It was a bit warmer, but rain was in the forecast, so for our second full day at Yosemite, we decided our hike should not go quite so high up or far away as yesterday. I did buy some ponchos at the shop to guarantee we wouldn't get too wet. You may notice that the kids each have a hiking pole now. They insisted on using their allowance to buy some at the gift shop this morning, probably envisioning a day of using the tips of their poles to chip their way through ice the way the hikers in front of us had done yesterday. But thankfully, there was no ice on our walk today.
We set out for Mirror Lake, about 2 miles away. Ten minutes into the walk Simon needed to stop for a snack on a boulder and I had to pee. This is why it takes us forever to get anywhere.
We got going again soon, and we made great time on the relatively flat, easy terrain, arriving at Mirror Lake around 11:30 am. There was a little beach area there, and even although it was only 50 degrees out and the water was recently snow on the top of a mountain, both kids took off their shoes and socks and waded in, going over to climb an alluring boulder in the middle of the shallow water.
Alice soon came back wet and cold from splashing and Simon came back bleeding a while later. Alice always carries a travel towel in her backpack, and we always have ample Band-Aids and Neosporin, so both kids were soon good as new. We enjoyed having a snack on this fallen tree studded with great backpack hooks.
We went around the lake a bit more, enjoying the views even although the sky was gray and grim most of the time.
In the next two pictures below, that's Half Dome behind us.
From there, it seemed like the weather would hold out long enough for us to walk the three miles or so along the base of the mountains to see Yosemite Falls. It was a fun trail, studded with boulders that had fallen off the nearby mountains.
An hour later, we were only halfway there. Simon wasn't happy about that.
Soon, we could start to see the falls in the distance through the trees.
As we got closer to Yosemite Falls, the trail turned into a sidewalk.
The clouds gathered and we could see it raining in the distance.
Just as it started to sprinkle on us, we made it to the base of Yosemite Falls. From the very bottom, you can't see the whole thing, since it's actually a set of three cascades.
The better photo spot (below) was too crowded, so we settled for the picture of us from the bridge (above). Although, given that it was a cold, rainy Thursday morning in April, this crowd was probably relatively sparse compared to how crowded it must be on a weekend in peak season.
The kids played in the field of snow below the falls with some other random kids for a long time as I shivered from the cold drizzle. Great views though!
We eventually walked on, luckily turning around to realize that the best views were behind us!
It was 3pm and we were cold, wet, and tired. Having already walked six miles, we were grateful that the free valley shuttle buses were running and we could catch a lift back to Curry Village rather than walk a couple more miles in the rain to get home. The mask mandate for public transportation was still in effect at that time, and luckily we were able to scrounge up four masks from the depths of our backpacks so we could board the bus.
The funny part of the bus ride was that at one stop the Chinese family with the grandma wearing Crocs who'd been right behind us on the Icy Steps of Death yesterday got on the bus and sat right next to us. We struck up a brief conversation based entirely on, "Hey, we saw you yesterday!"
We successfully made it back to our tent around 3:30 and decided to just rest and hang out until the cafeteria opened at 5pm and we could go eat supper. We'd never even eaten lunch today, just snacks, having failed to pack sandwiches thinking we'd come back to camp between the two destinations rather than combining them into a single longer hike. The one true hardship of staying here was that we couldn't eat in our tent, and it was too cold and wet to eat anywhere outside. I just laid in bed reading and napping until I could get proper sustenance. Zac went out exploring a bit and also worked on acquiring a replacement shoelace for his boot.
It was another fun day! Although the rain dampened our ambitious plans a bit, I think we were all grateful for an evening of rest.
