We really enjoyed the two days we spent in Yosemite National Park. We stayed four nights at Yosemite Pines RV Resort, which was about 30 minutes from the Big Oak Flat Entrance Station, which was another 30 minutes from the start of Yosemite Valley and the road to Glacier Point. So, it took about an hour to get to and from the points of interest each day. We spent Monday doing the hikes around Glacier Point, rested on Tuesday, then rode our bikes around Yosemite Valley on Wednesday. The weather was great and we were continually blessed with at least one parking space being available in whatever area we needed one. (despite the creative way people were jamming their cars in however they could fit them.)
DAY ONE
As we got to the entrance station the first day, there were Rangers walking down the lines of cars to tell us the road was closed to go into the valley due to emergency vehicles handling a car fire. We were ok with that, since we were planning to do Glacier Point, but turns out they were stopping cars before the Glacier Point turn off. We sat there for about 20 minutes, moving forward as people gave up and turned around, hoping to be able to eventually ask if we could go to Glacier Point. We thought we were home free when they opened up that road, but about 10 minutes later, we were stopped for machinery doing tree work at the edge of the road. Both directions of traffic sat for about 20 minutes, then we waited another 10 while the other direction came through the opened one lane first. So, we were about an hour later getting started than we expected; but it worked out ok, since we were, thankfully, still able to do everything we had planned.
Our first stop was Tunnel View to get the iconic Yosemite photo (notice how well it matches the Welcome sign, even though Randy didn’t realize that until we were looking back through the pics, ha!) Then after driving through the actual tunnel, we started the 1 hour drive up to Glacier Point.
The views were spectacular at the top of Glacier Point! Besides the domes and waterfalls, we could see the entire valley below us. We used our binoculars to scope out the parking possibilities and get a closer look at waterfalls and domes. While up there, we started talking to a CA couple who visited Yosemite regularly. We mentioned that we were about to drive down to hike to Sentinel Dome and Taft Point, if we could get a parking space at the trailhead. And he gave us a fantastic tip on parking in a turn out across from a service road that cut off the bottom half of the 2 mi Sentinel Dome hike! It was still challenging, since the top half is the really steep part, but it was nice to save the time of walking the extra mile (even though it would have been well worth it). The 360 degree views from here were also amazing. We forgot to take a pic of the entire dome from the bottom, but there’s a pic below of Randy standing on top that I took from about 1/4 of the way down.
After hiking back to the truck, it was late enough that we easily found a parking space at the trailhead for Taft Point. I think this was my favorite view of the day, with all the unique looking fissures and cliff edges. We wandered around quite a bit up on top, peering carefully over the edges.
On our way out of the park, we stopped at Bridalveil Fall and walked the short trail to get closer to it. Then we drove the one-way loop around Yosemite Valley and stopped for dinner at the Lodge area before heading back to the RV.
DAY TWO
Yosemite was the first National Park of this trip that was bike friendly, so we loaded our bikes into the truck for our second day of visiting the park. We grabbed a parking space along the road before we got into the busiest part of the valley, unloaded our bikes and enjoyed riding them around instead of having to wait for shuttles, struggle to find parking or walking. I HIGHLY recommend this way of getting around the valley — so much easier! We were able to ride our bikes all the way to the Mist Trailhead for a 3 mile out-and-back hike to Vernal Fall. This was a STEEP trail, so we took several breaks to rest our legs and heart. After the footbridge at the bottom of the fall, we continued the hike to get closer, including climbing a bunch of steps. It was an impressive fall and worth the effort to get to the point that we did. Some people kept climbing to the very top of it, but that didn’t seem necessary to us, ha!
As I was waiting for Randy to take some pics, I overheard a guy (I later learned his name was Greg), telling someone that his phone battery died on the hike up, so he couldn’t get any photos proving that he had made it to the fall. I offered my charger for a few minutes, while I was waiting; but then Randy walked up and offered to take his pic and text it to him when we got cell service. Greg took him up on the offer and was very appreciative. It’s fun to bless other people!
I would say Yosemite’s bike trail signs could be improved. We struggled to find it in a couple of places, as it seemed to disappear at parking lots and cross roads in some spots. But we eventually made it to the Yosemite Falls. There were no signs saying that bikes were not allowed on the trail to the fall, so we kept riding. At one point, it got narrower and more crowded to we parked them off the trail and walked the rest of the way to the Lower Yosemite Fall. It probably would have been more impressive if we had seen it before Vernal Fall, but it was still nice. Instead of completing the trail loop, we walked the short way back to our bikes and rode out the same way we came in.
At that point, we let Apple Maps guide us back to the pin Randy had dropped when we parked the truck. We found the truck with little trouble (just a couple of wrong turns, that we quickly figured out and back-tracked) and loaded the bikes back in it. I’m really glad we decided to use the bikes here, since it was such a pleasant way to get around.
On our way out of the park, we pulled over to join a handful of other people staring up at El Capitan to see the crazy rock climbers. I was surprised at how hard it was to see them without the binoculars. In each series of four pictures below, Randy zoomed in on the climbers. They’re just a speck on the vast stone wall! We were having fun hanging out there and chatting with people as we located the climbers, so we decided to go get dinner then come back. We both ate a pizza from Pizza Deck in Curry Village, then drove back to El Capitan. We laid on our picnic blanket taking turns with the binoculars to spot the climbers. People were mostly using their phones to zoom in, so when anyone talked to us about spotting a climber, we’d let them use the binoculars to see. They never failed to say something like, “oh, wow!” It really was cool to not see anything on the wall, then find them in the binoculars and have nothing turn into a person! A neat experience that I enjoyed more than I would’ve thought.
But I did NOT enjoy when I started getting bit by mosquitoes, so we packed up and started back to the truck. On the sidewalk next to the truck, someone else asked about spotting climbers and again, Randy let them use the binoculars; and again, they were excited to see them so clearly, ha. Fun! After that, we headed back to the RV, thankful for another great day exploring God’s beautiful creation!
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