Yosemite - The Valley

The next day we headed down to the very touristic area of the park, in the Yosemite Valley.  This was a lot of fun, it felt like a resort.  The valley has a shuttle that runs around the whole valley that can be taken for free.  There are shops, restaurants, and bars.  Since most of the reservation campsites fill 5 months in advance it was slim chances to find a site available in one of these.  So instead we headed to camp 4.  This is a campsite that feels like a hostel.  The campsites are walk- in and typically caters for climbers who scale the valley walls.  We got lucky this day since it normally has a line to the parking lot at 6am.  For some reason we got there around 1pm and the ranger was out to lunch and there were still availability for 14 people.  We got back a half an hour before the ranger was supposed to be back which put us at the front of the line and we got a spot.   It was tough dragging all of our stuff through the camp to our site but it was totally worth it since we were right in the middle of the valley.  The sites were shared and allow up to 6 people.  So we had a couple of other tents on our site.  The fact that the sites are shared makes it really cool to meet new people and this is a great place for kids!  Elisabeth ended up meeting friends and they had their little hang-out on top of a boulder near the restrooms.  The people were really nice and we were really happy to be there.  We ended up staying 5 nights, through labor day weekend.  The first day we got settled and took a quick walk to a nearby beach on the Merced River.  It was refreshing to jump in the water, but a bit chilly!!  There were even people jumping off the bridge into the river. 

Our little beach

 The next day we headed out not too late to see the visitor center which had an awesome display explaining the history and details of the park.  Then we walked out into their traditional Ahwahnee Indian village and then onto the Lower Yosemite Falls.  There is a hike that goes to the top of these falls and to the base of the Upper Yosemite Falls just above it but the hike is quite steep so we just took the short walk to the base of the lower falls which was already quite spectacular!  

Next we hiked the 4.5 miles out to Mirror lake which was quite the climb getting to.  We stopped on the way at the luxurious and historical Ahwahnee Hotel where we saw a deer hiding in the bushes.  When we got to Mirror Lake we were somewhat disappointed to see that it was a small little lake.  However, the big attraction here is the valley where a very little river runs through, dumping into a deep pond. 

Elisbeth took this beautiful picture

The Ahwahnee Hotel

A deer hiding in the bushes near the hotel.

Mirror Lake (which we found out later was a manmade lake).

The pond had a giant rock in the middle and when Antoine went swimming in the pond someone that let us know how he was able to get up onto the rock and jump off into the water.  Well we couldn’t pass this up so Antoine climbed to the top of the rock and jumped off into the water.  Then it was my turn… well from below the 8 or 9 feet up doesn’t look that scary but when you get up there it is really high!   So I was scared to jump off and the guy that told us about it came up and jumped off followed by his 5 year old daughter!!  Well I couldn’t be outdone by a five year old so I sucked it up and jumped up.  It wasn’t that bad!!  And I had to do it because by this time I had quite the audience gathering around!  We hung out on the rocky beach in the sun to dry off for a while before going down the road to catch the shuttle.

(Sorry the video is sideways!!)

We ended up going to Curry Village and having a drink on their little patio area before catching a show for kids called the Wee Wild Ones where they talked about animal noises. 

The next day was our long hike where we went all around the valley on the Valley Loop Trail.  We started at our campsite and first stopped off at El Capitan which is the ultimate challenge for climbers.  We even saw some climbers slowly inching their way up the mountain side!  We had lunch before heading out again. 

El Capitan

If you look really close you can see climbers on the wall of El Capitan!

Half way through the trail we stopped along the Merced river to go for a swim.  This was a rocky little beach but it was refreshing jumping into the frigid waters!!  Then we continued onto the Bridalveil Falls which was very beautiful. 

By this time we were getting short on water so we decided to hike the 2 miles left to the next shuttle stop to take this the rest of the way back.  We were pretty tired at the end since our whole hike was a little over 8 miles, so we got back to our campsite, grabbed our swimming stuff and headed out to the beach.  We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the beach before dinner.   The next day was Saturday and we decided that this was going to be a laid back day.  We headed up to the Village to check out an art gallery and a couple of places we hadn’t seen yet.  We stopped at one of the shops where I bought another book by Khaled Hosseini since The Kite Runner was so good.  There was an artist signing his children’s books outside (Steven Riley) so we bought Elisabeth one of his books that takes place in Yosemite – Little Ty Cooney and the Big Yosemite Race.  He also has a similar book on the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone that we may have to check out too.  He graciously offered to do a cartoon drawing of Elisabeth that we tucked away in her new book. 

Steven Riley

Since we were on a roll with the shopping I also bought myself a new hat before we stopped for lunch in a pizzeria.  After the pizzeria we headed back to the campsite to grab our stuff and go to the beach.  We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out on the beach before going to see a really cheesy presentation by a well-known climber – Ron Kauk. 

Our last day in the valley was Sunday of labor day weekend.  We went out to a corner of the park that we had not yet visited called Happy Isles.  We first checked out their nature center before taking the crowded trail that climbs to the foot of Vernal Falls.  It was very hot and a steep climb so we stopped at the bridge overlooking the falls instead of climbing to the top of the falls which was another mile climb with an elevation over 1000 feet!  The falls were beautiful but we were pretty tired after so we spent the rest of the day at the beach.  Elisabeth was happy to get back to our campsite that night to meet up with her friends again! 

Vernal Falls

We have one more stop in Yosemite at the Mariiposa Groves....