S5. National Park #1 - Yosemite

 

Season 5 .Yosemite National Park - Hikes # - 9 & 10

Point of Interest : So much! Half Dome, El Capitan, Glacier Point, Mirror Lake, and more.

Distance: How much time do you have? Hundreds of miles of trails. (Hiking Page)

Difficulty: You decide. Some easy, some really difficult. Lots in between.

Bathrooms: Yes. Many, well placed, clean

Parking: Quite a bit, but it gets really busy during the days

Transportation: Hiking, Biking rentals, Park transit buses, YARTS buses to bring you into the park.

EV Chargers: Yes, mostly around lodging, level 2


Planning

Wow. Where to start? How about planning to visit Yosemite. You have to plan ahead because it's so popular. Campgrounds and lodging go quickly. We ended up staying outside of the park at a private campground about 30 minutes away from the park, but then there's another 30 minutes to get into the valley.

We spent 3 days in Yosemite. Days 1 and 3, we used the YART shuttles to take us to the park. We had to get up really early to catch the bus at another campground at 7am. It made several stops, and dropped us off in Yosemite about 8:30. If you are taking the YART bus, that included entry to the park. Day 2, we drove our cars in. We got to the gate about 9:30, and there was already a line of cars waiting. In the summer, you have to have a reservation to get into the park, so make sure you check that out. Next time I would try to make sure my campground was had a YART stop, to save time.

Transportation

The YART gets you into the park. The park shuttles take you around the park, and were a great help. We were in the part Tuesday - Thursday. The first 2 days, the shuttles had plenty of room. Thursday, not so much. they were so packed that several times we could not get on. Walking is fine. Lots of trails that are well marked. But the park is so large that you can't walk everywhere. It will take too long and you'll get tired. Driving your car can work, but parking was pretty tight when we did that Wednesday.


Hiking

We took 3 specific hikes. First was the Mirror Lake Trail. We did the longer 5 mile hike around the lake, along with another mile getting to the

 trailhead. The water level was pretty low, but still

 enough to get some good mountain reflections, like the picture up top. The trail was rocky in spots, but otherwise pretty good. 

Our big story from this hike was seeing a bear with 2 cubs close to the trail. We came upon another group of hikers stopped on the trail, and they pointed out the bears. We spent the next 15 minutes or so slowly creeping along the trail as the bears slowly ambled their way parallel to the trail. We didn't get too close, but close enough to be nervous and careful.



Our second hike was to Bridalveil Falls. The hike from the parking lot is a short .5 miles, but we walked from the closest shuttle stop, which make it more like 2 miles there, 2 miles back. I like waterfalls, and this one does not disappoint. There are a lot of good vantage points for pictures, and if you go to the last observation platform, you'll get misted, which felt great on a warm day.


The parking lot looked pretty large, but was full, with cars circling around. The bathrooms are large and clean, with water bottle refill stations.


It's nice to go to a park where everyone seems happy and friendly. This includes offering to take pictures of each other's group. 








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Our third hike was shorter, to Lower Yosemite Falls. The paved trail is a 1 mile loop, with almost no elevation change. You get a great view of the falls.

There are bathrooms here as well, along with plenty of places to sit and rest, or take pictures.





Tours

Tours

On Wednesday, we drove into the park, and got on a tour bus that took us to Glacier Point. This is about a 3 hour tour, and the bus driver also talks about Yosemite in general, and specifically about what is around us. It's about an hour to Glacier Point, which is a gorgeous overlook of the valley. There are 3 sections with great views, so try not to get so wrapped up in the first spot that you miss the other 2 farther down the path.


There are several sets of pit toilets along the parking lot here at Glacier Point. The farther away from the view you get, the cleaner the bathrooms.

Also, if you get nervous on narrow, winding mountain roads with dropoffs, looking out of a tour bus window as it navigates around the curves may not be for you.



The bus stops a couple of times on the way back to view the valley again from a different perspective, and also at Bridleveil Falls, but only from the road. I do recommend that you go to Glacier Point, either on the bus or drive it yourself.

There are open air 'buses' that stay in the valley, and drive around with a tour guide, but we did not do that tour.


Food

We were camping, and made breakfast before we left, and dinner when we returned, except for 1 evening we went to Curry Village for dinner. It was packed, with lines at every restaurant. The food is not too expensive, and it was good, but I hate waiting for food.

There are several cafes, stores and restaurants to get food at during the day, depending on how you want to deal with meals.

Climbing

No, we didn't come to rock climb, but a lot do. Apparently, it takes a few days for most climbers to scale Half Dome. This means they climb at night, with lights. Wednesday, the day we drove our cars in, some of us stayed late to watch this after dark. 

It's hard to see in this picture, but there are 3 or 4 spots of light on the face of Half Dome. You could also hear the climbers occasionally yelling at each other.



Water


Yosemite has a river, and several beaches where you can picnic, swim, wade, or nap. If the water is high enough, there are rafts you can rent to float downstream.

The water was pretty cold, but not numbing. It was a pretty warm day, and the water was pretty shallow as well.

Camping

We could not find a campsite in the park for 3 days, so we ended up at the Yosemite Westlake Campground. It has tent and RV spots, bathrooms with showers, hookups, and water. A little dry and dusty, but we weren't really there much. There are also a few cabins for rent. It also had this cool fire pit.

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