A couple years ago my buddy and I decided to go rock climbing in Yosemite. My buddy happens to be a geology major so while we were taking a break he got into a spirited lecture about the geological history of the valley. Apparently Yosemite Valley was formed by an alpine glacier as evidenced by its shape. Typically mountain valleys have a relatively narrow v shaped bottom however when a glacier passes through it widens and narrows the bottom leaving a u-shaped trough like the one here in Yosemite. He went on to say that the reason why some of the granite rock faces looked so polished is because as glaciers move they carry along a lot of grit with them so they essentially act like sand paper and smooth out any geological features in their path.
After two hours of listening to my buddy talk about geology I started getting very restless and politely reminded him that we drove all this way to climb rocks, not talk about them.
Yosemite Valley
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