Summer in the high Sierras in recent years has delivered virtually no rain, and the usual snowy winters have been less severe than usual resulting in less meltwater*. That's well and good for residents and visitors who can ration what water there is, but the permanent residents, in particular the vegetation, are suffering. Suffering is probably the wrong word - collective forests are suffering - individual trees are dying - in their tens of thousands. The seriousness of the drought  is highlighted by an informative display in a visitor centre in Sequoia National Park that explains the importance of natural forest fires to the ecosystem. These trees, some of them thousands of years old, have evolved to withstand the harshest of conditions, but this super-dry spell seems to be too much even for them. The results are evident in large swathes of yellow forest, especially at lower elevations.

Dry, dry landscapes...
 
I learn most of this talking to a softly spoken, tall Canadian in the queue to the toilets at a well managed campsite in Tuolomne Meadows. It's one of my favorite places on our planet. Our tent is pitched underneath a mature pine tree distinctive for a series of parallel scars running vertically down the trunk. We try to come up with benign explanations, but reluctantly come to the conclusion that the only possible cause is a big bear sharpening his claws. We are in Tuolomne as it's a sneaky way to get a toe into Yosemite National Park without any pre-booked  accommodation. We rarely pre-book  wherever we are. It takes away the spontaneity of travel, forcing a fixed agenda and stopping you reacting to chance conversations with strangers who are more often than not keen to share their favourite places with you if you delve. Tuolomne is not actually in Yosemite Valley itself so it has plenty of space left for us. Whilst it may be less grand, it is equally beautiful, far less busy, and has the summer benefit of being higher, with comfortably cooler temperatures. Crucially for us, it's a mere twenty miles as the crow flies from the heart of the Valley, ground zero for any self respecting climber, sadly locked down at this time of year by those who do choose to travel on a fixed itinerary and tick off one of the true natural wonders of the world.

Bear marks...
 
Rising out of the (healthy) forest we are camped in like a mathematical bell curve is Lembert Dome, the first of many examples of the granite monoliths that make the area so famous. We pack a small day sack and lace up our shoes tightly. Leaving the car park we turn abruptly away from the path and the groups of walkers taking the longer path around the back of the dome and onto its summit, to tread up the easy angled lower slabs on the front face. The surface is rough and sticky as fly-paper. As the angle steepens it's tempting to keep on going straight up, but that would be unwise. It was clear from the campsite that the upper slopes are just too steep for comfort without ropes. We continue up, traversing right via ledges and stumps of old pines, a family of ants on a smooth white boulder. Shortly below the summit we get a glimpse to the north where the sky has turned a livid purply-grey. Hairs rise on the back of my neck. An electrical storm up here with no protection would be seriously bad news. We retreat, quickly sliding down to the tree line and back to the tent before the rain. It doesn't come so I squeeze the most out of the day with a truly amazing 6 mile run to Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp. It’s the end of the day so there are no other walkers, just me, the river, the trees, and whatever is in the trees! I stop for a dip in Tuolomne River above the falls at Cold Canyon and snap a selfie. The run back, another 6 miles, but this time up hill, ends in darkness without a torch, senses heightened by the prospect of an encounter with a bear. That evening we join other campers around a fire to listen to a ranger talk of her climbing adventures in the Valley. The boys are intrigued. For Soph and I it's the real-life embodiment of many hours spent reading books and magazines on this Mecca for the climbers of the world.

Lembert Dome slabs

An evening run
 
The real reason for starting our Yosemite trip at Tuolomne is to secure wilderness permits for a 3 day walk down into the Valley proper. We're literally overjoyed to be offered extra permits to scale the ladders up Half Dome as a bonus (despite the fact that these are sold out months in advance a few are kept back for those on multi day trips). So we spend a day packing and sorting food and kit before heading out from the southern end of the picture postcard Tenaya Lake after tea. It's a two hour walk uphill to Sunrise Lakes where we make our first camp. There are a few other tents there, but we find a secluded spot on a granite slab above the lake. Darkness falls fast so we swim without sight and dry naked in front of a roaring fire. There are marshmallows before bed.

Wildlife moments.

Early stat at Sunrise Lake
 
As we hit the trail the next morning we're rooted to the spot as a coyote  stops just feet from us and assesses the situation for a few seconds before silently disappearing into the forest. It's a magical moment and keeps us quiet and alert for the rest of the morning. The mercury slowly rises and we welcome any water by the path. Filling our bottles and filtering as we go, wetting sun hats and swimming. Though there are a few other walkers out it feels very remote now, hours from any road or phone. We walk through burned out areas of forest, the armour plated bark of these magnificent trees blackened, but still intact, protecting what's inside - exactly as described in the visitor centres. After ten hours on the go we arrive at our destination for the night, a small camp spot by a stream below the upper cliffs of Half Dome.

First glimpse of Half Dome
 
To walk up Half Dome from the Valley floor - the usual route - is a 12 hour return trip, probably more for us with kids. This camp is two hours from the summit. We arrive at 7pm and weigh up our options. We decide to pitch camp, eat, and head up tonight. That way we'll get cooler weather, we'll get there to see the sun go down, and we'll more than likely not see anybody else. To leave in the morning will mean hotter weather, and hundreds of people. As we emerge from the trees to the bottom of the infamous ladders we meet two rangers heading down. They spend the day there checking permits. They check ours and let us know that there is nobody else on the mountain above us. They smile as the boys run off, clearly please to see youngsters enjoying the place. The summit of Half Dome is accessed either by climbing up it's famous vertical face, or by using a set of 'ladders' on the convex slabs on the back side. These slabs are too steep to simply walk up, so the park service have installed a regular series of metal poles with simply slot into holes drilled in the rock. Suspended between these poles is a metal cable, and resting on the rock, against the poles are wooden rungs which act as steps. It is very rudimentary and not for the faint hearted. It's around two hundred metres from bottom to top, and reputedly people do actually fall from time to time. I'm glad that we are alone. I have a long sling which I tie around my youngest's waist (he's 7) and wrap around my hand. I'm confident he won't fall, but want to give him (and his mum!) the security of knowing that if he were to do so, he'd be safe. His older brother (10) scampers away like a blond headed gecko! It takes us twenty minutes to scale them, the pace quickening as the angle eases towards the summit. We arrive on top for the last few minutes of the sun, surprised to see two sun-bleached Californian 'dudes' topping out on one of the climbing routes amidst lots of hollering and whooping. They’ve been on the wall for three days. The boys are quite genuinely impressed! We can’t linger as darkness is on its way. We need to get back at least to the ranger's cabin with some natural light. The zig zags down through the forest from there are navigable by torch.

The infamous "ladders"

Crowds on the ladders the next morning.

Atop Half Dome.
 
As we arrive back into camp we're stopped in our tracks by a movement in the shadows. We're dog-tired, but immediately our senses are on high alert - a couple of hours ago we passed a ranger with a paint gun she'd been using to mark bears in an attempt to track the troublesome ones. The shadow moves. It's bear sized and moving. Slowly. First away from us, and then towards us as it rises up. "Hey Bear" we all shout, keen to let it know that we are here and we don't want it to be here. It ducks back down, but instead of moving away from us it heads towards a nearby tent (not ours fortunately). Louder calls of "Hey Bear" "Go Away Bear". We've been walking using natural night vision so now scramble to get out the torches and make our presence known. As we shine the light the shape disappears inside the tent, zipping the porch up as it goes! Daft German walkers we’d met earlier when we pitched our tent taking a dump in the woods not ten metres away from their own (and our!) tent. Bad form. But we did laugh. A lot!
 
Lazy start to the next day before heading down into the Valley against the flow of day trippers. It's a spectacular trail, rocky and uncompromising, steep and beautiful, down past a series of emerald pools and thundering waterfalls. We ignored the no swimming signs. Down in the valley there's another perk to being a walker: access to the walk-in campground with guaranteed space. It's thoughtfully tucked away from the crowds in yet another beautiful grove of tall trees next to a swimming hole. There's no light, but there are toilets, a tap, and bear boxes for your food and smellies. We made camp, rinsed off three days of dirt and sweat, and hit the main drag - pizzas, cold beers, and ice cream with the masses.It 's a welcome change, especially for the boys.

Ignoring the No Swimming signs.

Dreaming new adventures

Dreaming future adventures?
 
Early doors the following day I snuck out the tent and tip toed barefoot across the dust and pine needles to the access road, stuck out my thumb and prepared to wait a while for a lift out the Valley. I waited less than a minute for the first car to pick me up and drop me back at Tenaya Lake - 7 miles as the crow flies, over 40 by car! That drive, before the tourist traffic and the heat of the day had taken hold, was magical. A dip in Tenaya Lake, alone with my thoughts in the most striking of craggy landscapes, filled me with an energy I've rarely experienced before. I know that in twenty years time I'll still be able to channel that feeling and it'll lift my spirits to know that the place exists, and that some day I'll go back.

Tanya Lake

Energising
 
That trip in Yosemite was but a short part of our three week tour based out of San Francisco in August 2016. We had desperate trouble getting there all together. My wife, born in Iran at a missionary hospital, was denied entry and spent a stressful week in London battling red tape and bureaucracy before joining us in Reno.  The boys and I were hosted royally by friends in Silicon Valley whilst we had our own battles with Turo, an AirBnB-style car rental platform which initially let us down, but then delivered with bells on in the form of a Landrover Discovery. We toured Stamford University on bikes,  watched Pelicans swoop for fish by a remote waterfall on the beach, snapped a couple proposing on Cannery Row, and ate shrimp at Bubba Gump's. We swam every day, SUP'd with crayfish, got bombed by scary-big seagulls, and caught wild terrapins in underwater caves. More friends showed us the wilder side of Reno, where we were snapped by a drone whilst bathing at hot springs, and trekked in thunderstorms in the little known, but majestic Green Mountains. We downed tequilas and ate hot dogs, we ran amongst the redwood groves of Sequoia, and went out of our way to find iconic swimming holes with cool names like Candy Rock, Natural Bridges and Cathedral Beach. We stopped at a liquor store in a neighbourhood we shouldn't have stopped in and rented a log cabin in the woods. We star gazed and BBQ'd. We met Americans of every shape, size and colour, and do you know what? Every one of them was nice as pie, and at the time, couldn’t conceive of a certain Mr Trump running the show. It was with sadness that we left California. We'd gone with trepidation, knowing that the scenery was the best, but worried that we'd fall foul of jobsworth's, rules and regulations. In the event we found a very well run system that protects the natural environment above all else. By travelling at the tail end of the season we dodged the crowds and never once felt frustration. Whether we'll go back will depend on Trump, his nutcase ideas, and our Iranian connection.

Pelicans Crossing

Redwoods

Crayfish plague

A Proposition

Jungle Boy

Packed and ready to go!

Caving

Capture!

Candy Rock slide

Lake camp

Moody Green Mountains

Blue lake in Green Mountains

Electrical storm

Tea time

Another lake camp

Looking for the first star

Monkey boy

Morning run in the red woods

Hide & Seek in the redwoods
 
*That initial paragraph was written on returning from Yosemite in September 2016. Ironically, but thankfully, the following winter months delivered record snowfall which then resulted in record snowpack lying well into the winter months. Large parts of the high country were off limits to hikers as the snow-melt continued long into the summer, swelling rivers and closing bridges.