After doing the Yosemite Upper Falls Trail in the morning and spending the afternoon recovering, we picked our tired bodies up and decided to spend the early evening at Mirror Lake. Whilst the lake was pretty, the most exciting part of the walk was that on the way back we stumbled upon a Black Bear! We thought we’d done okay with mule deer and plenty of squirrel sightings but were not so secretly hoping we’d see a bear of a mountain lion - then it happened! This guy only hung around for a minute or so but was pretty blasé about our being there. There’s a short video a little further down.
Half Dome
On a high after our bear sighting, we decided to stop by one of our favourite spots and befriended a deer before waiting for the sun to set over Half Dome. Dave had a poster in his bedroom titled ‘Half Dome Last Light’ from when he visited Yosemite as a teenager and I’ve always wanted to take my own version ever since.
El Capitan
The following day we decided to stroll around a few of the smaller trails within the village. On our way to grab some breakfast we came across some deer moseying around the campsite, Steph is in love. After an obligatory morning coffee we head to The Happy Isles, a small collection of tiny islands surrounded by the river, lush ferns and cottage flowers. From there, we visited El Capitan, the other major rock face you can see beside Half Dome whenever you’re in the valley. This rock is enormous and was quite difficult to get far enough away from to capture! There were some rock climbers scaling it (that you needed a telescope to see), Dave was horrified at the idea. We wandered along the picturesque riverside as far as it would go before heading back to camp for some more bargain beers!
Bridal Veil Falls
On our way to take some sunset photos at Tunnel View, we swung by Bridal Veil Falls. We were greeted by a rainbow that it creates at such time of day and got pretty wet trying to take photos of it.
Tunnel View
Tunnel View is an iconic view into Yosemite Valley, made famous by photographer Ansel Adams (image below). This particular viewpoint is breathtaking at any time of day but we wanted to spend our last night visiting at sunset in hope of the pink light that usually graces the tips of the mountains. We weren’t so lucky with the light as the sun got blocked behind a cloud just as it was setting, but we still managed to get a decent shot and it was a great end to an amazing time in Yosemite!
Ansel Adams, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, 1934
