My first view of Yosemite was from
Glacier Point. The views were amazing, and it gave me a good sense of where we were
on the hikes that followed. Right in front of us Half Dome loomed, and off to
the right three waterfalls: Vernal, Nevada, and one other that we couldn’t recognize.
After glacier point we took a hike called Sentinel Dome. It was a three mile hike that provided a
different view of Yosemite Valley and Half Dome. We saw several climbers on the
side of Half Dome as well which looked terrifying.
On day two we hiked an incredibly
steep trail to upper Yosemite Falls. The
cool thing about the trail was that we saw the waterfall several times, so we
knew we were getting close. The only problem
was that we also knew the waterfall was all the way up there. The trail
reminded me of Walter’s Wiggles in
Zion. It was almost all traverses until the top two tenths of a mile when it
straightened
out and (finally) brought us to the falls.
At the top there were naturally eroded pools that my mom
soaked her feet
in while I did some bouldering. There
was a crevasse about ten feet up the wall that was a very relaxing place to
sit. On the way down I heard some very interesting conversations. Most of the
time I was running, but I got stuck behind two women who were talking for at
least five minutes about different Patagonia locations asking, “Have you been
to this one?” “No, How about
this one?” until I couldn’t stand it anymore, so
at the first chance I passed them and ran as fast as I could. Honestly, if I heard
“Patagonia” one more time…
On day three we did another hike
called the Mist Trail. It is called that because it went by two falls, and when
the river is raging it kicks up a ton of mist. When we were there the river was
lower, so there wasn’t much mist. The first fall, Vernal, was kicking up a
little mist, but my parents told me that when they were there the mist drenched
them. On the way down we took a short section of the John Muir Trail. The John
Muir Trail is a 211 mile trail running from Yosemite to Mount Whitney in Sequoia
National Park, and it was named after John Muir. John Muir was a man who was
involved in making Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainer, and the Grand Canyon national
parks. 
On day four I got to sleep in. That
alone would have been enough for it to be a great day, but it got even
better. We went to Swan Slab, and I did
my first lead climb. A lead climb is when one person climbs up with a rope behind
them, placing protection behind them and clipping the rope in. Pieces of protection are little metal
triangles that jam into cracks in the rock. When I hooked up several pieces they
made a line that the second person can use to climb.
On day five we visited two groves
of giant sequoias. We went to Merced Grove first. It was a three mile round
trip hike through 20 sequoias, each several feet wide and 300 feet tall. It was
kind of terrifying to stand next to trees that tall. The bark was really soft, and we read that it
could be a foot thick. Tuolumne Grove
had more attractions. There was a tunnel in one tree, and one fallen tree had a
hollowed out trunk that I walked through.
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