Yosemite National Park

In the US, I want to hike to two places. One is Half Dome in Yosemite National Park and Angel's Landing in Zion National park, both are strenuous hikes. I really wish to hike them some day.

There are many places to visit in the park, including Half dome, El Capitan, Verna Falls, Tunnel View, Glacier Point, Yosemite Falls, Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls, Mirror Lake, Bridalveil Fall and Tuolumne Meadows.  El Capitan, most people do rock climbing on this giant rock. Another beauty to see is, the glowing camping tents on the side of El Capitan and the stars at night.

I have visited this place as a solo before, an unforgettable journey, I was stranded on the Half Dome hike due to leg cramps, and helped by a person who heard about me from others, and hiked down for 8mile at night with headlamps and stars. I decided, that if I want to hike half dome again, I will have to prepar for it. Before leaving the US, I visited the park again but this time with family. We went in December so we were able to book the hotel inside the park. There are few hotels inside the park, and even though they are costly but worth it. We can avoid journeys from outside to the park by staying hotels inside the park.

We started around noon from home(Hillsboro, Oregon), it's a close to 13 hrs journey to the park so we decided to stay in Redding for the night. We started early the next day morning so we can reach the park by noon. Before reaching the park, we reached a hill area that has a lot of turns, the valley is so beautiful, but we couldn't find the best spot to stop and see the valley.  We reached the park by noon, and we checked in at Yosemite valley lodge.

We got fresh up and went for drive around the park. As it's was going to be sunset, we want to go to the glacier viewpoint to see the Half dome. In between, we stopped at the tunnel viewpoint, took a couple of photos, and then went to the Glacier viewpoint. The crowd was less, so we got parking easily, we parked the car and walked for 5mins to reach the viewpoint. We could see the Half dome, Glacier mountains, Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls, Yosemite Falls, and the valley.

During the sunset, the colors on the half dome were so beautiful. I don't have words to express my feeling at that time. We stayed for 45mins, as it is winter, the sunset was early so we headed back to the hotel. We had dinner in the restaurant next to the lodge. Another amazing thing about the park is, that the valley is surrounded by mountains so it's beautiful during the night with all the stars. We went to tunnel view point to take photos of the milky way along with the stars, we stayed there for 30mins, took photos, and then came back to the lodge.

The next day morning, we decided to go to mirror lake, which is 5 miles round-trip hike. It's a moderate hike, we parked the car 1 mile from the nature camp and then started walking. There is a bridge near the nature camp, after crossing the bridge, the left side will go to mirror lake and the right side go to Half dome along with Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls. During summer, buses are operated till 1 mile before mirror lake. When we reached the lake, I couldn't see the view I want to see of the mountains, it's on the other side of the lake. We couldn't cross the lake so took a couple of pictures of the other mountain's reflection. We saw a Bobcat on the other side of the lake walking on the road. I tried to take pictures but it went inside the woods. There are warning signs about Cougar, so we decided to walk on the bus route back to car parking.

In the evening, we went to visit the Lower Yosemite waterfall which is a mile from the lodge, we can see falls from the lodge. People do hike to the upper Yosemite waterfall, it is a strenuous hike. We stayed there for 15mins and headed back to the lodge. On the next day, we headed back home with a lot of memories.

A lot of people visit the park during February month to see the waterfalls on the El Capitan glowing as lava at sunset. The waterfall was dried up in December so we couldn't see it. There are many places to visit in the park, some of them required hikes, and some required to go on another side of the park.  The best time to visit the park is in the summer for people who want to do hikes and see wildlife. For people to enjoy the snow, they can visit in winter but most of the places are closed during the winter.  

We will visit again to see the lava waterfall and hike the Half dome.