Because our weekends in Northern California are numbered, Lea and I decided to make a bucket list of things we want to do before moving to Los Angeles in August (I’m going back to school, but this post isn’t about that).  At the top of our list…Yosemite National Park!  We’ve lived in Northern California almost three years and have never been to one of the most striking and most visited parks in the the country.  That was until this weekend. 🙂

Jared had plans with a friend from out of town whose plans were cancelled rather last minute, so we talked him into joining us…and driving…and splitting the cost of a hotel room.  That’s right, no camping here.  Besides the fact that camp sites sell out literally in under 5 minutes from the time they become available to reserve, N. Cali has been experiencing a near record cold May, and the forecast for Saturday was a high of 48 with chance of snow.  Yikes!  That’s a little too close to nature if you ask me.  We found a last minute hotel reservation in the quaint little town of Mariposa, about an hour from the park (that’s as close as you can get without a campsite or a $450/nt resi at the Awanhee).  If you plan to visit Yosemite, Groveland and Sanora are similar, good options.

Come Saturday, after a few early morning errands and a Starbucks run, we were on the road by 7AM, en route to Yosemite Valley with an ETA of 10:45AM.  The drive across CA’s central valley is pretty enjoyable; and by the time you start to approach the Sierras, things start looking a little better; and shortly after crossing into Yosemite via Hwy 120, you pass through a tunnel, look to your right, and…BAM!  Granite rock walls, a countless number of gushing waterfalls, the Merced river…and now you realize, “Holy $#@!, I’m in Yosemite!”

These are the iconic landmarks we’ve all grown up seeing pictures of.  Probably made most famous by Ansel Adams, the park inspires a lot of picture taking.  Which you’re about to see.  I apologize for any injuries to your scrolling finger.

Actually, between the entrance of Yosemite and the lookout shown above, we saw a bear!  We didn’t stop to chat, but I’m sure he would have reminded us that, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”  (I reserve the right to come back and change this when I think of a better bear joke).

As we continued down into the Yosemite Valley, the landmarks seemed to jump out at us from all sides.  The waterfalls, the rock faces, all right there, one after the other.  I was in the backseat sliding back and forth, hanging out of the windows trying to get a good look at everything.

We couldn’t wait to get out of the car to explore!  We were able to see a lot of the sights from our car, but nothing beats getting out and seeing it on your own two feet.  So we set out to complete a 13 mile loop of the valley floor.  You can click the map below for a link with recommended day hikes and a downloadable map.

We set out from Yosemite Village on a quest for views of Yosemite Falls, Sentinel Rock, Cathedral Rocks, Three Brothers, El Capitan and Bridalveil Fall.

Yosemite Falls, composed of Upper Yosemite Fall and Lower Yosemite Fall, is the tallest waterfall in America, rising 2,425 feet above the valley floor.

Rock beats paper.

This was our first view of Sentinel Rock.

Doesn’t this make you want to walk in and get a clearer view?

I haven’t yet mentioned the most random event of the day.  As we were pulling into the park entrance, JP’s work colleague, Dan, pulled up right along side us.  What a wonderful coincidence!  We couldn’t have timed that if we’d tried!  He came up for a day trip and agreed to join us.  He’s one of the nicest guys we’ve met in a long time, so we were definitely happy to have him.

Late spring into early summer is arguably the best time to visit Yosemite because the melting snow feeds the gushing waterfalls that helped make the park famous.  Don’t be fooled by the sunshine and crystal clear water, that’s snow melt and it’s cold!

Here, Lea makes a rather dramatic leap across a dribble in the path.  Little does she know what lay ahead.

Here come my Reservoir Dogs…

As we came out of the forest and into a meadow, we realized we had walked right past Three Brothers and didn’t even know it until we looked back.  Of course, we didn’t know it was a landmark until later, so we weren’t exactly looking for it.

Also looking back, we get a completely different perspective of Sentinel Rock.

As we look ahead, we can see the side of El Capitan.

And to our left we can see Cathedral Rocks.

We did a lot of gawking here.  It was so hard to keep moving forward because we just couldn’t believe our eyes.

Each step brought a slightly different perspective of our surroundings.  Remember what that landmark is in the background? 🙂

To make it easy, I took a video to try to capture it.  Dan’s narrating, and what we didn’t know at the time was…Three Brothers!  I won’t forget it.

The meadow turned into an impassible marsh, but we found a huge fallen tree that would bridge us past the wetlands, and decided this was a good place to pop a squat for lunch.

As we got closer to El Capitan, we were on the lookout for crazy people trying to scale the vertical rock face.  Do you see them here?

How about now?  Like I said…crazy people.

El Capitan.

By this point, we were only about 2.5 miles from our halfway point and were looking forward to seeing Bridalveil Fall on our return.

But then we walked into a little creek…

…And then a bigger creek…

…And the next thing we knew, our plans had changed.  We would not hike to Bridalveil Fall today, but rather hike up stream to see the source of this creek.

It turns out we weren’t the first to come up with this plan.  About every 50-100 feet, we saw a stack of stones leading the way like a trail of breadcrumbs.

As we made our way up, the creek continued to get bigger and more powerful.  And then it started to snow.

Anybody know how to rotate a video?  Please rotate your monitor (or your head) 90 degrees counterclockwise.

It came to a point that the rocks were so slippery and the weather so finnicky, that even though we could finally see our end goal, we decided it was time to turn back.

The walk back also provided a few new perspectives on some of the sites we saw earlier in the day…

 

…Like El Capitan.

We knew we were almost back when we saw Yosemite Falls.

 

…And we were starving!  There’s another reason we like Dan so much…he brought salty chips, and puts m&m’s in his trail mix!

Finally back at the cars, we were unable to convince Dan to stay with us over night so that he could go out with us again on Sunday.  I really wish he would’ve stayed, and after he sees the pictures we took the next day, I think he will too.

Cheers!