Adventures In Public Transport - Day 8 - Yosemite

[Disney Wishing]

Day 8 - Yosemite

We woke this morning to the sound of a Stella Jay on our balcony:

After getting ready we headed out to breakfast in the food court. Good selection of items and excellent strong coffee. The food court had huge windows looking out to the trees.

The plan for the morning was to do part of the mist trail so we caught the free shuttle over to stop 16 which is the start of the trail. The first part of the trail was very pretty running along the side of the river. Then we started to go up & up, past some amazing rocks on a paved path that was shady at this time of the morning. We stopped at a mini outlook for some photos before going up & up some more.

By now it was around 10am and the path had broke out into the sun. DS was feeling a bit grumpy about the heat so in the end we decided not to head up any further and instead headed back down for a wander around the Happy Isles and visited the air conditioned nature centre which cheered him up. I think we must have stopped somewhere just before the Vernal footbridge. The centre was really good and had examples of all the different birds, animals and trees in the valley plus a display of all the thing you hear at night.

As it was approaching lunchtime we decided to catch the shuttle back as far as the village. We headed into Degan’s Deli and picked up some sandwiches ($7.50 each). These were excellent, don't be put off by the queue it moves really quickly. We also called by the visitor centre to fill our water bottles at the station. As it was now really hot we decided a swim was in order so we headed back to the room and changed into swim stuff.

The pool was huge and surround by lovely trees and the amazing granite cliffs. After cooling off for an hour or two we headed back to get changed as we were booked on the 5.30pm valley floor tour.

The Valley Floor tour leaves from the front of the lodge so it was a quick 2 minute walk from our room to meet it. The tour is lead by a park ranger on a big open air truck. I had picked this time of day so as it would be cooler and so we would get the benefit of the evening light on the cliffs. The tour basically does a big loop of the valley floor. You get all sorts of information along the way and the ranger is happy to answer questions. First pull in was El Capitan:

We then had a stop off at Valley View where we could get off the truck for a bit:

Then we headed up out the valley a bit to visit Tunnel View where we had around a 15min stop. It looked just like in had in all the beautiful picture i’d seen before we went, it felt unreal to be seeing it in person.

From here we went back into the valley past Bridleveil Falls and some of the meadows before heading toward Half Dome & Royal Arches:

Then we curve back past the Merced River looking out for wildlife before making our way back to the lodge. Really great tour, definitely recommended.

From here we headed to grab some food in the food court again before heading to bed. DS had ask me to wake him to watch the meteor shower so after sleeping for a bit we got up at 2am to watch. I even got a bit braver this time as headed out along the main path a bit for a more open view. We stayed up for about an hour watching the shooting stars before heading back to bed.

Just a note for anyone travelling in August that although it was really hot in the middle of the day (around 33 degrees) it was cold at night, we needed jeans and hoodies on.

[Pussycat Doll]

Lovely day, fabulous photos! Pussycat

[tocpe321]

Great photos. Thanks. Definitely want to do Yosemite. Interesting re August temperature.

[smedley]

How did you book the valley floor tour? It definitely looks like something we would want to do

[Disney Wishing]

Originally Posted by smedley

How did you book the valley floor tour? It definitely looks like something we would want to do

See more...

We booked on the main website: travelyosemite
If you click check rates you get a drop down menu. The tours are lower list the after the hotels.

[Guest]

Your lad just looks so happy all the time. You can tell he is enjoying every moment. Yosemite - just so, so stunning and beautiful.

[jocat]

Wow, what fantastic photos. The views are just stunning.