Birthday Trip to Yosemite

What better way to celebrate a birthday than a day in Yosemite? We had perfect weather, so much water everywhere, and overall very happy hikers!

Got up crazy early to get on the road before 5 a.m. Traffic getting into Yosemite can be miserable in the summer, so we didn't want to chance it and it paid off nicely--only 2 cars in front of us at the gate and plenty of parking when we got there at 8:30.

The Merced River is so full this year. We didn't want to miss the chance to see all the falls at their best.

Once we found a parking spot for the day and ate breakfast, we were ready to hike! 

We've never done the mist trail before, and since that offers great views of two waterfalls, we thought this was the year to do it.

The hike to the bridge below Vernal Falls is steep, but paved and fairly shady.

 

After that point, the trail continues up and turns into rock steps--

and it gets WET. 

All of the mist coming off Vernal Falls makes it a really wet hike. 

But all that mist makes some beautiful rainbows! 

We brought rain jackets just for this, and were glad we did.

Past the falls, there's a view from above.

We stopped at the top for awhile to have lunch and dry out a little.

Then, took the trail up to where we could connect to the John Muir trail to loop back down, and got a view of Nevada Falls up above. We didn't have time (or energy) to hike up to that waterfall.

But there were views of both falls along the trail. The hike is rated as difficult, and it was--steep and pretty technical with lots of rocks. Honestly, it was a little too much for my ankle and where I'm at endurance-wise and I was hurting on the way down, but I survived and could still walk the next day :).

Once we made it back to our car for snacks and changing out shoes/jackets, we went the other direction for about a mile to see Yosemite Falls. The meadows are so beautiful this year. It was a really nice walk.

We didn't last long for the view of the lower falls from the bridge. The mist was COLD!

Plus, we had to get on the road so we could make it to the birthday dinner that Grandma and Grandpa had planned.

So glad we got to have a great day with our Bean for her birthday. We feel pretty lucky to have her around--it's weird that she's gone for a big chunk of the year now, but we're soaking up the time we have. And love watching her grow into this awesome adult. She's doing a pretty good job of managing the new challenges and taking advantage of all of the opportunities that this stage of life offers. Her adventurous spirit makes my mama heart happy.

 

Yosemite, 2020

Under the new Covid policies, we had to make reservations for Yosemite a couple months in advance. I chose the first Friday in October because the kids had the day off of school, and it would give us the option of spending a couple days there if we wanted to. 

What we couldn't plan for was the continuing bad air quality and nearby fires that shut down one part of the park we'd wanted to visit. We watched the AQI all week and it was looking pretty good in Yosemite Valley, so we found a new hike to do and set off for a day of adventuring and then a backyard camping trip at the grandparents house.

And then, when we were almost there, we realized the air had totally changed and it was in the range that we usually stay indoors. But we had driven for 3 hours, and it wasn't REALLY bad, and we really, really needed some outside time, so we chanced it.

We found the start of fall colors, and streams to play in, and sticks to play with, and some hiking to do (although part of the new trail we'd picked was also closed!)

Daddy-o and these two hiked to a view of Nevada Fall. You can barely see it between the trees. The Mist Trail was closed along here, so we were just on the John Muir trail that is in the same area.

In the meantime, this kid was highly distracted in a world of make believe and absolutely didn't want to hike, so I offered to hang back with him and go slower, hoping we'd eventually catch up with everyone else. We didn't, at least not until they were on their way back down the trail, which was a little disappointing for me,

but I did get some good pictures of the jays we saw, and of Peanut pretending he was clinging to the edge of a cliff.

On the way back down, we stopped for a snack and were quickly joined by this guy (or girl),

who had absolutely no fear of us and a strong desire to eat our snacks.

I love wildlife, but I kind of like it when they are still wild, and stay away.

After lunch, we found a spot on the Merced river to hang out for the rest of the afternoon. Peanut needed some serious free play time, and everyone else was done hiking, and I was getting a headache from the smoke (probably was a good thing I didn't get to hike as far that morning--heavier breathing=more smoke inhilation).

So we sat by the river, wading, soaking our feet. Bug and Bean drew for awhile, the Bug joined Peanut in exploring and playing.

We did not see the bear that apparently crossed the river just upstream from us (darn!), 

but thoroughly enjoyed the setting, even if it was hazy from smoke (and this was at the point of the day where things had cleared up a bit.)

We had a really nice afternoon,

 and then cooked dinner over our backpacking stove to finish off our adventuring.

Even with the bad air, we ended up camping out in Daddy-o's parents' backyard, which was probably a mistake. The fact that we couldn't see any of the stars we were sleeping under was probably a good clue as to how bad the air had gotten, but we stuck it out, all ended up with sore throats and my headache took several days to go away, but got in our overnight trip and had another 24 hours to add to our outdoor time tracker. Some of those hours have been harder to earn than others!

 

Sharing Adventures

One of Bean's birthday gifts was a backpack, with the promise that we'd take her on an overnight hiking trip, just the three of us, spending time with our now teenage daughter. We figure we need to enjoy the time with her while she's still excited about weekend trips with her parents. It may not last forever, and there will be bumps along the way, I'm sure, but that's why now is the time to build the good memories.

And this one will go down in the books as a great memory for all of us. About 17 miles of hiking in two days, beautiful scenery all around us, and good times together.

We had to make some last minute changes to our plans because of forest fires in the area of Yosemite we'd wanted to hike, but we found a good alternative that may have been even better for a first backpacking trip. We parked on Tioga Rd, and hiked about 2 miles in to the Yosemite Creek Campground. It wasn't nearly as far as we'd thought we'd be hiking before we set up camp, but we made up for it after we ditched our packs.

The rest of the day was a 12.5 mile hike to the top of Yosemite Falls and back. Easier because we didn't have our big packs, but still a physically challenging day for all of us.

But the landscape was incredible. We hiked through shady, fern covered forests along the creek, 

climbed over granite boulders and cliffs (more than we should have because of a few detours we took off the path),

and walked through sandy fields. And we kept reminding this girl of ours that we can do hard things. She was loving it all, in spite of the blisters, and getting a little tired the last couple miles. This girl is strong and determined, and also a talker who really enjoyed having our undivided attention for miles and miles of walking. We heard more than a couple Studio C sketches recited as we walked, along with stories and lots of observations.

The view of the falls and valley from up above was incredible, and terrifying, all at once. I don't know what it is about being up high with my kids, but I just can't do it without feeling sick. I don't really have issues with heights on my own, but even the open upstairs hallway in our old house used to make me feel sick when I was carrying one of the kids. I'm just can't keep the image of them going over the edge out of my mind. So this wasn't totally fun for me, but we got to see it, and rest for a bit, and then started back so we could make it to camp before dark. 

Back at camp, we pretty much just wanted to eat and go to bed. All the talk of looking at stars and soaking our feet in the creek was forgotten. I didn't even care too much about dinner, but we did cook up the mac'n'cheese we'd brought, and even made a fire, which was no easy feat with all the damp wood from a rainstorm a couple days before. We didn't last long, though and were all in bed by 8:30. Of course, as soon as we laid down, we saw flickering just outside our tent--the fire, that was so difficult to get started, decided to be equally difficult to put out. The coals reignited twice before it finally went out for the night. And then, just as we were all drifting off, a couple of guys walked into our camp, talking pretty loudly. We're pretty sure they didn't know anyone was there and whether they were going to take firewood, or our actual belongings, we don't know, but when Daddy-o called out from the tent, it startled them and they left quickly. Finally, we got to go to sleep.

The victorious hikers! Second day was pretty easy. We all felt a lot better after a good nights sleep, and only had 2 miles to hike back to the car. 

I'm so glad that we made this happen. Having three kids can be loud, hectic, and complicated, but getting to spend time with them one at a time makes it easy to enjoy them. Our Bean is an awesome person--she's strong, funny, creative, passionate, determined, and a million other things that we sometimes lose sight of in the day-to-day rush of life. This weekend, we got to slow down, breathe deeply, soak up some nature, and just enjoy our firstborn child.

Yosemite

We've been trying to squeeze in a trip to Yosemite all spring.  We finally made it, hoping to miss the summer crowds by going the weekend before Memorial Day (turns out everyone else had the same thoughts--it was packed!) This view of the foothills leading up to Yosemite was ours for a solid hour as we crept along toward the gate to the park with hundreds of other cars.

With all the rain we got this year, we knew it would be a great year and Daddy-o is always yearning to get back to this place that was such a huge part of his growing up.

The water did not disappoint. The Merced River was crazy.

And Yosemite Falls was at its best. Nothing like the trickle we saw 4 years ago when we were last here.

Along with the walk from where we parked, past the base of Yosemite Falls, to the museum, we also hiked up to Mirror Lake from The Majestic Hotel.

It's a couple miles, which seemed like a good distance.

These three adventurers were excited to explore.

Until this one wasn't anymore, about 1/2 a mile into it. This kid--sometimes he does okay when we have to walk places, but the majority of the time, he starts to complain way to quickly. It didn't help that he had seen ice cream at the hotel and decided he needed to have some right then, but we didn't comply.

We did bribe him with the ice cream. I asked him to do 20 more minutes--maybe a mile, if we could push him, so he could do most of the hike up to the lake. I'm trying to work on his endurance and hate to give in too quickly. Those were the most painful 20 minutes of the entire day. He wasn't supposed to whine or cry while hiking and we had some questionable moments that we chose to pretend we could hear. Bean was an amazing sister and not only hung back to walk with him, but helped him count out the last 5 minutes to distract him from all the pain and suffering he was enduring.

Ah, sweet reward #1. A ride on Daddy-o's shoulders. And the promise of ice cream when we got back down to the store in the valley.

The rest of us enjoyed the walk. We got some fun views of Half Dome along the way.

And got to watch a slack-liner up at the top. You can just barely make out the line between the point and the rock below. I can't even imagine how terrified I would be trying something like that (which I would never do because I can't stay up on a slack line that is a foot off the ground, either.)

I didn't get a picture of it, but on the way down from the lake, I pulled out the Ergo, which Peanut still fits in, and he got to ride down which made his day. Not only did he not have to walk, but with his mouth right by my ears, he also had my undivided attention for a couple miles. And he took full advantage of that time to outline his career plans. One of his jobs he wants is to have a restaurant, and he planned out his menu down to the type of paper it will be printed on, his sign for out front, who will get the supplies for these things, which parts of the actual building he will do himself (because he also wants to be a construction worker, as well as a doctor and owner of a hospital--this boy will be busy!) and what his wife will do while he is busy taking care of his parts. He was cracking me up with both the non-stop talking, and some of the words he uses. He also completely wore me out. I can still handle carrying him for miles, but listening to him talk for hours makes me tired.

Another highlight--we found dogwoods! I've been missing all the dogwood trees this spring and was so excited to see some in the park.

A few more pictures from our day surrounded by all this amazing beauty:

So glad we went exploring, even if the crowds were crazy, poor Bug got carsick on the way home and threw up, and Peanut whined more than any child ever should. There was plenty to enjoy between the less exciting parts, and these adventures will be favorite family memories, I'm sure.