The road from Mammoth Mountain, the resort we stayed at, to Yosemite National Park is almost as glorious as the park itself. Almost. It winds around the peaks and canyons of mountains and deep-cut river beds, rock formations and bursts of vibrant green vegitation.

Once in the park itself, the landscape was like something out of a film. The blue sky and beating sun illuminated colossal mountains reaching upwards, and then carving down into wide rocky canyons, offset by pristine evergreen forests and the glassy-blue sheen of meanderng rivers.

We devoured our picnic at the first picnic-stop we arrived at, nestled beneath shady pines. Stomachs full, we then headed off to explore.

Half an hour later, I was half-naked staring out across a stunning lake. It's glinting surface looked ready to shatter and it even had a natural beach on one side. I looked out on the distant mountains rising out of the piercing blue water; to my right there were people absailing down a bare rock-face. To my left, trees covered slopes like furr. I am a total water baby so it didn't take me long to dive in, and it took my family almomst a hour to drag me out and bundle me into the car to our next natural phenomenon.

I sheilded my eyes from the sun and looked up at the enourmous hunk of rock towering above me. Yosemite houses the world's largest single granite rock, El Capitan, which is almost 4,000ft from its base to its summit and there I was, staring up at it like a drooling idiot.

To be honest, I didn't know what else to do faced with such an immense structure. I think I had one of those "sublime" moments, as Shelley or Kant would have said (this is what a literature degree does to you), when you feel utterly overwhelmed and helpless in the face of an amazing natural image.

Yosemite is famous above all else for its waterfalls, which come in all shapes and sizes. Not far from El Capitan we stumbled upon a pathway leading towards a waterfall and wound upwards to check it out.

Cleverly, I decided that I was savy enough to take a "short cut" up the slope instead of following the marked track. Seeing as I was in flip flops, this turned out to be a bad idea. On my second stumble I fell hard, shamshing my camera on a rock. Smart eh? Luckily when i squeezed the loosening parts together I could still take pictures. Thank God!

Eventually I reached the waterfall, legs scratched by the dried up undergrowth from my little detour and a kaked-up camera. The waterfall cooled my seething mood, however, and the rainbows curving from the gushing falls brought a hippy-happy smile to my face.

As it began to grow dark we snaked our way back across the park towards Mammoth Mountain resort. This was when one of the most random events of the day occurred - we came upon a huge patch of snow! Given that it was July, snow was not supposed to be on the bill, but I guess that's just one of the crazy things about mountain climates.

My cousin's son had never seen snow before. His eyes had stars in them as he jumped down from the mini-van and ran over to the white mound. We followed and proceeded to pelt each other with snowballs until the snow resembled the pock-marked face of the moon, muddied after our vigorous battle.

Fingers burning from the cold, while our shoulders burned from the day's hot sun, we climbed back into the van and silently bid farewell to the strange and beautiful Yosemite.