Yosemite Day 2 Part 2
July 19, 2016
Look at that madman…he’s literally at the edge of the cliff there, right where the waterfall begins. One wrong step and he’s done for. All for a photograph.
To illustrate the point, he’s below this pool. Holy cow. My heart starts beating faster just thinking about it. Thankfully the rock is super rough around here and the grip is pretty great. Still, that guy has some cahones.
After hiking a bit around the edge of the cliff, we followed the river up towards the main trail, where the bridge in this photo is. We paused here to soak our feet and eat sandwiches we brought.
The water is super clear, just like at that lake. And there’s some pretty good sized trout hanging out in these pools.
Obviously lots of swimming. I bet this place gets packed when there’s more water. Not a bad spot – thinking back on the bachelor party, this probably a pretty great place to camp for the night. We need permits next time.
After resting for about an hour, we decide to finish the extra mile to Yosemite Point. So. More climbing. It’s not as steep now that we’re up here, but there’s still some elevation to gain.
Nearing Yosemite Point.
That’s a pretty big tree to have lost its grip on the rock.
We caught up to the bachelor party again. Love this idea so, so much.
Yosemite Point.
No one is up here! Hell yeah! Finally, some peace away from the crowds. Another sturdy fence too.
I could sit up here all day and enjoy the view.
We explored the top a bit. I felt like a little kid up here, running around and picking out higher and higher points to look off of.
Gonna climb that and walk to the edge.
JA eventually follows.
It had a pretty neat view.
Someone camped here recently. Those are the leftovers of a fire. A pretty neat spot, but I bet it gets really windy.
It’s getting late and our legs are pretty worn out. But we’ve recovered well enough to start heading back down.
Getting pretty filthy. You can’t see in this pic, but my actual skin tone is a lot lighter under all that dirt.
Quit taking pictures and come on! Four miles of descent…should be easier than heading up, right?
Cool little lizard hanging out on the trail.
Heading down all the torturous switchbacks. I think I hate switchbacks at this point. And no, going down was not easier than up. Faster, sure, but my legs are starting to twitch.
Not sure what those trees are, but the bark is red and they’re pretty damn cool.
Descending back into the Valley. The sand here does not help at all. It probably stops us from sliding down rock, but it’s hard to move through because it’s deep, and makes the going slow. I’ve never known going down to be this hard. My legs are ready to give out, but we’ve still got so far to go.
Obviously some people think it’s better to just ignore the trail. I can’t say that I really blame them…but at the same time, just stay on the damn trail and quit ruining things for future generations.
And we’re at the bottom! I don’t know why I thought this was amusing when I took it. I think I was delirious. Ending that hike was challenging. My legs felt like jello and didn’t want to work. We took our time getting back into the car. We had originally planned on going back to the lake we were at yesterday to soak and let the cold water help our legs in recovery, but there’s no way we’re going to last that 1-2 hour drive back there. Thankfully, there’s a river that winds through the bottom of the Valley and we’re not far from that.
This is where we ended. Both of us pretty much crawled into the water and sat there, enjoying the cold and washing off some of the dirt we accumulated. Lots of folks were swimming and enjoying the river. It was pretty nice. We were done though. So done, in fact, that we decided to brave the Valley tourist restaurants for dinner instead of going back to the campsite to cook for ourselves. After drying off, we found temp parking, got pizza, ate, and then kept each other awake on the ride back to our tent.