The Valley
HOLY CRAP!
Have you ever been somewhere where the pictures you have seen of the place just don't do it justice? I swear I never have. Pictures have always seemed to make some things look better than they are for me. But not in Yosemite Valley. It is amazing. The place is just HUGE!!! There are waterfalls all over the place and mountainous slabs of granite that make up El Capitan and Half Dome. It is really cool. We hiked up to a "vista point" for Bridalveil Falls and you could feel the spray from it... it felt like rain sometimes. It was great. We also "hiked" up to a lake called Mirror Lake, which was supposed to give you a great reflection of Half Dome, but since it is summer, it wasn't much of a lake anymore. Apparently it is really nice in winter and spring. Of course we visited the gift shop as well and bought fun stuff. All of this acivity took longer than expected and we went right back to the hotel instead of going through the rest of the park like we had planned. If you ever go to Yosemite, definitely plan to spend at least three days there. One day is definitely not enough to do much more than Yosemite Valley, and there is a lot more there.
Have you ever been somewhere where the pictures you have seen of the place just don't do it justice? I swear I never have. Pictures have always seemed to make some things look better than they are for me. But not in Yosemite Valley. It is amazing. The place is just HUGE!!! There are waterfalls all over the place and mountainous slabs of granite that make up El Capitan and Half Dome. It is really cool. We hiked up to a "vista point" for Bridalveil Falls and you could feel the spray from it... it felt like rain sometimes. It was great. We also "hiked" up to a lake called Mirror Lake, which was supposed to give you a great reflection of Half Dome, but since it is summer, it wasn't much of a lake anymore. Apparently it is really nice in winter and spring. Of course we visited the gift shop as well and bought fun stuff. All of this acivity took longer than expected and we went right back to the hotel instead of going through the rest of the park like we had planned. If you ever go to Yosemite, definitely plan to spend at least three days there. One day is definitely not enough to do much more than Yosemite Valley, and there is a lot more there.