Schlagwort-Archive: national park

USA

Digital Nomad Stop #8: USA – Yosemite National Park

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During my time in the US, Kesh and I visited Yosemite National Park 3 times, and every time was special in its own way.

Our first trip to Yosemite was straight away on my first weekend in the US. Yay! It was mid-April and still a bit chilly at times, but perfect weather for climbing and the sun was shining all day long! We spent 2 days climbing 2 different multi-pitches, starting with The Grack, a beautiful 5.6 following very obvious cracks up to the top. Next day, we went up Munginella, another 5.6 which in my opinion was much harder than The Grack though. I thought about leading a pitch, but still felt a bit unsure about the different climbing style that Yosemite requires and placing trad gear at the same time, so just followed. The views were once again amazing! Kesh also showed me around some famous viewpoints in the park and of course we had to check out El Cap and spy on some climbers on The Nose. So cool!

During our second trip to Yosemite, we had a special mission: Half Dome. On our first day though, we just took it easy as we had arrived late in the night and went on Sunnyside Bench, a 5.4 which was easy enough for me to lead. I was a bit scared on the first pitch, but managed my way up. The rest was easy. Very happy to have led my first trad route in Yosemite with hopefully many more to follow!

Day 2 was Half Dome day. We woke up super early and started hiking at 5.45am, as it is a very long approach to the start of the route Snake Dike 5.7 R. The day started with a long approach, but a beautiful one leading past gushing waterfalls!

During the climb, we unfortunately got stuck behind a group of 3 that probably cost us around 2h. So despite starting early, finding the start of the route quickly and not getting lost, we arrived late at the top. The climbing itself was easy apart from two slabby parts that were the cruxes of the route. I was very happy not having to lead any of the pitches, as it was by far the most runout climbing I have ever seen. There are almost no bolts, and no options to place trad gear. The route ends about 1/3 of the way up to the top from where on you have to walk up on never-ending slabs. A true calf- and achilleas-tendon-burner! We were very happy when we finally arrived on the summit – a flat area full of granite blocks with stunning views into the valleys below.

What followed, was a decent that took forever, and ever. It was a bit shorter than the approach, but somehow felt much longer as we were tired and the day was coming to an end rather quickly. We spent the last hours hiking robot-like (out of tiredness) in the dark, arriving back at the car at 11.15pm. A looong day, but one that I will remember forever!

Our last and final visit to Yosemite was mid-June when the road into the High Sierras was open. The idea was to climb one of the famous routes, like Tenaya or Cathedral Peak – but unfortunately Kesh got ill so I spent the first day going on a hike by myself. The hike I chose was Mount Hoffmann – a great choice with amazing views all the way up (and down). From up here, Half Dome suddenly looked like a dwarf.

Next day, we drove onward to Lee Vining and Mammoth with lots of photo stops. A beautiful region with quiet lakes and bizarre rock formations. We went on short walks here and there and also took a dip in one of the hot springs of the region. A nice and relaxing day! On our last day, we visited Owens River Gorge, a famous single-pitch sport climbing crag where I climbed 6 or 7 random easy routes as we didn’t have a topo on us. I enjoyed the climbing, even though it was a bit less my style than for example Red Rocks. Or maybe I just had a weaker day. A really cool location though and a good way to end our time in Yosemite! Here you can find some more photos.

Botswana, World Trip 2018-19

Travelling the pans – Makgadikgadi & Nxai Pans

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After our disappointing time in Khwai and Moremi, we were a bit done with staring into (empty) bushes, aka safaris. So we decided to see some landscapes in between! From Maun, we drove to Nata in one day, and then on to Makgadikgadi Pans national park. This park also has some animals, but it’s mainly famous for its large salt pans that you can in parts drive across. On our way down South to Kubu Island, it was first more bushes and grassland that we encountered though.

Kubu Island is a pretty island full of baobab trees. We camped right at the edge of the pan to see the trees in the beautiful evening light and witness the sunset over the pans. It was beautiful and definitely something different than bushes!

Next day, we drove back „up“ on a different route, to Gweta. This time, the route led us across the pans – which was really cool at first!

At first, until the pans became wetter and muddier and we got more and more worried about getting stuck. I ended up walking halfway across one pan, with Mathijs driving behind me, to ensure the ground was solid enough. At one point though, there was just no good way to go. And surely enough, this was where we got ourselves stuck! Oops. After trying some ways to get out and a mud-shower for me (trying to push is not always the best idea), we luckily made it out! We were quite relieved I must say…

The rest of the drive was easy and dry, passing by some famous baobabs up to Gweta where we were happy to see the pool at Planet Baobab Camping waiting for us. Just what we needed after our mud adventures!

From here, we drove to Nxai Pans the next day. Here, the pans are less visible, more overgrown by plants, and there are more animals. Safari time again! We spent again one night in the park, driving around the day before and half the day afterwards. Well… while there weren’t loads of animals again, we did get a bit luckier than in Moremi and Khwai: Mathijs spotted a lioness hidden in a bush, who, after waiting for a bit, stood up and went for a drink. At least, a little lion show for us!

Also, Nxai had one really good waterhole where there were always some animals. This is something we missed it Moremi. Just being able to sit there and watch. At one point, more and more elephants came in for a drink and there was plenty of action! They seemed to be from different groups and not always friendly with each other.

Nxai Pans is a small national park, but it was quite nice to visit and provided some easier animal sightings again.

Botswana, General

Chobe National Park

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After our adventures in the Caprivi Strip in Namibia, we crossed the border to Botswana at Ngoma Bridge, where the transit route led us past Chobe NP directly to Kasane. Here, we spent 3 nights, stocking up and organising ourselves and doing some game drives in Chobe Riverfront. This part of Chobe national park is famous for its big herds of elephants and generally a big density of wildlife. At first, we were not so lucky, spotted only some impalas here and there, a lone elephant, some hippos rather far away and some buffaloes. But – we were happy to briefly see a honey badger and finally saw some mongoose as well.

We kept staring into the bushes, hoping for some cats… and were rewarded with 4 female lions at one point, one of them still a teenager, giving heads to the other cats. Cuteness overload!!!

We watched them for well over an hour, just about 3 m away from our car – and we had them just for ourselves for the first 30 min or so. After a while, they got up to drink, which was super special and nice to see as well.

Then, they disappeared into the high grass… Another great lion encounter in our pocket! On the way out of the park that day, we were suddenly surrounded by hundreds of elephants. The place was just crawling with elephants. They all walked to the river for driving and back… really cool!

But we also had many hours of just seeing nothing… it was weird. I think despite our close lion encounter and the ellies, we had expected a little bit more from Chobe Riverfront. On the 2nd day, even the guides from the safari cars started asking us if we had seen anything…so apparently they weren’t seeing anything either. Don’t get me wrong, we still saw lots of cool stuff in between – suddenly many giraffes, a big herd of impalas,… but there wasn’t this good constant supply of animals as we had it in Kruger national park in South Africa.

Hoping for better cat sightings, we made our way to Savuti afterwards. Savuti is reached only via treacherous sandy roads and deep in the national park. We were lucky to still get 2 nights booked at the most expensive (and at the same time very basic) campsite of our world trip so far. 100 USD/night! 😦 You pay for the location because the campsite itself is beyond basic.

Our drive-in went well despite some worries. In the morning we saw some hyenas with cubs right next to the Chobe Riverfront transit road. So much about being a „transit“ road!

The drive to Kachikau was quick and on asphalt, then it was suddenly deep sand! But we were prepared and all went well. Right after the Chobe park entrance, we saw some elephants… and after reaching Savuti campsite we parked our car only to find an elephant rubbing his butt against the tree next to it. Later, we had some more elephants coming by to eat from nearby trees. Pretty cool!

We spent 2 nights in Savuti, game driving around as much as possible. Unfortunately, we were not too lucky with our sightings, maybe because of the torrential rainstorm that came in just when we arrived. It did clear up again, but we always feel like there’s less animals to see when it’s been raining. They find water anywhere and don’t have to come to the waterholes, so these become rather boring and empty. To be honest, Savuti is probably hyped a bit too much as well – hyped as a „cat heaven“ and just in general that there’s lots of game around. We did enjoy our time, but there were lots of hours of driving around without seeing much.

We did have 2 great cat encounters though luckily. On our first morning, after hearing lions roar the whole night, we followed those roars and finally found their spot with some safari cars parked there already. Fortunately, these tour cars usually leave rather quickly, so soon we had the lions to ourselves! This time it was 3 females, 1 male aaaand the cutest little cub!! We came back multiple times in the course of the day to see what they were up to. Even though they didn’t move much, there were always some things going on and especially the cub made it very interesting, cute and fun to watch!!

Awwwww. Cuteness overload once again!

Our 2nd cat encounter was even more special. On our last day, we headed South to the cheetah plains. After staring into the high grass for hours, we had pretty much given up hope (just like for the elusive leopard which we searched for many hours), when suddenly 3 safari cars went past us in full speed. Woaaah. That could only mean something cool had been spotted surely!? We followed them and they led us straight to two cheetahs! Yay!! Finally, finally cheetahs. We were so lucky since we would have never spotted them ourselves and also wouldn’t have dared to get so close (it required some off-road driving which is usually prohibited). Haha, for once those tour cars were helpful!

And with that, our time in Chobe came to an end. Our last day was in many ways my favourite one – not just because of the cheetahs. We had quite a nice drive South to the gate with much more game than the previous days, a full waterhole for once again, and elephants here and there. Sweet! A good way to say goodbye, Chobe!