Yosemite (the other Y park)

We had 4 full days to spend in Yosemite (which I sometimes confuse with Yellowstone – thus “the other Y park”). Brian & I both felt like this was our favorite park – we hiked every day and saw the amazing landmarks – so much variety, so much to see; magnificent.

This will mostly be pictures since that is going to tell the story. A few notes though – we originally booked a campground in the park – but JUST inside the park, not down in the Yosemite Valley. As it was a government park, no hookups (i.e., electric, sewer, water) and certainly no wifi. The weather was going to be hot, so we decided to make a change and were able to get a nice spot about 20 minutes further out, which was great as the tradeoff between services v. extra travel time weighed heavily in favor of services. Ultimately, it was a good call. I would say though if you plan to go to Yosemite, try to camp in the Valley – you need to book WAY ahead of time to get those coveted sites.

Second note, I mentioned in our San Francisco post that Jesse’s cousin Thuy was planning to hike Half Dome that weekend. We saw a few Half Domers on the trails, they all looked gleefully spent. We found out from Jesse that she was successful and said it was HARD but BEAUTIFUL. Congrats, Thuy!

Lastly, the drive out of the park to the next venue was scary if you took the wrong road pulling a camper. Luckily we were given directions from the folks at the campground and avoided Priest Grade Road – a steep 17% grade downhill.

Day 1: Taking in the major sites – El Capitan, Bridalveil Falls, Half Dome, Tunnel View, Glacier Point and hike to Lower Yosemite Falls (with view of Upper Yosemite Falls) and then one to Mirror Lake. Mirror Lake is supposed to offer a spectacular reflection of Half Dome, but at this time of year, it was more of a puddle than a full lake, so that was a miss. But the water was cool on our achy feet. Tunnel View was the most amazing view in the park. We had several wildlife encounters including 2 rattlesnakes on the Mirror Lake trail, deer near the visitor center and bear up at Glacier Point. And now that I have seen El Capitan with my own eyes, I plan to watch Free Solo. That dude (Alex Honnold) is crazy! It was not the right time of year to see the famous light show of Horsetail Fall, sometimes simply called “the Firefall” or “the Horsetail Firefall”. It is really only visible in winter, mid-to-late February, but looks stunning. Maybe a return visit…

Day 1: Taking in the major sites – El Capitan, Bridalveil Falls, Half Dome, Tunnel View, Glacier Point and hike to Lower Yosemite Falls (with view of Upper Yosemite Falls) and then one to Mirror Lake. Mirror Lake is supposed to offer a spectacular reflection of Half Dome, but at this time of year, it was more of a puddle than a full lake, so that was a miss. But the water was cool on our achy feet. Tunnel View was the most amazing view in the park. We had several wildlife encounters including 2 rattlesnakes on the Mirror Lake trail, deer near the visitor center and bear up at Glacier Point. And now that I have seen El Capitan with my own eyes, I plan to watch Free Solo. That dude (Alex Honnold) is crazy! It was not the right time of year to see the famous light show of Horsetail Fall, sometimes simply called “the Firefall” or “the Horsetail Firefall”. It is really only visible in winter, mid-to-late February, but looks stunning. Maybe a return visit…

Day 2: Hike to Vernal Falls via the Mist Trail with a return via the John Muir Trail. Falls are very strong for the time of year – the trail was indeed misted on, and if you went past the touristy viewing platform you could see Nevada Falls which was even stronger as well as the feed into the Vernal Falls. We opted not to do the trek to Nevada Falls, since the bonus to see the Falls is via a scramble along a sharp ridge. No thanks. When we finished the trail, we went over to Curry Village and noshed on pizza & beer and then took the shuttle over to the Ahwahnee Hotel (formerly the Yosemite Majestic Hotel).

Day 3: We travelled south to Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, the largest sequoia grove in Yosemite and is home to over 500 mature giant sequoias. We rose early to get over there to avoid crowds and heat, but once you passed the major view point of the Giant Grizzly, it was dead quiet and wonderfully beautiful hiking up the rest of the trail to Wawona Point, an overlook with panoramic views. At the top of the trail is the densest grove of Sequoias. We also encountered a couple of deer who didn’t seem to mind us being there. It was lovely to watch them together. We also experienced a huge pine cone falling to the ground with a wicked loud thump. Not a sequoia cone as those are only as big as an egg, but it was HUGE and we were grateful it didn’t land on us! Many of the trees have names, as mentioned in captions below. The drive back to camp led us down through Yosemite – and we saw the effects of later day/weekend (this was Saturday) on traffic in the park with a 2 HOUR wait to get into the Valley. Yikes, glad we didn’t have to manage through that.

Day 4: Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, a relatively short drive from our campsite. It was not very busy when we went Sunday morning – and the campground staff didn’t think it was all that beautiful. Wrong! It was not only beautiful, but very interesting. The O’Shaughnessy Dam was completed in 1938. Today the 117-billion-gallon reservoir supplies drinking water to 2.4 million Bay Area residents and hydro-electric power generated by two plants downstream.

5 years ago Meg and her friend camped in Yosemite and took one of my most favorite pictures of her ever. My friend Gail saw how much I loved it and made it into a tile for me and I keep it by my bedside. We were excited to get on this trail and try to find the spot where she took the photo. Below you see Meg on the left in wheel pose, me in tree pose in the middle and Brian recreating Meg’s wheel on the right. Not exactly same angle, but pretty good! Meg teared up when I sent her the pictures — but took a few minutes to realize that was Brian in wheel!

Great hike right up to the base of the Wapama Falls the other Falls (Tueeulala) were dry. On the way back to camp, we stopped at the Evergreen Lodge for a brew and contemplated coming back for dinner so B could try the Elk Meatloaf (we didn’t; again, perhaps a return trip). Nevertheless, it was a cool place and we got to chat with another recent young (meaning, like our age) retiree and shared our adventure tales.