We spent 4 days this week at Yosemite National Park. We camped with our friends, Ruth and Bill, and their kids, Zoe, John and Will. Contrary to hysterical reporting, Yosemite is not burning down. The main effect of the Rim Fire on the park is there are a lot fewer people visiting.
Our main activity in the park was hiking. We had too many wonderful hikes to choose from. On Tuesday, we hiked to the top of Vernal Falls. Here is a photo of Sofi with the falls in the background.
There are many, many signs asking people not to feed the animals. As this portly fellow shows, a lot of people ignore the signs. We felt pretty bad for him.
The last third of a mile of the hike was up steep granite stairs. There were 656 stairs-- Zoe counted them.
This is a photo of the top of the falls. Ruth and Becky were roommates at the University of Utah 20 years ago. Notice how clean Gibson looks-- for now. We accidentally left the bag with Gibson, Helen and Sofi's clothes in it at home and so they had to wear the same clothes the entire time. On the bright side, Becky had a lot less laundry to do when we got home.
Here's a photo of the flat side of Half Dome. Yosemite exceeded our skill as photographers. All the views were enormous.
Here's a photo of El Capitan on the other end of Yosemite Valley at sunset. We met a man from Australia who had just finished climbing the face of El Capitan. It took him 4 days to climb the cliff. He hauled 80 pounds of gear up with him and slept in a hammock attached to the rock, dangling above the ground. It only took him 5 hours to hike down the back of the mountain.
On Wednesday, we hiked to the top of Lembert Dome. It's only 850 feet tall, instead of 4700 feet like the more famous Half Dome. Brandan, Bill and Ruth are in the photo.
We hiked about a mile and a half around the back of the dome for the easy route up, but the final few hundred feet still felt precarious.
Sofi made it! You can get an idea of the amazing 360 degree view we had.
Here is our whole group: back row- Zoe, Bill, Ruth, Sofi, Becky and Brandan; front row- Helen, John, Gibson, Abe and Will.
The wind blew constantly on top. Luckily, no one blew away.
From the top of the dome we could see distant smoke from the Rim Fire to the west.
Gib took this photo of a park ranger and his horse, King. The ranger rides 8-20 miles a day on back country trails, keeping an eye on hundreds of backpackers and sometimes doing search and rescue.
We met some fire fighters on their lunch break and they let our kids climb on their fire truck. These fire fighters were from the Inyo National Forest on the east of the park and just came into the park for lunch. There were lots of other firefighters working inside the park, laying water lines around the sequoia groves, just in case.
We reserved a group camp site with Ruth and Bill and had plenty of room. They had to leave Wednesday and it was a little lonely after they left.
Our next-door-neighbor campers were celebrating their wedding. They were a delightful couple. Helen made the bride a beaded bracelet for a wedding gift. Camping next to a bride is almost like camping next to a princess.
We camped in the Tuolomne Meadows campground which is the backpacking center of the park. The area is crisscrossed with trails. Here we are in a spot where the Pacific Coast Trail intersects with a few other trails.
This was our shortest hike through the Tuolumne Meadows. We hiked to an area called Soda Springs.
The Soda Springs are naturally carbonated. When you approach them, you can hear the water fizzing like soda pop. An early settler, John Baptist Lembert, built the small cabin around the springs in 1889 to keep his cattle out.
All our kids tasted the springs. Pretty yucky.
We had to leave Thursday, but squeezed in one more hike before we left. The trailhead to Elizabeth Lake started in our campground and was irresistible, especially to Helen whose middle name is Elizabeth. The mountain in the background is called Unicorn Peak.
Sofi wanted to enjoy the lake by herself so she walked around to the other side. She is the red dot in the photo. Abe decided to spy on her. He's the black dot racing along the shore.
Three cheers to Brandan, who was sick the entire trip, and kept on hiking. It's hard enough being sick at home, let alone while sleeping in a tent at 9000 feet. We had a fantastic trip and already have some hikes picked out for our next visit.
