Hiking in Yosemite

 On our second day in the Yosemite area, we drove into Yosemite Valley. This is usually completely full of tourists in the summer time but - in this rare case - Covid was a blessing: The park strongly limits the daily number of visits during the pandemic and there were no crowds to speak of. In the middle of the picture (just over Axel's head) you can see El Capitan - a giant granite cliff face. This is one of the most famous spots in the park and was recently featured in the movie "Free Solo": The climber Alex Honnold "free soloed" this cliff - meaning he climbed up with no rope or support - just his hands and feet. Looking at this wall in real life, I couldn't make up my mind whether this was an act of sheer madness or an amazing human achievement. Maybe both.   

We hiked in close to one of the waterfalls in the valley. Absolutely stunning.

We stopped for lunch under Half Dome - another famous spot in the park. It was extremely warm - close to 100 F.

Axel was tired and didn't feel like doing the last hike. So we stayed behind and climbed a small rock instead.

Going boating

If you have to be stranded somewhere due to a global pandemic, then the state of California is definitely not the worst place to be. We decided to take a trip to Yosemite which is about a 6 hour drive from our house. On our first day we decided to rent a pontoon boat on Bass Lake - just outside the actual park.

We were joined by our friend Christian and his son Ryland.

The lake was nice and warm and we stopped the boat in many places for a swim.

Axel has been wanting to try fishing for a while. Unfortunately we didn't catch anything :(  

 We ended the day with some delicious steaks grilled by Christian on the boat. Super fun day!