Yosemite Or Bust!

So very sorry for the blog hiatus. After Obama got elected I basically was having a joygasm.
Well my 33rd birthday has come and gone, and Sarah took me to Yosemite for three days to celebrate. Neither of us had been there before. At least I have the excuse of not growing up here... We made reservations for three nights at the Yosemite Lodge, which lies at one end of the Valley floor. Our room was right next to the bar, and underneath Yosemite falls, the best of both worlds!
The whole hotel was done up Christmas style, and Sarah's wishes were granted when the snow finally came and made it a super winter wonderland! We enjoyed coming back to the bar for hot alcoholic drinks and Scrabble battles by the roaring fire. How fun! There was also some slight misunderstanding involving snow and Sarah's face.
Our first day in the park found us taking the shuttle bus to the trail head for Vernal and Nevada falls. It was a brisk 40 degrees and the skies were clear, though I knew something was up when the shuttle driver wished us good luck, mumbling something about the "Agony of da feet..." *hahaha* This trail starts right off heading up up up! The views were amazing though, and only a few people hiking that day!



The pictures above are of the Vernal Falls, the top of which was a mere 600 steps from the base, at one point crawling along the wall on this totally awesome bit of trail....
The climb was totally worth it however, though it turned out we were a mere halfway towards our ultimate goal, the top of Nevada Falls! At this point we'd climbed about 1000 ft, with another 1200 to go! EEP! The next couple of pictures from the top of the Vernal Falls.



This next picture is Nevada Falls.... seems close enough, right?

WRONG! Man alive, getting up to the top of this thing was BRUTAL. But totally worth it... the next 1200 feet of climbing occurred in just a mile or so. OUCH! It might have been the low oxygen levels in my brain playing tricks on me, but this whole Yosemite park place really did live up to the hype!


We did finally make it to the top, where the sun was shining, and we had the whole place to ourselves. It was warm enough to wear only our tshirts, after requiring hats, mittens and a couple layers of fleece in the morning. We enjoyed the scenery and had some tasty snacks!



That last picture is of Liberty Cap.... I guess if you were insane you could climb up that too, but we decided to call it a day and descend back to the valley floor for dinner and drinks! We were about halfway to Half Dome too.... but these pictures that follow was about as close as we were going to get on this trip!


More in the next post... including Bobcats, reflecting lakes, and SNOW!!!