Yosemite

tldr; closer look at how insane Alex Honnold is.

After our restful week in San Jose, we headed to a much anticipated location on our route, Yosemite! Like Zion, Yosemite is one of the most popular national parks and requires reservations. Luckily we managed to get a bus pass to enter the park on Saturday. The previous week we’d also applied to a lottery system in an attempt to get a tent site at Camp 4 and a pass to hike Half Dome. No luck on the lotteries this time but we’ll go back someday when we can plan ahead a bit more for camping and hiking half dome.

We loved the bus ride in to Yosemite on Saturday morning. It took away all of the stress of driving in a busy national park and gave us incredible views of Yosemite Falls, El Capitan, and Half Dome. It was so cool to see these iconic walls where climbing history has been made for decades.

We headed straight to hike to Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls once we hopped off the bus. It was a beautiful ~7-mile loop hike with two huge waterfalls, full rainbows, towering pine trees, and expansive views down into Yosemite Valley and the back of Half Dome. From the top of Nevada Falls we sat (safely behind a fence) and poked our feet out under the fence to watch them dangle with the waterfall and the valley far below.

After our hike, we found a spot by the river for our PB&H lunches and then found a nice bench for Choi to take a power nap. Rested up, we walked along a path from Curry Village over to Yosemite Valley. We followed this path along campsites and across a bridge where we saw tons of families laying out on a beach along the river. It looked so relaxing!

In Yosemite Valley, we had incredible views of the bright green meadow with Half Dome and Yosemite Falls towering overhead. Once we got back to Yosemite Valley, we were worn out from all the walking and sunshine and hopped on a bus back to our van (nap #2 for Choi).

Yosemite, we loved your towering and iconic cliff walls, rushing waterfalls, and we’ll be back to explore your camping and climbing. Along We Go!