Words & visuals provided by: Sasan Sayyar

Growing up a kid in Martinez, you usually attend one of four elementary schools we have in the district. Inside those elementary schools, you learn a lot of local Martizian history, and an exceptional amount about historic national parks. For those who don't know, the late great author/naturalist/mountaineer John Muir resided in Martinez; his home is now a national historic site which you can visit (strongly recommended if you ever find yourself in Martinez). There's even an elementary school named after him, as well as a popular hiking destination named after his eldest daughter (Mt. Wanda). Though I could go on forever about John Muir and his history and importance in not only Martinez but the whole nation, I'll leave it at this: he's been one of my biggest inspirations since I first learned of him. I remember when I first heard about how he walked a great distance of over 300 miles in 1868 all the way to the Yosemite Valley from Martinez... I thought to myself "well damn, this guy wasn't playin".

First thing we stopped & took a good look at: El Capitan, not knowing we'd later conquer this big bitch of a mountain.

I had always seen pictures of my friends' moms & dads climbing this famous "Half Dome" and I couldn't believe how cool it looked. I'd been wanting to visit Yosemite National Park for as long as I can remember, and that's well over 10 years. Just 2 weekends ago a few good friends of mine & I took a glorious trip out to the Yosemite Valley to see just what the huge fuss was about. Two weeks later, I can't even believe we were actually there haha, when we were there it was unbelievable... everything about the place. The size of the mountains, the views, the trees, the animals that let you get so close before scattering, it was all just craziness. On the last day of our visit, we woke up before the sunrise and embarked on the most strenuous hike I've ever managed to complete. It was 16 miles roundtrip from the Yosemite Valley floor all the way up to the summit of El Capitan and back down. It took 10 brutal hours, and let me tell you, I'm not in the greatest shape of my life however I'd say I'm in mad decent shape, and there were a couple times that I just wanted to stop, and die right in my tracks lol. Luckily we had just the right amount of food and water to make it to the top of El Capitan; once we summited we ran out of water. On the journey back down we had to resort to eating snow that was from the most recent fall (5 week old snow at the time), and it tasted delicious. If you've read this far I'm sorry, I should probably show you what I was seeing now, not only from that hazardous hike but from the whole weekend. I was absolutely blown away. Thank you to my friends who invited me along & accompanied me during my stay in Yosemite (it was a real dream come true), and a big shout out to Yosemite National Park as well as John Muir himself. Here are some pictures I managed to make on my trip:

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Yosemite National Park