USA Week 2

This is Cathedral Lake in Tuolomene Meadows which is a 8 mile walk in the mountains at 9000ft.

Walking is much more tiring at altitude because it is harder to breathe but you can see more things if you keep your eyes open. We saw squirrels, deer , chickarees and evidence of bears. There was some large scratches on some of the trees where bears had been pulling the bark off to get at the insects below.

We have also seen a Coyote.

Chickaree hiding in the rocks on lookout for trouble!!

This is the General Grant Sequoia Tree in Kings Canyon National Park. It is the third largest tree in the world and 1700 years old. It is over 13 metres wide at its base and over 70 metres tall. The tree has been damaged by fire but the rings on the tree tell you how often this has occurred and what the weather has been like. There are fires on average every 15 years throughout the life of the tree and these are needed for the seeds of the tree to germinate. Some of the Sequoia trees are so big they have been cut out to allow a road through so cars can pass through them.

This is us on a 13.5 mile walk starting from the Yosemite Valley base following the 4 mile trail (which is actually 4.6 miles) climbing 3800 feet in elevation to Glacier Point before following the Panarama trail for 8.9 miles past Half Dome and numerous waterfalls back to Yosemite Village with a further 800 feet of elevation gain. Mrs Lockwood was very tired when she got back to the car.

You can see the whole of the yosemite Valley from this walk including all the best sites Yosemite Falls, El Capitan, Half Dome and all the way over to Tuolomene Meadows.


El Capitan is the highest rockface in Yosemite at 3500 feet. It is climbed by people from all over the world. It has over 70 climbs on it. The easiest climb has been climbed in a day but it normally takes 3 days. Some of the harder routes can take up to 14 days. We saw some people who had been on their climb for 9 days and they were just over half way up. They have to carry all their food water and equipment to sleep on the rockface. Sometimes climbers fall and get injured and we saw a recue off the easiest route using a helicopter and a big team of rescuers to get the injured climber off. People gather at the bridge below El Capitan to watch the climbers every day through telescopes as they are very difficult to see without binoculars or a telescope.

Mono Lake is a lake where the water level has dropped many feet because it is used to supply all the people in Los Angelas with water. The high levels of minerals that flow into the lake via underground springs bubble up and make deposits which form Tufas. These strange rock formations continue to grow when under the water but stop growing when the water level drops. These Tufas became exposed when the lake level dropped several years ago.

Started the big trip - USA

Been travelling a week now. First stop Las Vegas. The city is full of themed hotels , this hotel is called Excalibur as it is themed on a castle.

Others are based on Venice and this has Gondolas sailing through it. Egyptian hotel called Luxor which is shaped as a pyramid and has a huge sphynx sitting outside.

New York New York has a replica Statue of Liberty outside and a roller coaster outside and in. The MGM hotel has real lions inside it.

Away from the city you can visit Red Rocks State Park. This area is part of the Mojave Desert and is extremely hot and dry.

These tortoises roam free but unfortuantely people started to take them home as pets and now they are a protected species. This is one of several at the Red Rocks Visitor Centre.

Whilst walking at Red Rocks Mr Lockwood spotted this Green Backed Rattlesnake after it rattled at him!

These snakes are highly venomous and can strike up to a metre so you need to keep your distance.
As with all wild animals they are best left alone and watched from a distance.

After Las Vegas we travelled through Death Valley which up until recently had the highest temperature ever recorded in the world at 134F.

When we travelled through it was only 117F 47C.

This desert area is actually below sea level as you can see from the sign and it contains salf flats as well as scrub. A salt flat is a large area of white salt crystals that have formed where there was once water. Despite the heat there are small pools of water within the salt flats where specially adapted fish - pup fish survive.

Within Death Valley where the wind has been sheltered sand dunes have formed.
Some of the dunes are over 100 feet high. It is so hot on the dunes that the wild life only come out at night to feed but their tracks can be clearly seen during the day if you walk into the dunes.

We saw Lizards, Kangaroo Rats and Sidewinder Rattlesnake tracks on this particular morning.

The Sidewinder Rattlesnake follows the Kangaroo Rat into its burrow then eats it and then uses the burrow as its home until it needs to feed again.

Just practising before the big trip!!

We have just returned from a lovely week in Scotland and thought I would practise posting something on the blog. We went to Loch Ness and saw the lifeboat travelling along the Caledonian canal which links the West of Scotland to the East. This saves boats having to travel all the way around the North of Scotland and travelling hundreds of extra miles. We went dolphin watching near Inverness home to the Bottlenose dolphin.