall though, the park offers phenomenal views no matter where you’re located in the park, and anyone who appreciates nature can get some incredible photos and views out of this place. A final note is that you don’t need permits for most of the trails, except for one called Half Dome Trail, but apparently they don’t check for permits very often, so just use your judgment on if you’re going to get permits for that or not.

Jeffrey Marr