July 13, 2017
Wow! We just spent three days in Yosemite and it absolutely lived up to the hype. We drove in after leaving Sequoia at about 3-4 pm. We wandered around and took some pictures. The first stop is tunnel view. You come out of this tunnel and its this amazing view featuring Yosemite’s best attractions. From the valley we walked to lower Yosemite Falls. It was a nice walk and the mist from the waterfall was refreshing.
The next day we got up real early and headed up to Glacier point. This had incredible view of half dome, Vernal Falls, and Nevada Falls. Then we went and hiked to Taft Point and Sentinel Dome. Taft Point has great views of El Capitan and also very steep cliffs. Kirk took lots of pictures close to the edge and I pretended like I did. Then we headed around the ledge to Sentinel Dome. It took awhile but we finally got to the dome. We went up the rock to the top where we had views of the entire valley. We drove back down to Oakhurst and decided we earned a night at the casino. We ate the buffet, gambled a little, and Kirk even won a t-shirt.
On Thursday we drove back to the valley and did the Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls hikes. We thought the hike to Vernal Falls was easy but we were wrong. It was paved but it was 1000ft straight up. After the foot bridge you take the granite staircase straight up the side of the waterfall. Its called the mist trail and we soon found out why. The waterfall gets you soaking wet.
By the time we got to the top we were drenched from the mist of the waterfall. And these weren’t easy stairs either. These were sopping wet, granite, double the size of normal stairs, stairs. My thighs were aching. We stopped to take some pictures and have a snack but Nevada Falls was our goal. To the top of these falls was more granite stairs but these were smaller, dry, and made into switchbacks. It was hard but we were rewarded with a view and a relaxing rest by the river. The way down was just as hard but went much quicker. When we finished we rewarded ourselves with a well-deserved pizza.
Vanawaywithus 