Day 3 – March 12, 2019 (Tuesday)
Today was so fun. We
left Kings Canyon around 7:30 am and drove to Yosemite, entering from the south
entrance on Hwy 41. We drove about 25
miles, went through a long tunnel and came out the other side in heaven. Coming out of the tunnel, we were staring at
El Capitan on the left and Bridalveil Fall on the right. It was truly amazing.
We drove just a bit on Southside Drive (towards Yosemite
Valley Visitor Center) and stopped in front of Bridalveil Fall and took a short
and very icy walk to the viewing area – and I mean really icy – so icy that we
couldn’t get all the way to the railing.
People were slipping and sliding everywhere and the sound of the falls
was unbelievable. It was so loud that it
sounded like chunks of rocks were breaking off and crashing.
From there we continued towards the visitor center and
stopped at Swinging Bridge for a picnic lunch.
We were eating sandwiches and sitting at a picnic table and had been
there for a really long time when I turned around and said, oh look there’s
another water fall. At which point one
of the kids said, “look up”. And yes,
Yosemite Fall was in full view, both the upper and lower. We intended to next drove over to the trail
head of the Mist Trail so that we could hike to Vernal Fall. But the road past Half Dome Village was
closed for tree clearing – it may be back open tomorrow. So we went to the visitor center, got our
required things, watched a short film on Yosemite in the theater behind the
visitor center, then hiked the Lower Yosemite Fall Trail.
Ryan then decided that we needed to hike the entire Fall
tomorrow – 3,000 feet up in 3 miles. The
only problem is we don’t have traction control for our shoes and that’s
apparently required to get past the ice.
The Lower Yosemite Fall Trail as fun and easy and the kids and Nick got
a little bit farther up than I.
Next, we went to the camp store to see about buying crampons
but they were sold out so we got shirts/sweatshirts, etc. and began the drive
to our lodge. We drove on Northside
Drive up to Hwy 120 – we’re staying near the Hech Hechy area of the park – and
pulled into our unbelievably amazing Rush Creek Lodge. We’re in a Villa 3D which includes a king bed
for us and a separate bedroom with two twin beds for the kids. The place is spectacular but literally in the
middle of nowhere. There’s nothing else
around and when the sun goes now, it’s DARK.
We ate a stove meal in our room, tried to buy crampons off
of Amazon Prime (with no luck) then went down to the firepit for smores,
swimming and hot tubbing.
We met a
couple from Dallas who live in Lakewood.
Ryan dove into the heated pool and swam a bit (heated to 80 degrees) –
it’s about 40 degrees outside. Then we
went into the game room and played fuseball, pool, etc.
This place is truly amazing.
There are no tvs in the room but each room has games. I love it here and so does the rest of the
fam.
We did learn today that you can downhill ski and snowboard
here. And coincidentally, it’s also the
only area of the park where we might be able to find some decent traction
control for our shoes. We’re going to
head over to that area of the park in the morning and see what we can come up
with. We’ll let the kids ski for the
first part of the day then we’ll try to work in some more hiking. If we can find the crampons we’ll hike the
full Yosemite Fall on Thursday. It will
be an adventure for sure.
I don’t think I’ve been here long enough to say it yet but
this just might be my new favorite national park. It’s spectacular. Thank you John Muir.
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