A few hours East of San Francisco is beautiful Yosemite National Park. This legendary park, once home to John Muir, has inspired the masses since 1890, including us. During our stay, we narrowly missed a winter storm, camped with rock climbers, and went on some amazing hikes. Coming this late into the season we had to put up with some chilly nights, but we practically had the park to ourselves.
We barely scratched the surface of this park. Like Yellowstone, this park is huge! We stuck to the Valley area since there was plenty to do there and with the shuttle service we were able to leave our car parked for the duration of our stay. Since we paid for camping we figured we should save on gas.
Check out the pics from our stay!
Driving to the park. Running into a detour.Massive landslide! A common problem in the mountains of California.Entering the Valley of Yosemite! WOW!
Stopping in the visitor center to get some maps and learn about the park. It doesn’t matter how old we get, we love interactive learning in the visitor centers.
One of our heroes… John Muir!!!Looks like rain. Possibly some snow. We might be in for a rough stay.
Checking into Camp 4
Camp 4 is legendary for those involved in the rock climbing community. It’s the cheapest place to camp in the park and it’s within walking distance to some of the best rock climbing in the world. Some of the most famous rock climbers have camped here. We may have even seen Alex Honnald walking around. He’s probably the most famous climber right now. Anyways, this camp is nothing special. It’s just an open area where people share sites and pack in as many tents as the park will allow. The bathroom isn’t great, the youngsters can get loud at night with their drum circles, but the location and price are unbeatable.
Where the search and rescue crews live. They live next to Camp 4.
Sleeping in the backpacking tent. There is no place to sleep in the rooftop tent at Camp 4. The parking lot is across the street and all your gear has to be walked over.Our water station.
Outlets in the bathroom are for charging phones. We’ll stick to our Goal Zero Battery.Yikes… but this late in the season they’re mostly sleeping.Dinner Time! Mac and Cheese!
Full moon lighting.
The Next Day!
Hopping on a shuttle to our trailhead.Not too crowded.Starting our hike.
Dreary day, but look at the granite rock surrounding us!
🙂The lake is usually dried up by this time year, but heavy rains in the spring have left a little bit of water behind.Oh those fall colors!Hey Laura 🙂Think she likes it here?That’s a lot of Cairns!The famous Half Dome in the background.
Even ferns change colors.
Cool rock!Mushrooms!Bug trailsAnd on a leaf.TexturesTaking a breakMushrooms!
The rock walls surrounding us are incredible!
The last of summer blooms.Feet in the leaves.Whoah! Giant Maple Leaf!Couldn’t decide which one we liked. So here’s another shot.Monkey!
Camrin likes to study plants.The clouds parted for a brief moment letting the sun light up the side the rock wall Somewhere behind those clouds is Half Dome.WOW!Pine!
Making our way back to our campsite.Pinecone!Beaver marks.It rained a little bit. It was such a dry year we’ve barely had to wear our rain gear this year.Camrin kicking the rain away.It looks to be clearing.Nice work!Laura!!!! ;p Guess Laura didn’t want her picture taken.Hooray! Blue Skies. Just in time for sunset.Stopped by tourists blocking the bridge. Typical!
Here comes the sun.Golden
Portrait Time!
Work it… work it… You’re gorgeous darling!
Ooh yeah, cliché sun rays… love it!
Then a couple of deer ran by. Laura was too slow with her camera, but this still makes for a cool photo.
The Next Day!
Extending our stay. To stay at Camp 4 you have to be at the little office nearby at 8 am and have cash. Laura was smart and brought her coffee over while we waited in line.Back to exploring!
Action shot!El Capitan! 3,200 feet of a granite rock face!
Golden
We passed by a guy with binoculars. We asked if he could see any rock climbers. He pointed us to a tiny perch where there were about 4 climbers. The red circle is where the climbers are. Here are a couple of photos to show the scale of this rock.
Laura got out her longest lens. 70-200mm. This image is zoomed into 200%. Can you see the hanging tents? It can take a decent climber 2 to 3 days to complete some of the ascents on El Capitan.
Camrin wants to get closer to El Capitan. We had to scramble up a boulder field and passed by this huge buck.One of Camrin’s bucket list items was touching the side of El Capitan. Mission Accomplished!Want to start rock climbing? Nah, we can’t afford to.
Looks like some other people are climbing.Long way up!
Let’s scramble higher!Another buck!Found some Cairns.
Oh Wow!Careful Camrin
Time to scramble back down.Back on the valley floor, we found remnants of a recent rock fall. Every once and awhile part of the granite rock wall breaks away. It’s usually not a big deal. However, the summer of 2017 had a massive rock fall that killed a rock climber.Clear afternoon. Half Dome in the middle.Chicken of the Woods!! Wish we could pick it.Pretty leaf.Nice one!
Walking over to Yosemite Falls. The falls are just a trickle at this time of year.Big crowd at the Falls.
Walking over to Yosemite Village. Massive Ravens hang out nearby.
Amazing shop! They sell original prints by Ansel Adams. Wish I had $32,000 dollars for one.😉 HaHere come the clouds again.
Back at camp. Our neighbor’s tent city.Camrin, you look hungry.Time to get our food out of bear locker storage.Just like that the sun set. We forgot daylight savings ended and the sun set on us at 4:30 pm.Good night to have a fire.
The Next Day!
A new day a new hike. Only 1.5 miles to the top of Vernal Falls. That sounds easy.We quickly realized the 1.5 miles was going to take us a while. The elevation gain on this trail is insane!!The views are nice.Ooh… Pretty!Vernal Falls.
These rock stairs! There’s about a mile of them!
The last stretch is a bit precarious.
Ominous warning.We’re out of breath, but we made it to the top of the Falls.It’s a long way down. Can you see the trail on the left side?Time for a picnic.Nearby our picnic site.And Mushrooms!Headed back down.And down.One last view of the fall.
Yay! We love this place!
Stopping by The Majestic Yosemite Hotel.Checking out the bar menu. Nope! Nothing under $9.Cool fireplace.
WOW! Sweet dining room!
Time to pack up and head out!
Ew!It’s too cold for us. Time to head South.
Tunnel View!
The tunnel.
On our way to our campsite for the night, we came across a very recently burned forest.Dang it! This is where we were planning to camp for the night.At least we saw a small space just off the road a mile back.It was a below freezing night. Our toothpaste froze. We stuck it on our stove while we made breakfast.
Even the water in our jog partially froze.
With the unpredictable threat of snow in the higher elevations and the freezing temperatures, it’s time to head South. Up next… Joshua Tree National Park! Thanks for reading our blog!
