Yosemite Days 1 & 2

We didn't have WiFi last night at the Half Dome Lodge in Yosemite, so my apologies if you were anxiously awaiting a blog last night.  I will admit, we've had 3 different beer samplers tonight and one and a half wine tastings, so I'm a little bit um...tipsy...yeah, we'll go with that.  Hey, I'm on vacation, don't judge.  :-)

So Yosemite...
Our first day there (yesterday) we ended up doing 11 miles of hiking.  When we first arrived in Yosemite, we found a parking space in a day-use area and then went over to Yosemite Falls so we could hike to the Lower Falls viewpoint.  While hiking this, I remember thinking to myself that I needed to add in the blog to use most of your senses in a National Park.  Obviously tasting and touching is out because that's illegal; but sight, hearing, and smell play a big role in parks.  On this hike, we heard the waterfall the whole time and since it's one of the largest waterfalls in the world, it was extremely loud, almost like a summer thunderstorm rolling through.  Every once in a while, we were lucky to hear a bird or two chirping.  Sight is an obvious one - looking at the scenery around you.  On this hike, we were walking along a path in a forest of pine trees with frazil ice (looks like snow, but is really frozen mist from the waterfall), and of course seeing the waterfall up close was awesome.  Smell - this will probably be what I remember most from this hike - it smelled like fresh cut Christmas tree and I would inhale deeply as often as I could because it smelled so good!  One could argue that touch does come into play once you are at the waterfall, because mist is hard to dodge.  I'm guessing the park service will let that one slide.  Yosemite Falls is very impressive and this was probably my favorite hike in the park.

Upper & Lower Yosemite Falls

Lower Yosemite Falls

On the hike to Lower Yosemite Falls - the stuff that looks like snow is frazil ice

The next hike we did, we intended to go to Bridal Veil Falls via the Valley Loop Trail.  However, when we started the trail, the trailhead indicated it was over 6 miles to the falls, making it a 12-mile round trip hike.  Bridal Veil Falls has it's own parking lot with a half-mile one way hike to it, so I nixed the 12-mile hike idea.  Instead, we decided to go to El Capitan which was just under three miles away, according to the sign.  I don't quite understand how this turned into about a 10-mile hike, but it did.  Part of it is because the trails are very wet and muddy, which required a lot of detours, but the other part - I don't know.  We hiked all day long on the Valley Loop Trail.  It's an easy trail because it is flat, and it's a great way to see a lot of the Merced River.  Once we got to the El Cap viewpoint though, we were blown away by how little we felt because we were literally at the base of it.  However, the pictures do not do it any justice at all because we couldn't fit it all into the picture!

After hiking to El Cap, we took the lazy way out and caught the very crowded shuttle back to our car.  We drove to the Bridal Veil Falls parking lot, hiked the half-mile uphill and saw the falls up close and personal.  Bringing your senses back into this - one of the things Steve and I took note of was the crashing sound of the waterfall - almost like it was a construction zone or something.  It was probably louder than Yosemite Falls and much more violent sounding.  Note that if you do this, you will be soaked through!  We weren't expecting that, but it kind of made it a National Park Moment for me being that close and that wet from the falls!  We ended the evening with dinner at the Mountain View Room and we watched Rogue One for a little bit before we fell asleep.

Bridal Veil Falls

El Cap on the left, Bridal Veil Falls on the right

Cool!  Where the NPS sort of began!!

The best picture I got of Half Dome

Today, we got up really early to catch the shuttle to the Mirror Lake stop.  That was our first hike of the day - it's a one-mile one-way hike to the lake and it's relatively flat along the way.  Mirror Lake was slightly disappointing because it was half lake/half meadow.  Apparently later in the season it will look more like a lake.  Our next hike was to Vernal Falls.  NPS classifies this as a moderate trail, let me just say this - that's bull sh!t.  If I didn't have many wine and beer samplers in me right now, I'd be a little more polite about that hike, but it's straight up strenuous.  It's only eight-tenths of a mile to hike (one-mile from the Happy Isles shuttle stop), but it's entirely uphill.  Oh, and there's a huge drop off on one side.  I know I'm painting a bad picture, but it's a beautiful hike, it's paved (that's probably why NPS says it's "moderate"), and the falls are worth it.  Not to mention, on the way back, we saw a pretty rainbow in the mist created by the cascade falls in the Merced River.  You can continue on this hike to see Nevada Falls, but if your legs are tired of hiking four days straight like ours were, you may skip the 600 steps straight up (and even more elevation gain beyond that).

Another Steller's Jay at Mirror Lake

Mirror Lake

Vernal Falls

Rainbow in the mist

To sum up Yosemite:  It's a beautiful park.  But here's where the criticism comes in.  We weren't even there in the busiest season (summer) and it was crowded.  It felt like the infrastructure could not handle the crowds that were there, let alone the crowds it would get in the summer.  The shuttle buses were extremely crowded and parking is severely limited.  There was construction going on all over the valley which only slowed things down further.  There were so many people there and therefore I noticed so much more trash than I ever have noticed in any other park.  I found several beer cans and other trash on the hike to Yosemite Falls which is very sad.  Steve and I were talking about this on our last hike today and while we liked Yosemite's scenery, it attracts a crowd that doesn't necessarily care about National Parks, but instead it attracts a crowd of people who just want to cross Yosemite off their bucket list.  With that said, whether you are in Yosemite or any other National Park site, please be mindful that these sites are "for the benefit and enjoyment of the people," as FDR said.  That's enough preaching I guess...

We budgeted a lot more time for our two hikes this morning and we actually ended up leaving around lunch time to head to Lodi, CA.  This was meant to be our overnight stop before heading to Napa tomorrow.  Turns out Lodi is turning into a new Napa, so we found three spots to stop tonight.  Lodi Beer Company was our dinner tonight and of course we had a sampler of their beer.  Their beer was pretty good, especially the Marzen.  Next stop was the Dancing Fox Winery and Brewery.  Feel free to skip them.  They were very expensive and they tried too hard at being "artisan" and not quite hitting the mark.  Our last stop was Calturas and they were a winery and brewery as well.  Calturas was pretty good too - their wine was better than their beer in my opinion.  Tomorrow is our "vacation while on vacation" - we're giving our legs a break from all the hiking we've done and exercising our livers instead.  I better sleep off this buzz I have going...  :-)

Lodi Beer Company's sampler

Dancing Fox Beer Sampler

Calturas' Beer Sampler