Yosemite National Park. Yosemite National Park (California, USA)

Когда мы говорим о Соединенных Штатах Америки, мы we mean a powerful military, economic and political state. But in America there is a place not only to democratic values, green dollars and advanced technologies. It is also a country where beauty lives.

History of the creation of national parks

Заповедников в США очень много, и особое место among them are national parks, of which there are 58 in America, with a total area of ​​251.58 thousand square kilometers. The beginning of their creation was laid in the nineteenth century.

Founded March 1, 1972, YellowstoneNational Park USA is considered the very first in the world. Many people find this approach formal: after all, on June 30, 1864, a Yosemite grant was signed, according to which the Yosemite Valley and the Maripos Grove received park status, though not federal, but of regional significance: these lands were transferred to the state of California. Experts believe that this act is a legislative precedent, thanks to which the Yellowstone National Park of the United States was created later and, after it, many others. Today, both reserves are among the four most popular in the country. Yosemite ranks third, in 2012, 3 853,404 tourists visited it. According to this indicator, it is second only to the Grand Canyon (4,421,352) and Great Smoky Mountains (9,685,829).

How to get to the park

Йосемити получил статус национального парка в 1890 and is located in the United States, California. From San Francisco it is about 200 miles, on a good road you can reach for three hours. The journey from Los Angeles will take about six hours. Entrance to the park is paid: $ 20 will have to be paid for the passage of one car, with a pedestrian (cyclist or motorcyclist) will be taken twice less, but the car is considered to be one, regardless of the number of passengers.

Если ехать, например, компанией из восьми man, you can save great. There is an opportunity to buy a subscription for a year - and then you can visit Yosemite every day. The national park is able to give the traveler a completely new experience depending on the season or weather.

Discovery of the valley

По одной из версий «йосемити» переводится с Native American like "they are killers." So the nearest neighbors affectionately called the inhabitants of the valley, the Indians of the tribe Avanichi, for their belligerent and unsociable temper. According to another version, “yosemite” is a distorted “usumati” (“bear” in the local dialect).

When the good white people began to winthe land of the indigenous population of the continent, one of the punitive detachments, rushing in pursuit of the Indians, discovered a beautiful valley among the mountain peaks. Europeans were not without a fight sunny California, the map of which even today reminds of hot battles with the leaders of the Redskins. In this state, along with Arizona and Oklahoma, the most significant number of American Indians live on reservations.

Nature is the best designer

For the existence of beautiful landscapes,Millions of tourists come to admire, humanity is obliged to the processes that took place on Earth for millions of years. Coming into motion due to tectonic shifts, Sierra Nevada rose and leaned to the east - this explains its gentle western and steep eastern slopes.

He contributed to the creation of the reserveIce Age. When the white cold mass moved southward, crushing the globe under itself, many landscapes changed. Retreating, the glacier left behind a lot of water. Some of them continue to exist today, while others have dried up - in their place formed fertile lowlands, including the Yosemite Valley.

Water world

В парке очень много воды.Two large rivers originate here - the Merced and Tuolomni, they are striving for them, sometimes plunging from a great height, more than 2.7 thousand streams and streams. California sky looks at 3.2 thousand lakes - and not some crumbs, but an area of ​​more than 100 m² everybody.

Small ponds count in principle impossible.In some places of the park are preserved glaciers. One of them, Leill, covers about 65 hectares and is the largest in Yosemite. The national park is 95% completely untouched by man. Many species of plants and animals found refuge here.

And let the situation be far from cloudless:3 species of animals are completely extinct, and 37 are on the verge of extinction, the US wildlife is protected by the state at a very high level. You can only admire the careful attitude of Americans to their country.

Places of pilgrimage

At the mercy of tourists given relativelyan insignificant part of Yosemite Park, but this is also a lot: 1.3 thousand km of hiking trails and 560 km of roads in one day will not pass and you will not go round. Due to the desire to protect the terrain from undesirable anthropogenic influences, most routes are pedestrian. Some of them are very complex and not all can do.

Те, кто по разным причинам не является фанатом hiking, can ride on the Tioga Road - this is a picturesque road along which streams, meadows and lakes are scattered, which reflect the surrounding mountains. Here you can stop at every step to take pictures of the opening landscapes.

Visited tourists and to the reservoirHetch Hetchy, whose story is rather sad. At this place there was another valley, similar to the world famous Yosemite. The national park, unfortunately, lost the struggle to the populous San Francisco, in need of water and electricity. In 1913, the decision was made, and despite the desperate protests of environmentalists, the beautiful Hatch-Hetchy valley disappeared under water.

There are relatively few travelers here, butbut you can meet animals that are not at all afraid of man (however, eyewitnesses claim that there are many of them everywhere). Employees sternly warn about bears: bears are accustomed to human food - they will climb, they will not be happy.

Carry and carry food in the park should be with specialprecautions, and at night in the car you can not leave anything that even remotely resembles edible: resourceful clumsy mashed up more than one car. Clashes of people with bears often lead to big troubles, therefore today the park administration in every possible way seeks to keep these meetings to a minimum.

Another miracle of Yosemite national park -Mariposa Grove. There grow about 200 Sequoiadendrons, the largest and most long-lived trees on Earth. Some specimens grow to 100 meters high and 12 in diameter. There are no such giants in the park, but their “stunted” brethren, waving to 80 meters and an age of 3.5 thousand years, come across. People standing near such a tree seem to be gnomes from Scandinavian fairy tales.

Crowds of tourists besieged Glacier Point and Tyne View, which offer wonderful views of the rocks and waterfalls of Yosemite. The national park bears the name of this valley in vain: it is inimitably beautiful.

Yosemite Valley - Pearl Park

Repeatedly photographed views of the valley,opening to travelers immediately upon arrival. The entrance is “decorated” with the famous “El Capitan” rock and two waterfalls at once: Bridal Veil (translated as “bride's veil”) on the one hand and “Horse tail”, also called “fiery waterfall” on the other. In February, tourists have the opportunity to observe a surprisingly beautiful and unusual sight: sunlight, reflecting from the rocks, creates the illusion that it is not water, but the red-hot metal falls from a height of 650 m.

The waterfalls in Yosemite national park are countlessquantity. Large and small, they flood tourists with clouds of mist, cascade from granite cliffs, hurry and noisy, heavenly rainbows are at their service, and myriads of suns are reflected in their jets. It is unlikely to ever be able to come to a common opinion which one is the most beautiful. Beauty is a relative concept and, in general, a matter of taste — you cannot measure it, unlike such specific concepts as size. From this point of view, the record holds the Yosemite Falls, according to some data - in the seven, and on the other - in the top twenty in the world.

Admire the waterfalls and lakes should be sent in the spring. In hot summer they are not so full of water, and some dry up altogether.

Extreme fun

Not only lovers admire the beauty of the planetcome here. The park is also a kind of Mecca for climbers, who consider it a matter of honor to climb the impregnable strongholds that the surrounding landscape abounds in. One of the iconic places of rock climbers is El Capitan rock, a monolithic sheer granite colossus 900 meters high.

Its top crowned by clouds, and trees at the footthey seem tiny and helpless, as if they were running from all sides — and suddenly stopped, unable to climb up. Trees, of course, this feat is not available - but the rock submits to some people. Mountaineering routes are also difficult on the “Half Dome” and “Dome Guard” rocks.

Infrastructure and rules

To get acquainted at least with the mainsights, you need to spend at least 2-3 days. In Yosemite, all conditions are created for this. Even Ilf and Petrov in their “One-Storey America” wrote a lot about what heights the Americans had achieved in striving for comfort and how much service meant to them.

Since then, if something has changed, then onlythe best side. US reserves, as a rule, have excellent infrastructure, and Yosemite is no exception. Every vacationer must obey the rules, which guarantees the safety of himself and others (not only people, by the way). You can spend the night exclusively at the campsite or the hotel. If you intend to spend the night in another place - you need to get permission. It will also be needed by lovers of fishing, climbing on rocks and doing various scientific research (this is also possible here).

Yosemite National Park (USA) is impossibledescribe in words. But if you try, here it is, this word: splendor. Pictures of the local landscapes touch to tears - you can watch for hours how the river flows between the mountain peaks from the clouds, and along it the triangular tops of the trees float somewhere far away.