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Yahooey! I finally finished the last day of the family vacation in Yosemite almost exactly 2 months later ...
We were happy to welcome Derrick to the last few days of our vacation. He, a hard-working college student, had this thing called "finals" that prevented him from being with us for most of the trip. We had a bit of an adventure retrieving him from the Sacramento Airport (a map would have been helpful. That's all I will say), but we got a few hours of sleep on Thursday night and took off early Friday morning for the most jam-packed day of the trip.
After a week of dealing with construction on the main bridge leading into Yosemite Valley (where 120 and 140 join and cross into the valley), I decided to capture the "moment," so look for the pic of Randy and Jenni looking like they want to just nap or throw themselves over the ledge. We routinely had 20-30 minute dead-stop waits for construction traffic, and I don't even want to think about how bad it would have been this summer during tourist season!!!! After FINALLY getting into the Valley, we turned South and headed to Glacier Point to show Derrick the best view of the Valley, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, Nevada and Vernal Falls, and all of the snow-capped peaks in the distance. We then trucked it back to the Valley with a brief stop at Tunnel View, and from there we went right to the base of Yosemite Falls and regaled Derrick with tales of the Yosemite Falls trail.
After a brief lunch at the van, we set out for the Mist Trail, which heads out to the base of Vernal Falls and then right up the side of it along a path of slippery and roughly-hewn stone steps. The trail gets its name for a reason, as the waterfall was in full snow-melt glory and we got absolutely SOAKED by the Mist. We also got to witness one of the brightest and most magnificent rainbows I've ever seen. I'm still not sure which was giving me goosebumps the whole time: the mist-soaked chill or the beauty of the sights!
At the top, Derrick, Randy, Jenni, Nick, and I stopped and took pictures, rested, yelled at some foreign tourists who were feeding the rabid squirrels. We were ready to head back down to meet Mom and Dad (who we lost early on), and then - behold - Mom and her trashed knees greeted us up there! We were happy and proud that she gritted her way to the top, and it was such an amazing cap to the trip to all be up there together. We even headed a bit farther up to the base of Nevada Fall. Look for pictures of the raging river wash between the base of Nevada Fall and the top of Vernal Fall. It was surreal to walk right beside the rushing water and somehow feel immune to its power.
Back at the car and racing dusk, we had just enough time to run to the base of Bridalveil Fall, and there was JUST enough early evening light left to catch a rainbow! Bridalveil is powerful in its own right, and produces almost as much mist as Vernal Fall when you're up close. We snapped a few pics and raced back to the car, because we had one more thing on the agenda for the day: giant sequoias. My hiking book talked (very) briefly about a small sequoia grove in the Northwest part of the park, just off Rte 120. This grove, the Merced Grove, was described as much less stunning than the Mariposa Grove that the rest of us visited on the first day, but the described hike was short and it also happened to be on the way out. Sounded good. 40 minutes til dusk, we headed out, prepared for a 4-mile roundtrip hike with minimal elevation change. Wellll, the mileage may have been correct, but we all began to get a bit nervous as we kept going down ... and down ... and down ... still on the path, headed toward the grove ... but there was some actual elevation change happening here. Certainly more than the promised "200 ft." Nearing dusk, we hit the grove, saw a beautiful tree that had been tunneled out but was still living, and began our reverse death march back to the car. We hoofed it. Despite some mildly labored breathing, we were trying to make enough noise to keep any bears away. Oh, did I mention that this is the particular elevation where we saw a few bears along the road? Hmm. Did I also mention that Derrick, with his 21-year-old voracious appetite, produced, unwrapped, and began to eat a protein bar while on this hike?! Near dusk?! Yeah, Randy and I were a bit on edge. Anyway, we made it back to the car, party intact, just as night was falling. It was a very full day!!
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