After a relaxing night at Lake Millerton we headed towards Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park includes nearly 1,200 square miles of mountainous scenery, including high cliffs, deep valleys, tall waterfalls, ancient giant sequoias, and a large wilderness. What else could you wish for?
Upon arrival we strolled through Yosemite Valley to get a first impression and gather information for the upcoming days.
Thank’s to two famous films, this is probably the most famous mountain in Yosemite. The 914m high rock formation is called El Capitan and highly popular among climbers.
Can you imagine climbing this wall? But people do, they really do…
Talking to the friendly people who volunteer at the visitor centre we found out that Glacier road was closed due to maintenance and therefore you cannot hike to Glacier point and take the Shuttle back down but must either return or continue on.
We decided in favour of the latter, and hiked to Glacier Point via Four Mile Trail and then combined it with the Panorama Trail which starts at Glacier Point as well as the Mist Trail. 24 km in total and 1300 m elevation gain but totally worth every step of it as we saw 4 waterfalls and basically the whole valley and the most beautiful landscape you can imagine along the way. You can also see Half Dome from several different perspectives. Truly a hike that couldn’t be richer in variety. 🤩
The falls are commonly said to consist of three parts, but actually are made up of five distinct plunges and one section of cascades.
Mountains and valleys as far as the eye can see ⛰️
Up to then probably the most stunning landscape we’ve ever seen 😯
Almost at the end of the trail this beautiful bird that we had already seen several times but had never managed to shoot a picture of suddenly appeared and posed for pics. 🐦
After this strenuous but awesome day we did take it a little easier the next day. But only a little. 😂 We hiked to the top of the Upper Yosemite Falls, which featured another 930m elevation.
Yosemite Falls is the tallest waterfall in the state of California, dropping a total of 2,425 feet (740m).
Unfortunately Yosemite National Park is quite wildfire-prone and about a month after we left, a huge fire threatened 500 giant sequoia trees in Mariposa Grove, and forced people to evacuate Yosemite’s Wawona campground. 😢
Ines & Oliver on Tour 