Yosemite National Park - This is for you, Bob

From San Francisco, we decided to spend a couple of days in Yosemite National Park. We enjoyed it so much, we decided to stay an extra day and really wish we could have stayed longer. We also decided that the next time we come, it'll have to be in early summer or late spring because of all of the waterfalls and rivers. What a beautiful place...

On our way in, just outside of the park, we drove by a huge field with a bunch of firemen from all over who had come to put out the forest fires just outside the park.

And here we are...

The first day, we hiked down to a Sequoia tree grove. They carved out this tree to make a road back in the mid to late 1800s.

Our camp. It was actually nice having a home base to come back to for a few days. We're definitely ready for a home.

The following morning, we headed down to the famous Yosemite Valley


Bridalveil Falls was a lot bigger than it looks here, but what's crazy is that these were barely flowing at all compared to what they do in spring/early summer. If you can see the black around the waterfall, that's how much it flows in the spring.


El Capitan


We also took a short 3 mile hike to Vernal falls.


Check out this rainbow at Vernal Falls.





At the top of the falls, there was a nice little pond that was a great refresher after the uphill hike. So, why not?


Huge cliffs and views like this were everywhere in the valley.




North Dome face...


The one, the only... Half Dome.


At dust, on the way out of the valley.


A Nellie original (the picture, credit the creation to Jesus)


S'MORES! If we're gonna camp, we do it up right.

After the day in the valley on our way to Tuolumne Meadows... Tenaya Lake.
The two black dots in the middle left are climbers going up Medlicott Dome. This is a climbing mecca. They were everywhere.


So, that day, we decided to go on a long hike.. we were shooting for a 13.8 or so..

Part of our hike was on the Pacific Crest Trail which runs from Mexico to Canada. This was Nell's second time to hike on a portion of this trail. She hiked on part of it in Washington, several summers ago with Laurel and Josh. That is also where Nell almost divorced Josh as a brother-in-law. He gets a little intense on his hiking :)


So, we kept hiking, but we soon (1.5 miles after) realized that we took a wrong turn. We met some people along the way that showed us a new route that would turn our hike into 17 miles instead of 13.8, so we got ambitious and went for it.

Picture break


The scenery was beautiful


..high up in the Sierra Nevadas.

Nell loved the trees

...and the streams.

We passed several beautiful lakes


And even got the energy for an fun pic every now and then...

...and of course a hardcore one too.

I mean, check out these amazing views!


We FINALLY made it to Vogelsang High Sierra Camp after hiking about 4 miles UPHILL. The '17' miles wasn't looking so fun at this point especially since we realized it was going to be more like 19 miles. Nice.

We came across this unidentified creature along the way. He's cute nonetheless.


You'll probably see this one again on our Christmas letter :) That is if I get crazy and decide to send one of those out. I feel like I'm not old enough for that sort of stuff. I guess this year might be one worthy of a letter.

And once again...Nell liked the trees.


Ok, so by about mile 15 we were completely worn out. Here is Nell documenting her face, so she will never do this again. So, we got a little ambitious on this one. That very well could be the problem when you put 2 people with big egos together.

Besides all the pain and soreness, we were actually glad that we ended up doing the 19 mile hike. It was SOO much prettier than what our original hike would have been.


And our dirty feet from the hike. What you can't see, is the huge blisters on our feet. After this we went and jumped in the lake to clean off a bit. And let me tell you, I've never been so tired or sore in my life.


Tuolumne Meadows.

The beautiful sunset on the way out. Nell still had a tiny bit of energy left in her to take a few sunset pics.

We left the next morning, but on the way out we went back down to the valley and did a VERY short hike to see Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls. They weren't running all that much since it was August, but definitely worth the hike.

Now we know what all the buzz (mostly from my dad) about Yosemite is. It definitely met our expectations. It is a beautiful place. It would be a totally different park if you came in the spring, which we intend to do.

By the way, Dustin and I collaborated on the commentary in this blog. To avoid confusion, I (Nellie) had to refer to myself in 3rd person. This is a pet peeve of mine, so I felt the need to clarify. And I (Dustin) got tired and grumpy halfway through blogging and retired to my car seat/bed after handing it off to Nellie for finishing it up. Thanks, Nell.