Me, I'm a wimp. I'm afraid of heights and the bit of the trail where you need to use the wire hand rails, especially on the way down, is a bit more than I want to deal with. So I'll be the support team, carrying water water up the to the point were the march to the summit begins.
The first landmark along the trail is the bridge with the view of Vernal Fall.
That's Vernal Fall in the distance. It doesn't look all that high up, but it is. After hiking a couple of miles you get to climb over six hundred steps. That's a lot of steps.
But if this girl could do it, I was sure we could.
Although I think she just went to the bridge and back. Still, three plus miles in a boot is none too shabby.
The mist trail is named such because it is quite wet when the water is flowing. And in May when we were there it was flowing. And it felt refreshing as we climbed up and up in the heat. We were soaked.
Just below the fall we were treated to this view. And I thought we were finished with the stairs.
I was wrong. There were still plenty of stairs to go. And we kept climbing. And further up we were treated to a double rainbow.
Onward and upward until we reached our initial goal for the day, the top of Vernal Fall. Where we were greeted by steller's jays ...
.. and California ground squirrels..
Both of which knew that people meant food.
Our initial plan was to stop at Vernal Fall and head back down. But felling good we decided to go a bit further. We were up there so why not? We met some folks on their way back down who told us it was a nice hike and we would enjoy it. So we decided to keep on going. And it was a nice hike. Except for the last hundred meters or so ...
But we made it to the top. And the view was, as they say, spectacular.
This is Nevada Fall, 2000 feet above where we started. And half way to the summit of Half Done.
The falls was raging.
And despite my fear I leaned over the rail to get this shot:
Which was pretty much looking straight down.
We had planned to head back down the Mist Trail, but were advised to take the John Muir Trail instead, a much easier trail going down, no steps. It was the right choice.
We got great views of the falls without ...
... and with Half Dome in the distance.
There were flowers along the trail.
And views of other falls around the valley. Yosemite Fall,
and Illilouette Fall.
It was a long strenuous hike in an absolutely gorgeous setting on a perfect day. I can't wait to get back.
1 comment:
Beautiful pictures.
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