Day four was our trip to Yosemite National Park! We all piled into the van (after I managed to duct tape the sole of my hiking boot back on) and drove southeast through some gorgeous terrain to Yosemite. We took lots of pictures along the way, and I managed to NOT get carsick on the twisty-turnies. :)
Here's a shot of Half Dome on the way there:
When we did get to our parking spot, we found the visitors center and honed in on a hike we were interested in. We decided to stick to the Valley Floor Loop, which offered ample opportunity to see many of the big waterfalls and well known rock formations. We started out with Upper and Lower Yosemite falls:
(Someday I would love to go back and do this hike - you go up to the top and then come down, and I think you can go behind the waterfall here!), and then moved on in our hike. The trails took us right near El Capitan, which is so ginormous that no pictures I took will ever do it justice.
(you can see Matt leading the hikers here... check out how massive that rock is!!!)
We got some great views of Cathedral Rock, and the Three Brothers:
We came to a place where we crossed the river, had some snacks (water and trail mix and pretzels of course) and then continued a little bit further to see Bridalveil Falls:
After we saw this, the mission was to get back to the main base. We hiked back east toward the visitors center, and met a couple small waterfalls along the way. We did our best to navigate across these small falls, but unfortunately poor Jamie took one misstep and plunked her foot down into the chilly water! Yikes! She was a trooper though and actually said it felt kind of good. :)
At this point I was starting to lose energy big time, and I felt like a little kid shuffling in the back because I was just struggling to get my feet to move (I guess a 5 hour hike in unfamiliar terrain will do that to you), ha ha!! Not too long after we figured out how close we were, we turned around and looked at the sky, which in the last 5 minutes or so had gone from bright sunshiney happiness to dark ominous doom:
Uh-oh... we crossed the river again and all of a sudden the temperature had gone from a balmy 65 degrees to what felt like, oh, about 41. Time was of the essence. We made it back to the shuttle stop before it started to rain, and then stopped for some more water and a snack or two at the visitors center before we got into the van to head home. We did not realize we would be driving through steadily dropping temperatures and about 4 inches of snow on the way home!
But Matt is an excellent pilot and got us back to Angels Camp safely. What an adventure!!! I think we all slept pretty well that night. :)
Here's a shot of Half Dome on the way there:
When we did get to our parking spot, we found the visitors center and honed in on a hike we were interested in. We decided to stick to the Valley Floor Loop, which offered ample opportunity to see many of the big waterfalls and well known rock formations. We started out with Upper and Lower Yosemite falls:
(Someday I would love to go back and do this hike - you go up to the top and then come down, and I think you can go behind the waterfall here!), and then moved on in our hike. The trails took us right near El Capitan, which is so ginormous that no pictures I took will ever do it justice.
(you can see Matt leading the hikers here... check out how massive that rock is!!!)
We got some great views of Cathedral Rock, and the Three Brothers:
We came to a place where we crossed the river, had some snacks (water and trail mix and pretzels of course) and then continued a little bit further to see Bridalveil Falls:
After we saw this, the mission was to get back to the main base. We hiked back east toward the visitors center, and met a couple small waterfalls along the way. We did our best to navigate across these small falls, but unfortunately poor Jamie took one misstep and plunked her foot down into the chilly water! Yikes! She was a trooper though and actually said it felt kind of good. :)
At this point I was starting to lose energy big time, and I felt like a little kid shuffling in the back because I was just struggling to get my feet to move (I guess a 5 hour hike in unfamiliar terrain will do that to you), ha ha!! Not too long after we figured out how close we were, we turned around and looked at the sky, which in the last 5 minutes or so had gone from bright sunshiney happiness to dark ominous doom:
Uh-oh... we crossed the river again and all of a sudden the temperature had gone from a balmy 65 degrees to what felt like, oh, about 41. Time was of the essence. We made it back to the shuttle stop before it started to rain, and then stopped for some more water and a snack or two at the visitors center before we got into the van to head home. We did not realize we would be driving through steadily dropping temperatures and about 4 inches of snow on the way home!
But Matt is an excellent pilot and got us back to Angels Camp safely. What an adventure!!! I think we all slept pretty well that night. :)
2 comments:
you are so funny! so how long you think it's gonna take to publish the entire vacation? hehe. ;)
Wow- what amazing pictures. Yosimite looked awesome! I can't believe you guy got that much snow!! It must have followed you from Ohio!
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