Yosemite

We are just back from a trip to Yosemite! We had a great time.

The kids had a lot of fun. In this picture they are getting the closest we got all week to a bear.









Yosemite Falls is one of the multitude of waterfalls around the park.







Dan enjoying a little morning coffee.





We were staying on the eastern end of the valley at Curry Village, which sits in the shadow of Half Dome. People climb this as a day hike, but it's around 17 miles round trip with a more than 3000 foot elevation gain. The last bit is a cable climb up the rock. Needless to say, we won't be attempting it any time soon. You can also spend the night up there so as to make it a two day trip, but they don't give out many permits for that, so most people have to do it in one day.




Dan, Owen, and Douglas in a meadow in the middle of the valley (near the Swinging Bridge, which no longer swings).







Owen in the meadow.








Owen and me on the Swinging Bridge, which crosses the Merced River. Yosemite Falls is visible in the background.









The kids had fun throwing rocks into the Merced River. It was mighty cold. Snowmelt doesn't warm up much between the snow and the valley. Yosemite is at around 4000 feet elevation.






Douglas enjoying some ice cream.








Owen and Douglas on another bridge







Douglas goofing around








Douglas at the Curry Village amphitheater. We saw a fantastic presentation one evening about bats. Meanwhile, some bats were flying around above our heads. It was pretty cool.






Owen and Douglas hanging out, with El Capitan in the background behind the tree.








Owen en route to Bridalveil Fall. It was a short hike (1 mile round trip).





Bridalveil Fall. At the bottom we got a bit damp.





Our tent cabin. We were fortunate that ours was somewhat set away from some of the other ones so it was not too loud, and also was right near the bathrooms and the swimming pool, which we took advantage of. The tent cabin had four rudimentary beds but they did have mattresses, sheets, wool blankets and pillows. It got pretty cold in the mornings (daytime was maybe in the 80s) so we made good use of the wool blankets. There was also a light bulb so we were able to read. It was just fine as a place to stay. On the right at the bottom you can see the green bear box for putting food and toiletries (toothpaste, soap etc) in. It appeared to be sealed but this morning when I went to get our stuff out of it I noticed some little critter had been gnawing on a granola bar we had in there.



This was as close as we got to seeing a bear. We did take a nature walk with a park ranger and she asked who'd seen a bear in the park, and about half the group raised their hands. We did not see one, though.







We did see some other wildlife though, like this deer...





Some Stellar's Jays... (about which the park ranger said, "Mother Nature likes funky hairdos too, huh?").






There were lots of butterflies around.






Another deer we saw on one of our walks.

We had a great trip!