First off...a wonderful trip to Yosemite National Park. If you've never been to Yosemite, I highly recommend it. It is absolutely gorgeous. Paul and I had been planning on this trip for a few months and were expecting to go with a fairly large group of people. As it turned out, only 5 of us were able to make the trip--me and 4 guys. Not what I originally expected, but I love camping and being in beautiful places. We headed out on Thursday morning and arrived (with a packed-to-the-max car) about 6 hours later, set up camp, and cooked up some dinner.
Paul, Greg, and Joe set out early Friday morning (somewhere around 3:45 or so) to drive down to the valley and start the all day hike up to the top of Half Dome. It's about a 15 mile hike round-trip. This is the main reason Paul and Greg wanted to go to Yosemite in June--the cables are only set up mid-May through mid-October because of snow. Jeff and I opted out of this hike. Jeff had a recently injured ankle, and I just didn't want to overdo it on the very first day...I'm not in the greatest of shape. Plus, I just wanted this to be a relaxing vacation. So Jeff and I slept in and then headed down to the valley to do a less strenuous hike.
Saturday was a chill day for us, hanging out in the Valley and checking out the Wilderness Center to find out which backpacking trails we might want to try on our next trip. Sunday we headed to a less crowded part of the park, Hetch Hetchy. This is "the other valley" in Yosemite that has been flooded with a dam to create a beautiful reservoir surrounded by the mountains. We did a fairly short hike to a waterfall there that was awesome.
Monday we went back to the main valley and hike around the Mirror Lake trail. Part of the trail on one side was actually blocked by a major rock slide that happened back in March, but we carried on anyway to see the damage. It's amazing how quickly the landscape can change! As we neared the end of the trail, we ran into a search and rescue team that asked us to move along ahead of them quickly only to find out later what had happened. You can read about it here. This was was not the first tragedy that happened during our trip. It definitely darkened the mood, but we were thankful that we were all kept safe. Maybe the best part of the day, though, was going to the cabin camping area in the valley to take showers--the first of the trip and very much needed. It never felt so good to be clean!
Tuesday we packed up to head back home. But we had to make one last stop on our way out. Our stop at Glacier Point gave us one amazing last look at Yosemite before heading back to the not-so-natural beauty of Los Angeles. It was a great trip and we can't wait to go back!
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