We came in through the South Entrance and hit Mariposa Grove first. Since it was our first stop, we made a decision saying that it was too far (4.3 miles round trip) to walk in the heat. I'm sure it was shaded just as much as the other hikes we went on throughout the park and we missed out. It was just before lunch and everyone was hot and I could just see it being a grouchy no fun hike so we chose not to. We hope that we really only missed a bunch of Sequoia trees which we just spent the previous two days exploring and continued to see throughout the park. Everything I read just said that it was the largest grove (500 sequoias).
This was the entrance of the start of the one mile hike to the trail to the grove.
We headed towards the next spot on the map which was Glacier Point. There was actually another viewpoint just before (3/4 mile) called Washburn Point and it was my favorite spot in all of Yosemite. I could've sat there for hours just taking in the view and the peacefulness.
7500' elevation
Views of Vernal Fall (drops 317') & Nevada (drops 594') Falls
Illilouette Falls is in the very right of the picture near the bottom corner.
Half Dome 8842'
We stopped at the Mountains that are straight across from this view point as we were leaving but the view was nothing compared to this.
If you only could hit a couple of spots during a quick visit, I'd highly recommend this one.
We then went on to Glacier Point which gave views of Yosemite Valley
We found out the huge cones we'd found at Kings Canyon were Sugar cones from this sign.
Our first view of Yosemite Falls (drops 2,425'). We had hoped to make our trip when the water was flowing stronger but it was closed due to COVID all during the time of heavy snowmelt. I guess that just means Preston & I will have to go back.
We were amazed at all the cars lining the road, seeing people in rafts or something in the creek down in the valley. It made us all so excited to get down and go see it ourselves.
View of Half Dome, Mirror Lake, Tenaya Canyon
Royal Arches, North Dome & Basket Dome towards the left of the picture
Trying to show how sheer the cliffs looked from this height down to the valley.
This is kind of an awkward angled photo but the top left corner is Hanging Rock where people used to stand at the edge and take pictures.
Preston's picture with Hanging Rock in it
Royal Arches
Another view of Vernal & Nevada Falls
Picture from the stone building at Glacier Point
As we were driving back down Glacier point and headed to the Valley, we saw our first bear!
We didn't get to come through Arch Rock Entrance that we thought would've been cool but I had no idea this Tunnel view was going to be what it was.
It was nearly a mile long tunnel in the granite!
And this is the view you see after being in that long dark tunnel. Gorgeous!!! ElCapitan to the left was magnificent.
Bridal Veil Falls (drops 617')
A bride & groom having their pictures taken
Where we came out of the tunnel...see cut right through the granite.
El Capitan
Bridalveil Falls was #2 on my list after Yosemite Falls
and we were sooo sad to see the trail is closed for a couple of years. Bridalveil Fall was the shortest at half mile round trip.
We still walked as far as we could before they had it closed off. Presley loved collecting sticks & pine cones everytime we were walking during the trip. She had so many "walking" sticks!
She does not take great pictures and she was being so photogenic so we had to take advantage and snapped quite a few while.
Drew was always the first one to take clothes off and jump in any water he saw.
She loves to give mom kisses!
Aydon taught her to lean in for a kiss and then turn her head away just before kissing and say "Just Kidding!" She laughs so hard and that's what she was doing here.
El Capitan stands 3,593 feet from base to summit.
As we were driving through the mile long Valley, we saw a nice herd of some bucks! And then my camera battery died! We went on a hike to Lower Yosemite Falls.
Lower Yosemite Falls is a short easy walk. It was so pretty but unfortunately we followed a bride & groom having wedding pictures taken here for the entire time we were there so we didn't get to do the best picturres with them standing in the best spots.
Presley wanted to use Aydon binoculars. She called them something that sounded like Ha-Hawks. I have a cute video of her here asking to use them.
Boys being boys
Look at this crazy tree fallen between a couple of trees.
It was a nice little loop trail and we came out right to the RV and the view was spectacular! Look at the moon!
We ended up renting a room for the night at Yosemite Lodge so that we didn't have to leave the park and come back in and could get some hiking done early in the morning before it got too hot. It was two full size beds and the younger three shared that bed while the older two slept in the RV in the parking lot.
The next morning we started on mist trail that lead to Vernal & Nevada Falls. We had seen bridges that went over the falls and really wanted to get there.
It was a nice paved path but there was lots of sunny spots. The trail was pretty steep & it was already hot! These hike took a couple of hours and if we would've continued it would've been another 2-5 hours.
We had Dexter with us and he was going crazy because we kept seeing squirrels on the trails or just off the trails and he wanted to get them so bad.
Somebody's getting tired...and sleepy. haha!
Presley is fast asleep at the end of mist trail. If we wanted to continue it was another 2-5 hours and we were all so hot and Preston was drenched in sweat from the hiking pack. We decided we better call it good here.
Dexter jumping in a spring to cool his feet off.
We saw these Stellar Jay's quite often. We also heard and saw acorn woodpeckers.
As we were leaving the valley we spotted one last bear.
At this point we decided to skip the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir since there didn't appear to be many viewpoints or scenic spots.
We got to Tuolumne Grove in the early afternoon. We took a much less crowded mile hike down to another grove of sequoia trees.
We were excited to get to walk through a tunnel since we missed the others at Mariposa grove.
On the inside of the tree the boys were arms length apart and still didn't reach the whole way.
The other side
This was a huge fallen sequoia that was so long!
There was even a few Pacific Dogwood flowers left which surprised me.
Tioga Road elevation ranged from 6,200 feet to nearly 10,000 and it was so scenic and pretty!
We were driving along Tioga Road and had no idea where we wanted to end up so we pulled off at a little picnic area to have dinner. In the whole time we were there only one car came, drove through the circle and left. We had the whole picnic area to ourselves and ended up staying here. As we were getting ready to serve dinner we saw a Perigren Falcon.
Aydon wouldn't sit down, he ran and got his binoculars and ran off to try to spot it in his binos. Unfortunately, he never did.
While he was still of bird watching, we went for a little walk along the stream.
Aydon finally came back from hoping to catch the falcon again and was sitting at this little pond where we all had been. He said, he saw a deer come up and start drinking water and was no more than 10 feet away. It was one of the coolest experiences he said.
We had been so hot every night but this spot was so cool that we were all cold for the first time one morning.
The next morning we stopped at Olmstead Point.
The sun was so bright and so we were messing around while Preston took this picture of us.
This was the point that I mentioned that we stopped at vs Washburn. It is pretty, especially the granite but nothing like the view you got from Glacier Point Road.
After reading this sign, I really appreciated the opportunity we had to drive this road and how pretty it was.
Tenaya Lake
After so many mountains and trees it was weird to hit Tuolumne Meadows.
We were on a hike headed to Soda Springs when we saw a mule deer.
I'm thinking this was Cathedral Peak.
Heading back to the RV with Lembert Dome in front of us.
Lembert Dome
Tioga Pass 9945'
This was just a NFS lake outside of Yosemite. There are soo many lakes in this area.
The drive back down the mountain from that elevation was quite crazy. We had to pull off and eat lunch so that the brakes had a chance to cool off. There was so much up and down in elevation changes this entire trip! I was so happy we had no vehicle trouble.
We thought about going to Bryce Canyon & finishing the couple of Utah parks we missed with having to leave early from Spring Break but it was just so hot and there was no relief in sight so we decided we'd wait until it would be cooler to do that.
The other way home was going through Las Vegas to get home. Uncle Larry recently bought a house so we asked him if it would be ok to crash his house for the night since it would be too hot anywhere along the way to stay in the RV. We had some pizza delivered to his house so the boys could eat and jump in his pool. We had thought about going to Phoenix to school clothes shop but since we were in Vegas we decided just to do it there and not have to drive any further. We spent the morning shopping a few stores and had lunch before heading home.
She was soo tired she was falling asleep while eating. Aydon was trying to get us too look but we couldn't see so he filmed like a 45 second video and then came to show us. By the time he showed us and turned back around he found her like this. lol Poor girl was sooo tired but didn't want to give up her fries and ketchup.
Side note: We tried selling the RV again this summer, in fact when we were driving home from Lake Powell some guys wanted to pay cash the next morning for it. We had him hold off a couple of days and when we went to deliver he backed out. We were ok with that since we had this trip planned as a RV road trip. I told Preston we needed to try to sell it again when we got home and ended up Gary found a dealer that wanted it. Came one afternoon and bought it...I wasn't even home...the kids had to unload the entire RV themselves because Preston was working and I was in Flag with a kid at a Dr appointment. So this was the last RV road trip. We had lots of fun National Park trips in it.
