Yosemite Day 3

Despite being exhausted from the Mirror Lake hike we headed out for a long hike. The plan was to head towards Vernal Falls and go until I was getting too tired and turn back. We cut our gear down to one bag and Steven kindly carried it, to make it a little easier on me. The problem with this plan was the hard part was exciting.

The first part of the hike is paved but very steep, this ends with a view of Vernal Falls on a bridge over the Merced River. After this the trail changes a little still mostly paved, but slightly less steep until you reach the stairs. There are over 600 of them and they go straight up the cliff. They are also very wet because the whole time the waterfall is spraying everything. 

About halfway up is a beautiful viewpoint. We even saw a rainbow, and of course took a waterfall selfie.

Once we made it to the stop we took a break, dried off, and had a snack. Then headed down to look over the falls. It was really crowded here, so we didn't stay up close for very long.

Our Lunch View.

After going up those stairs, I decided there was no way I was going down them. Given my terrible luck with stairs walking down crowded slippery stairs on the edge of a cliff seemed unwise. Luckily there was another way down. The signage for this was terrible, and the internet gave inaccurate distance measurements. Happily, it said it was longer than it actually was. 

We headed up the Merced River looking for the trail. At the trail intersection we were discussing which way to go, mostly because I was confused. A helpful hiker heading down said it was worth it to go see the bottom of Nevada Falls, he called the path "relatively flat". And, yes, compared to a staircase up the side of a cliff it was relatively flat, but it was not flat. The falls were beautiful though. Definitely worth the extra distance. The path continued up to the top of this falls but there was no way that was happening. We headed back to the trail merge and took the John Muir trail down.   

We headed back to the trail merge and took the John Muir trail down. Expect down actually meant up. So much up in fact that this picture of Vernal Falls isn't as far up as we went. There are actually people in this picture, but they are so tiny you can barely see them. The second picture is Nevada Falls after we walked far and up from it.

Nevada Fall 

Eventually the trail started going down, switch backing down the mountain. We were now on the cold side of the mountain and we saw patches of snow. Steven took a picture, but I was too tired. The trail was not very smooth and very steep, so it started hurting my already hurting knee. I was very happy to be done with this hike.

Steven found some mistletoe.

We named this "Face Rock"

After the hike we grabbed a quick bite of food, and headed home. I had wanted to hike to the base of El Capitan. It was on the way out and a short walk. Instead I changed out of my hiking clothes into my footise pajamas vowing to not get up until I was in our garage. I succeeded at this. And went to bed very early again. 

Step count highly lessened by my hiking poles 13, 403. The next day I was so tired from all of this I did less than 1000.