Yosemite NP

08/21/09 -
We drove into Yosemite from the east and drove down Tioga Road to Tuolumne Meadows. We first hiked up Lembert Dome, which was a little difficult but entirely rewarding. The view was great. From there we hiked to Elizabeth Lake. At one point we deviated from the actual trail and found ourselves along a river and I took advantage of a pool of water along the way. Nothai didn’t, but we found another a bit down the path that he jumped in, along with a bunch of others. Elizabeth Lake was also beautiful. I got pretty sunburned today, although I put sun block on my face I thought I wouldn’t burn because I am already so tanned. Bad theory, clearly!

08/22/09 -
We started today driving into the north Hetch Hetchy area that is supposed to have several waterfalls. This is were we learned that the waterfalls that Yosemite is so known for generally only flow in the spring when snow is still melting and by June have usually run dry. On our visit, everything was dry. The falls were a bust, so we headed down to the Glacier Point area and hiked Taft point and Sentinal Dome. It started raining along the way, but the views here were amazing as well. This was a great way to see down into the Valley.

08/23/09 -
We headed to Mariposa Grove where we saw the giant sequoias. This was incredible - trees bigger than some houses! We were able to get a ranger lead tour so we got a lot of information about these interesting trees. We hiked further into the grove and got lots of great pictures. We decided to drive through the valley even though we were certain it would be bad. The main attraction of the valley is that is where all the waterfalls come down and join the river. The river was even almost all dried up. We headed out of Yosemite to the east again so we could do errands in the morning.