Holiday to Pacific West Coast in Jun 2012: Day 12 – Yosemite

Bad night’s sleep for me – bad headache which wouldn’t go even after a couple of Anadin. Any medical advice is welcome…

Decided to skip formal breakfast – focus was on completing another easy trail prior to the England game, so we chose the Lower Yosemite Falls.

Left around 9am and walked along a trail from the hotel behind the village where we picked up for official trail to LYF. Nice and cool at this time and the view of the falls was amazing once we got there.

Aiming to take a slow shutter photo of a waterfall whilst we are here but proving difficult right now due to the light – it’s far too bright to be able to slow the shutter down without over exposing.  I may need to come out to the falls again early in the morning.

With everyone else (it seemed) we climbed over the rocks to get closer to the falls.  It makes you feel old watching these teenagers jump from boulder to boulder without a care in the world, whilst Mrs B and I are thinking about medical cover and being air lifted back to the UK with a broken hip!

Anyway, the LYF was a fab sight.  We took the main trail back to the village in order to pick up lunch from Degnan’s so we can eat whilst watching the game.  On the way back we started seeing the UYF which we must have been able to see yesterday from around the park but had never looked for it – you certainly can’t hear it.

Decided to grab some bread and crisps from the shop and sandwich filler stuff to save a bit of money, and we can make our own lunch for the next few days.  The fridge in the room is useful for stuff other than keeping water and milk cold.

Well we were on the edge of our bed whilst watching the England game.  Great opener from the Liverpool guys, and then the defence fall asleep straight after half time!  Good to see the Walcott finally contribute something, even if the first was a lucky break.  The second showed what he can really do when running at a defence, a good cross and Welbeck might just be making a name for himself.  Anyway all relieved that we are in pole position to make it through to the quarter finals.

In the afternoon, after the excitement of the game we decided to do two more easy trails: Bridalveil falls and Glacier point.  Both needed the car so thought we would combine them.

Once we had got to Bridalveil falls it was a 5/10 min walk to the base of the falls.  Great view but no idea where it gets it’s name from.  No doubt Vick will correct me when she edits this post.

It’s a long drive up to Glacier Point (about 30 miles) and we were hoping for some fabulous views, but on the way up this wet streaky stuff started falling whilst the hood was down which is something we hadn’t seen for almost two weeks.  It started raining, part of a thunderstorm.  A quick stop to put the roof up and we were back on our way, but by the time we got to Glacier point everything was a bit murky.  The views were still incredible but the photos were a bit washed out.

We could see both the UYF and LYF on one side, and all of the village.  We could see our hotel, and the queues of traffic trying to leave the park.  On the other we could see both the Vernall falls and Nevada falls (which we plan to visit tomorrow), and in the middle there was Half Dome and Mirror Lake.

We hung around for 30 mins and things cleared a little but we decided to head back for some dinner.  After a brief stop at the Tunnel for another view of the Bridalveil falls we dropped the car off at the hotel and walked out to Pizza Loft at Degnan’s in the village for dinner.

The Pizza Loft was a bit basic but the pizza’s were very good, and a bowl of chilli was very tasty too.  But our belly’s weren’t quite as full as they could be so on the way back to our cottage we stopped off at the Awahnee bar for Cheesecake.

Stats for Day 12: 60 miles, 0 Starbucks coffees, 0 Hollywood celebs spotted, 0 Subway inches consumed, modest calories consumed.

Plan for tomorrow is to get up early and do a major hike – aiming to do the Mist trail which takes in Vernall and Nevada falls.

Follow the whole story here: Holiday to Pacific West Coast in Jun 2012