My recommendation: Before I go into more detail about our time in Yosemite, I recommend having a park map with you at all times or plan your trip in advance to save time and know exactly where you are going. I agree that sometimes it is nice to just explore without having a plan, but please trust me when I say that it makes most travel adventures that much more rewarding. For our Yosemite trip, having a map was helpful because it helped save us time in getting around the park in a timely and organized manner. Although there were buses to take us around, they were usually packed, so a bus ride wasn’t always an option.
One of the things I was looking forward to most about Yosemite was being able to see one of the tallest waterfalls in the United States, Yosemite Falls.
We ended up seeing a total of 3 big waterfalls this trip and got to get close and near to two. I will talk about the two.
The first waterfall we saw was, Yosemite Falls, it was absolutely amazing! Watching the water fall from the top of the mountain and down the side was beyond surreal. We went during a time when snowfall was higher than it has been for a couple years, so we got to see the waterfalls at full-flow.
In going to Yosemite, I had no idea that there was more than one large waterfall, I only expected to see Yosemite Falls and a couple other smaller waterfalls, but I was in for a surprise. Yosemite Falls has an upper and a lower area that tourists can go to. The upper is a very strenuous 6-8 hour hike and the lower Falls is a shorter walk to a bridge at the bottom of the waterfall. This is where we went. It was our first time at Yosemite, somewhere I had wanted to visit for awhile now, and I wanted to go to as many areas as I could, so we went to the lower Yosemite falls, got water mist in our faces, and took pictures. The power of the waterfall and just being able to see something so naturally beautiful was amazing! As a massive waterfall lover myself, it was pure satisfaction being able to experience this.
After our time at the Yosemite Falls, we walked around the park enjoying the scenery while deciding where we wanted to explore next. In Yosemite, they have really nice walking areas that connect the different areas of the park by bridge and short nature trails. The park is very beautiful with trees, ponds, and the most amazing views of mountains. On the day that we went, it wasn’t too hot and it wasn’t too cold. The weather was pretty much perfect!
In the process of deciding where we wanted to go next, we knew that we wanted to check out Half Dome. Half Dome is basically a giant boulder rock that people can hike up by cable. It is one of those things that people can add or cross off of their bucket list. I’d recommend doing a search if you are interested in learning more about the Half Dome hike. We did not get a chance to see Half Dome this time though, we were told that it had to be hiked to, and we were about a 17 mile hike away from the Dome.
Yosemite has buses that take you around the park, they are; however, very crowded and a lot of the places you can walk to in a short walk. We got lucky though to get on the bus on our way to the four hour hike that we did. There were a couple times on our walk when we saw that the bus had to pass stops because they were too full, so just keep this in mind if you plan to visit this park.
As we first drove into Yosemite, we saw a piece of this massive waterfall, which I originally thought was Yosemite Falls. As we waited for the bus, we looked at our map deciding where we wanted to go next. There was a gentlemen nearby who told us that we could actually hike to the waterfall and that is where we headed next. Little did we know that this hike was a famous Yosemite hike, little did we know how strenuous it was going to be, little did we know how amazing of an experience this hike would be.
Continue reading our next article, Yosemite National Park – Part III to hear about the hike.
