We were up early to beat the traffic and crowds in the Valley. It was a half hour drive from Crane Flat Campground to the heart of Yosemite Valley. After lengthy consideration, we concluded that there was no way to bring our travel trailer since it would be next to impossible to park it and it is prohibited to separate the truck from the trailer in the park. Sigh. We left the trailer at the campground giving our exploration of the Valley a clear time limit of campground check out at noon.
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| Our first glimpse of Half Dome. |
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| El Capitan. |
Our extra early arrival not only guaranteed us a prime parking spot in lots that fill up by mid-morning but it also allowed us to score a set of the (very) limited free bikes available through the park’s bike sharing program. Not much is free nowadays so this was amazing! It also meant that we were riding along the Valley trails before too many hikers and other bikers were out and about.
We hit the main attractions, starting with Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls.
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| The boys and their bikes at Lower Yosemite Falls. |
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| Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls. |
Next we rode out to El Capitan, where we watched rock climbers ascending the rock face. Liam had studied this mountain in school and was quite in awe of seeing it in real life.
It was at this point that the quality of the bike trail declined rapidly and our legs started to get tired, making the return journey quite challenging. Alistair was a trooper, doing his absolute best to keep up with his big brothers on a bike that was a bit too big for him. He had some trouble getting going again after stopping and did have a few epic wipeouts, but once he got up and pedalling, he was on fire!
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| This is paved?! |
After what turned out to be an exhausting 20km bike ride, we returned our bikes and drove around the rest of the Valley loop to get a good look at North Dome and Half Dome. The domes and cliffs in Yosemite are incredible and so, so impressive. After this, our time was up so we headed back to the campground to pick up our trailer before noon.
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| Half Dome. |
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| North Dome. |
Next it was off through the Wawona Tunnel and over the mountains to reach Wawona Campground. We have a lovely site here for the next two nights.
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| Tunnel view of the Yosemite Valley. |
We had a very quiet afternoon leaving us with just enough energy to attend the scheduled ranger campfire talk at 7pm. Rangers David and Irlanda told us a folk tale about a tiger and marshmallow and taught us all about oak trees and bats. It was engaging and the boys got to roast marshmallows at the end which made the evening for them. Our campground is full and noisy but we are exhausted after our busy day. I suspect we will all be asleep in a heartbeat.
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