Day 2 of Yosemite adventure, we headed to Yosemite Park to hike. Yosemite Park is a 1200 miles of preserved park with innumerable lakes, meadows, forests and granite summits with endless unspoiled alpine scenery. From Midpines we travelled 10 miles to the entrance of the park. There’s an entry fee for visitors and the validity is good for days.

As I’ve mentioned, it is advisable to bring a car with you because it helps with going from one attraction site to another. I’ve seen coach buses, RVs, and big vans inside the park. The RVs have their own parking space to rent so that family can set up camp. There are camping grounds with public bathrooms for those who are camping.  Roads are well kept and paths to hikes are preserved. Cars are required to park a distance away from the trails to maintain the area.

When we entered the gate, we were given a map to navigate around the area. Due to time constraints, we were able to quickly explore the west side of the park. Here are quick top sites to see inside the park:

The weather was not cooperating when we hiked up that day. It was dreary, overcast, and there was light rain. I didn’t bring anything to protect myself from the rain so this was lesson learned. It is important to check the weather first before going to hike and gear up appropriately.

We drove first to Tunnel View. It was a vista point with a spectacular view of the El Capitan, Sentinel Rock, and Bridalveil Falls. Oh to have a dslr camera at this point. But it wasn’t a good camera day because of the heavy fog. Still it was breathtaking. 

After a few Kodak moments, we headed down to Bridalveil falls which you can on the right side of the picture above. It was a short hike to that falls but expect to get wet and freezing. My friends went to get an upclose shot of the falls but I refrained because I was wearing cotton, I didn’t want to freeze to death. From the parking space, we already got a glimpse of the falls.When we got to our next destination, which is the mist trail to the Vernal falls, there was a steady light rain. I almost sit out that trek because I didn’t want to get soaked. Fortunately, my friend had a spare rain poncho though was big for me (I looked like a yellow ghost), protected me from the rain. The mist trail was a 3 mile round trip hike with a 1000ft elevation gain to the Vernal fall. It featured a hike which starts at Happy Isles, then a climb at Mist Trail beside the beautiful Merced River to Vernal Fall, which has a 330 foot drop.

We almost spent 2 hours in this hike mostly because of me. I was really slow. My friends were in better shape than me. So I was most of the time on my own trailing way behind them, which was good because I was able to rest and enjoy the scenery. I caught up with them twice…once at the bottom of vernal falls and next near the top of Vernal falls.

Finally we reached up the summit…errr 50 ft away from the summit. I could have gone up more but decided not to because the trail up above is steeper and there was no handrail. I’m just happy that I reached the “top”. I was surprised that on my way to the summit, I saw an old man with a cane assisted by his family coming down from the top. If he could do it, then I better can do it too!

We went down after taking some pictures and ate our lunch pack in the middle of the trail beside the gushing river. It was cold but exhilarating. The hike back is better for me since it’s downhill. No more trekking uphill.  We went trailed back to the parking lot, tired, soaking wet but satisfied.

That ended my Yosemite weekend. If you’re into photography and you have your own car, it’s nice to stop in the middle of the road to take pictures. The beautiful plains before entering mariposa is a nice and picturesque view too for a kodak moment.

To learn more about Yosemite Park, click here. 

Related posts:

1. A weekend at Yosemite part 1
2. A weekend at Yosemite part 2
3. My love-hate relationship with hiking