Agata and I fled the onset of the autumnal Seattle rains for the greener pastures, or more appropriately, meadows of Northern California. We flew in to San Francisco and spent the rest of the day and part of the following day visiting various local tourist attractions before embarking on the 4 - 5 hour drive east to Yosemite. Continuing with the tourist theme the next morning, we gawked at the usual suspects in Yosemite Valley and lunched at Glacier Point before making our way over to Tuolumne Meadows later that afternoon. We spent the rest of the week, despite reservations, sleeping on dirt, climbing, scrambling and generally soaking in the unusual and sublime beauty this land of granitic domes has to offer. By the time Agata's mattress popped (we fixed it), we finally became acclimated to living at or above 8500 feet and waking-up to 25-degree mornings. With the sheer number of quality climbs, reliable autumn weather and relatively inexpensive SEA-SFO flights however, a return visit or two is definitely warranted. Tuolumne ROCKS!!! No pun intended. HA!

What follows is a collection of photos from various stages of our California trip. I kept the descriptions short and concise, partly because I'm inherently lazy and also to leave something to the imagination (for a change).