Vernal Falls & Mirror Lake

 Hi all,

Last night we bought pizza for dinner at our camp. I promise I’ll stop talking about the exchange rate soon, but bloody hell it’s terrible. One medium pizza for us to share cost us $45 Australian. We kept laughing that that was $7.50 a slice! Lucky our cheap lunch evened it out, and the pizza was delicious!

We slept a little better last night. However, now that the valley has had a couple of warmer days, we kept hearing landslide type noises and cracking noises. These must be snow falling off rock faces etc. We woke up all ok though and no one here seems alarmed!

This morning we got ready and then set off on a hike. After seeing a black bear in the distance from our car yesterday, we were a little less confident walking today! Any time we would get to an isolated stretch of track we would talk very loudly just in case. It was really sunny again today so we could picture a bear thinking he or she might head out for some sun after a long winter!

But, we walked for over three hours and 10km and the only wildlife we saw were grey squirrels and brown squirrels. We also saw lots of dogs. Over here people are allowed to bring their dogs to national parks. It seems to work pretty well with people keeping them on a lead and cleaning up after them. Some trails have a certain point you can’t go past with a dog. 

The first part of our walk was to Happy Isles, a couple of tiny islands in the Merced River. They were very snowy. We read about the 1997 floods here and could see how high the water was. It’s no wonder the valley was closed for 2.5 months at this time! Then we crossed the bridge to the other side of the river and headed towards Vernal Falls. There were enough people on this trail to keep bears away, but not so many that it was annoying. It was a good balance. It was fairly uphill for a while and we enjoyed lots of dramatic cliff faces and many little waterfalls that the collision of recent snow and sunny days had created. 

Unfortunately the path got very snowy 0.3 miles (0.5km) from Vernal Falls and was closed, but we enjoyed a view of the waterfall from a nearby bridge. We turned back and then started on the Mirror Lake trail. 

Parts of this trail were quite wet and isolated. We stopped and ate part of our lunch on a bridge and then continued on. Eventually we arrived at Mirror Lake. In the gorgeous sunshine the reflection on the lake was very impressive, with the Half Dome looming above. We paused for a moment and I saw a huge section of snow fall off the dome, and about 10 seconds later we heard an almighty crash. We were glad we were far away!

We sat down for a while and ate our lunch. The view was lovely, and some nearby signs told us about the lake’s history. Apparently in the late 1800s the ice in the lake was used to store food. It was also dredged until the 1970s to lay soil on icy roads. 

Then we continued on and walked back a slightly different way to camp. We enjoyed some more beautiful views along the way, before stopping at the Camp Curry shop and buying an ice cream. To think that 2-3 weeks ago I was watching the weather like a hawk and freaking out that it was snowing constantly and the park was shut, and today we were sitting on the deck here in the sun eating an ice cream and putting on sunscreen! More melted snow waterfalls had begun in the background here today too. 

We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon in the lodge at camp and then packed up our things ready to leave early tomorrow. We have a big drive ahead to Las Vegas via Death Valley. It’s pretty funny how cold it has been here in the mornings and evenings, and yet this time tomorrow we will be in 34 degree Las Vegas!

We’ve had a wonderful time here in Yosemite. It was even more majestic and beautiful than I remembered from 2005. I would happily return again one day.

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox