Yosemite

Our next stop was Yosemite. It was about six hours from our campsite, so we had to get underway pretty early in the morning. We arrived at the park around midday. Nowhere else that we went, not even the Grand Canyon, had this many other tourists. In the picture of the Lower Yosemite falls above, if you look closely near the bottom, you can see tons of them.

The first part of the day I was in a pretty bad mood. We'd come to Yosemite, this amazing, gorgeous valley, and I couldn't enjoy it because there were just so many damn people everywhere.

Eventually we managed to separate ourselves from the masses by climbing about 1300 vertical feet and getting drenched by the spray from the waterfall pictured below.

As soon as we were at the top and able to find a little bit of peace and quiet, my mood completely changed. We took our shoes off and dipped our feet in a calm eddy of the river that fed this waterfall, and I was elated. I have never seen a landscape more beautiful. The tall trees, fast rivers, and exposed granite were stunning. This is my new favorite place.




The river we were dipping our feet in made the news recently. We didn't realize it when we chose our hike, but the waterfall we climbed up was the same waterfall that three hikers were swept over a few weeks prior. I believe they jumped the guardrail and waded out into the water for a photo before they were swept away by the current. There were signs all over the trail because they were never able to locate the bodies.

After hiking down from Vernal falls, we decided to make one last stop at Mirror Lake. The name is a bit deceptive, as the "lake" is no wider than a river and only a few feet deep. It was getting to be pretty late in the day, so most of the crowds had gone, and we had a nice way through the icy waters.




By the time we picked up postcards and beer and got back to the car it was nearly sundown. We left the park, continuing south, to the campground we had booked. To our right, on the way out of the park, was this gorgeous sunset over the mountains. Photographs never really do justice to a sunset, but this one turned out alright.

I saved the best picture for last. On our way out of the park we stopped at one last overlook. It turned out to be the site from which Ansel Adams took his iconic photograph of the Yosemite valley. Just on the brink of sunset, it was truly breathtaking.


We saw as much as we could, but it was nowhere near enough time. I can't wait to go back.