The Grand Tour...Day 5 Yosemite!

[charly77]

Not a bad night, up twice for the bathroom, we decided we’d go in pairs as it was quite daunting being in a new place. I was absolutely gutted I had missed the stars last night as that’s one of the main reasons I wanted to visit Yosemite, however we had the Stargazing Tour booked for tonight. I will stay awake, I will!

We were all up by 7am, we opened the door and took in the smells and sounds of our new surroundings which was fab! Whilst the kids came round DH and I headed off for coffee, we treated the kids to a maple pecan Danish, I was good and had fruit!

This is when I express that hindsight is a wonderful thing…

So we decided yesterday we were going to hike up to Glacier Point today. We asked the employees in Yosemite for their advice and they all said it’ll be fine as long as we go early and even informed us how to get to the starting point of the ‘Four Mile Hike’ (remember this! )

We leave by 7.45 after packing lots of water, cooling spray (complete godsend) trail mix (amazing!) and cooling towels (another godsend). We catch the free shuttle to stop number 7 and walk over Swinging Bridge to start our hike. The views of the valley floor were amazing and we had a great view up to Glacier Point. I’ll add that the walk from the shuttle stop to here was almost a mile, that’s before we even started the hike.

It was all very shaded which made it nice and cool, there wasn’t a path to follow as such but it was fairly obvious which way we were to go. It was a very gradual incline to start with so initially we took a leisurely stroll. After a while it really started to warm up and the ‘pathway’ was less shaded and we began to feel it, DD was really struggling. We kept stopping for water and mouthful of trail mix but the incline was a lot steeper than we thought and the trail wasn’t exactly friendly. We had been climbing for a good two and a half hours, it looked like we were near the top but yet meeting hikers on their way down said we had at least another mile to go and that it was really tough going.

We kept going as much as we could however the thin air was now really affecting DS’s asthma and he was struggling to catch his breath. We found a shaded area where we were able to rest so DS could take his inhaler. Whilst we were there another hiker came down and told us it was at least an hour and a half to the top! It was here that we decided we had all done so well to get this far but without any phone signal or a way of calling emergency services it was best we head back down, just in case. We were absolutely gutted.

Anyhow we headed back down which was when we actually realised how steep the incline was, coming down was as difficult as going up! The trail-mix was so good and it really helped by giving us a little energy boost. We spotted lots of wildlife on the way down, caterpillars, birds, chipmunks, butterflies, lizards and there slithering across the makeshift pathway was a b****y rattlesnake! DS almost trod on it! If the asthma didn’t get him…! Honestly, it was breathtakingly amazing to see something like that in its natural habitat but jees it was also very scary!

We eventually reached the bottom of the hike after climbing/declining for almost 5 hours. The temperature was a scorching 105 degrees! I checked the pedometer we had walked a total of 6.8 miles and we hadn’t even reached the top! So I cannot believe it was a four mile hike! Had we have been able to look into the future we wouldn’t have attempted this hike as we did feel a little bit disappointed that we failed and wished we had tried something a little less strenuous. Anyway rant over…we hobbled over to the Swinging Bridge and chilled for a while, the kids tipped their toes in the Merced River watching people going by in their rubber rings! Again gorgeous views, much better than I ever imagined they would be and I hope we never forget them.

We took the shuttle back to Half Dome Village and showered to freshen up, we then chilled out for a while and rested our weary feet. We ate at The Deli, I had a chicken Caesar salad and the others had a pulled pork burger, it came to $57 with drinks.

As we had some time to kill we caught the shuttle to Mirror Lake, what we didn’t realise is that the Lake was about a mile from the shuttle stop! It was a nice flat walk but rather dusty and I wore flip flops! However the views again were stunning and we got some lovely photos. I’m really glad we saw it, even though my feet were filthy by the end of it!

From here we walked back to Half Dome as we obviously haven’t done enough walking today! On our way back we discussed going to the top of Glacier Point tomorrow by car as were all upset we didn’t make it up there to witness the views, call us stupid but we decided to all get up at 4.30am and get up there for sunrise…

Back to the village we packed up so we could make a quick exit in the morning. We then collected the car and drove up to Shuttle stop 6 as this is where we were meeting for the ‘Starry Night Tour’. The shuttles stopped running before the end of the tour which is why we had to drive and park. It was here that we witnessed sunset over Half Dome which was beautiful to see especially the changing colours on the rock face.

We meet up with our tour group and we head into the Elementary School playing field, yes there is a school in Yosemite and no we didn’t know this either! Apparently the High School is a 2 hour bus ride away! As there is no external lighting we needed torches to guide us. There was tarpaulin laid out already so we got comfortable on that, I was a bit worried about laying down as I didn’t want to fall asleep! Our guide was fantastic, he explained how his love of astronomy began from when he was a young boy. He was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic, we learnt a lot from him.

Did you know that a shooting star is only actually the size of a grain of sand, it hits the Earth’s atmosphere at 26,000mph which makes the gases around it ignite, and this is why it is visible to the human eye? I think we saw at least three shooting stars as well as many constellations which were crystal clear. We thoroughly enjoyed this and are pleased we booked ourselves onto it.


Steps Walked; 24,507

Floors climbed; 345! Those inclines were accounted for!

*Tip of the Day…Don’t expect things to always go to plan and if you’re planning on hikes in the heat invest in cooling spray and cooling towels*

[jocat]

Your photos are fab and the views are simply stunning!

It's a shame you didn't get to the top of Glacier Point today but your son obviously comes first. I think we might be having transport to the top when we go, especially in that heat!

The starry night tour sounds lovely. Have never heard about that before.

[tocpe321]

Brilliant day. Great photos. Think I'll avoid the hike to Glacier Point.

[abiknox]

Gosh that hike sounds crazy hard! We did a relatively easy one upto one of the falls & that nearly killed me at points!

Love that you wore flip flops after seeing a rattlesnake!

[Jake71]

Some serious hiking, well done for getting so far. Love the wildlife photos and the stargazing sounds amazing.

[JudyC]

You did well with the hike. We've done it and it is pretty challenging. It's 4.5 miles up then the same back down, so 9 miles of steep trail. That's before you've walked to the start of the trail. Sounds like you had a great day though.

[WileyCoyote]

Wow , more incredible pics. My goodness , that climb !
And a bit too much wildlife there for me - snakes , eek

[k4ti3-x]

We also attempted a hike in Yosemite that was '2 miles' about 4 hours later scaling a cliff I wasn't impressed! The starry sky tour sounds great though.

[hross42877]

A lot of walking! It looks so beautiful!