Family Vacation ~ Part 3 (Yosemite) [52 Hike Challenge ~ Hike 24]

I had never been to Yosemite, and I’ve wanted to visit for years.

Our family vacation was a little off-the-cuff. We made hotel reservations for Anaheim at the last minute, and had no definitive plans for the second week. I knew I wanted to visit Yosemite, but I couldn’t find reasonable lodging for our family of 6.

On Friday, Russ decided to extend our Disney park-hopper tickets one more day (five days total). So we checked out of our hotel on Saturday morning, spent the whole afternoon and evening in the park, and left Anaheim around 9 pm. We drove overnight to Yosemite, stopping to sleep a couple hours along the way.

We drove into Yosemite around 7 am on Sunday (Mother’s Day). My sister Holly had been there two weeks prior and had sent me detailed instructions on where to go and what to see and do. I followed them to the letter, and we managed to see much by 4 pm that afternoon, by which time we were DONE. We spent two hours driving out of the park (gorgeous!!), grabbed some food in Modesto, and splurged on two cheap hotel rooms for the night (ah, the joys of having a family of 6). I went straight to bed and stayed there until shortly before checkout the next morning.

 

We started our Yosemite morning by driving to Glacier Point (above). Exquisite.

Then we drove into the valley (top photo, with a nod to Ansel Adams).

We took a short hike to Bridalveil Falls.

From Bridalveil, Russ sent me on a solitary hike. He drove the kids and we met up on the road near El Capitan.

We barely managed to find a parking spot and took the shuttle to the Lower Yosemite Falls where we hiked the 1 mile loop.

Then we rode the shuttle to the strenuous Mist Trail near Vernal Falls. We only hiked to the footbridge, but that was a mile of straight up—seriously the steepest incline that I’ve hiked. And then a mile back down.

By then we were DONE (since it was our 7th day of walking a TON and we hadn’t had much sleep the night before), so we rode the shuttle back to our truck and left. But we enjoyed many gorgeous views on the way out.

I’m looking forward to returning and spending more time hiking and exploring.