Yosemite Camping Trip

We camped in Yosemite for a week. We were on the valley floor in the Lower Pines campground. Our site was right next to the bathrooms. That was good and bad. Good, because when it was needed, it was close. Bad because the lights stay on and it never really got dark in our tent. We had many, many people ask about our tent. We even gave little tours! It was very popular.




The weather was terrific. 90's during the day, mid 60's in the evenings.

Our first day we took it easy. We hiked/biked to Mirror Lake. We only made it to the lower lagoon, that's where the kids stripped off their shoes and they were in the water.


Matt's Ipod actually found our location at Curry Village.


We saw lots of wild life.


Sarah caught some baby fish.



A few unwanted June Bugs that fly drunk and can't land on a dime... came into the tent at night.


This pic was taken by our exchange student Noriyasu.

Every night, there was a bear in camp... but we never saw it. This is as close as we got... bear scat.


A view of Half Dome at sunset.


Our view of Glacier Point from our picnic table at camp.


Kids in the Merced River with Half Dome in the background.


Matt relaxing with his travel bar.


El Capitan


Here is my camp kitchen. I converted my scrapbooking case to hold all the camp kitchen stuff. It worked really well!


Breakfast on the stove. I precooked the bacon and hashbrowns, so all I had to do was heat them up!


Yummy!


On Monday we drove up to Glacier Point.
We made a quick stop at the Wawona Tunnel.


Here is a panorama shot from Glacier Point.


Matt and Noriyasu with Half Dome.


Snow to the south of Half Dome.


WOW, look there are people on the top of that rock over there!



A view from Glacier Point down at our campsite. I put markers where our food locker, table, and the red car were located. Click on the pics for a larger version.



Noriyasu at Glacier Point.


Matt drove back to camp and played in the river with Ben, Emma, and Brandon. Shannon, Sarah, and Noriyasu took the Four-Mile hike from Glacier Point (elevation 7214ft) down to the valley floor (4000ft). It is 4.8 miles and took us 4.5 hours. It was a 3200 foot drop in elevation when we arrived on the valley floor. About 3 miles into the hike, Shannon slipped and twisted her ankle... She got up to fast and promptly passed out. At that point we were at 5387 feet. A family stopped to help. Shannon is fine, just a sore ankle and sore knees. She thought going down would be easier than going up....

Here are some pics of our hike down.



This is one of the Three Brothers (lt) and El Capitan (rt).




At the river, Ben found a watermelon floating... so he grabbed and kept it.


Ah, a nice relaxing campfire.


A panorama for the granite walls.


The kids really liked playing in the river.


Here's a short cut that Ben found to go to Curry Village. It was this cool wood walkway. Brandon called Curry Village 'Crazy Village.'


On Wednesday we took it easy. We went to Yosemite Falls. It was still flowing, but very little. The kids again stripped off their shoes and were in the water! Sarah made rock people (about 15 of them).





Then we checked out the Ahwahnee Hotel. Here are the kids in one of the balconies in the Sun Room that looks out at Glacier Point.


We also went to Happy Isles and the weather actually turned... We hoped for a thunderstorm, but it was just clouds.




We decided to check out the buffet at Curry Village for dinner. It was an All-You-Can-Eat thing... Kids got their fill of goodies. Here is Brandon with the Bear outside the buffet.


Thursday, we went to Mariposa Grove to see the Big Trees and Wawona Pioneer Village where we saw a blacksmith demonstration.

Here is Brandon with the Grizzly Giant.



The blacksmither.