Yosemite Day Four: Hike to Vernal Falls and Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias

Day four found us up early and heading out toward Curry Village to hike the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Falls. Day four was all about hiking. The plan was to hike the Mist Trail and then head over toward Crane Flat to hike the Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias. The morning was perfect! Crystal clear and cool...perfect hiking weather. I was really looking forward to this hike. My Moon Yosemite guide book said that it was a "moderately challenging" hike to Vernal Falls, so I was ready...or so I thought.

Here we go...

A shot of the Merced River before starting to head upwards. Probably should have taken my polarizer off for this shot since it was all in the deep dark shade :).

Starting to climb now along a nicely maintained dirt path.

A lot of beautiful fall foliage along the trail.

Here is Jen admiring the view, or catching her breath...or maybe some of both.

So far, so good. We were definitely ascending and stopped here and there to catch our breath, but it was definitely a moderate hike so far. Thank goodness for the cool weather!

Okay, we made it to the Vernal Falls Footbridge...no problem. Unfortunately (for photography's sake), Vernal Falls was half sunny and half shady...didn't make for very good photos. Oh well...still pretty. We stopped at the footbridge to take a few shots of the falls. Soon after this stop, I realized that I had lost my polarizer lens :(.

Huh, look at that...a bunch of granite stairs. Okay...

Whew...we made it up those...are we there yet???

Well, let's stop again and take a few more photos of the falls. This was a decent vantage point to take a few slower shutter speed shots of the lower (shady) falls area. Tried a few different white balances on these.

Okay, time to move on.  Oh, look at that....more stairs. Okay...not moderate any longer...definitely becoming strenuous!

And more...

Good grief...will they ever end? Jen looking a bit dismayed at yet another set of granite stairs.

Wow...look how high we are!

Where are we? Almost otherworldly looking..

A squirrel storing nuts along the way. The rock he was sitting on looked straight over the edge. It made me a little anxious :).

Wow, we made it to the top! Not a whole lot of water in the falls. I can only imagine what this trail is like in the spring. I hear that you get pretty drenched walking up those 600 granite steps when the falls are in full bloom...that has to get slippery? Also, when we reached the top, there were posters up about the three hikers who went over these falls in July. Apparently they were all seen going over the falls, but two of them have still not been found. So sad.

 Anyway, here's Jen at the top of the falls.

These two ground squirrels in the next photo were hilarious to watch! They were running fast ALL over the place...hiding from each other...tackling each other...rolling and tumbling together. I suspect it may have been a mating ritual...or maybe they were just youngsters having fun!

The reflections of the trees in the pond above the falls were really cool (photo below). It reminded me of an impressionist painting.

After about 30 minutes hanging out at the falls, we decided it was time to start heading down. Unfortunately, we did not know that we could take a MUCH easier trail back (we learned this when we were almost at the bottom of the stairs!)....The John Muir Trail...instead, we started down those 600 granite stairs...some of them VERY thin and most with nothing to hold onto. Thank goodness we each had a hiking stick or we would have probably been going down step by step on our butts! Once we finished the treacherous stairs, the rest of the way down was very enjoyable with lots of fall colors on the trail.

After getting down to level ground again, we crossed this lovely stone bridge that seemed to be all aglow from the sun.

After finishing the Mist Trail, we headed over to Degnan's Deli in Yosemite Village for another yummy lunch and then we got in the car and drove to the Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias for what we thought was an easy hike...NOT! Oh, and by the way, all the literature that we had other than my Moon Yosemite book said that the Mist Trail to Vernal Falls was strenuous..nothing moderate about it. Ah well...we made it and we were feeling quite proud of ourselves :).

After driving over to Crane Flat to fill up the car (lesson learned...do not drive into Yosemite without a full tank of gas because you have to go pretty far to find some), we found the Tuolumne Grove trailhead...took a photo of the sign with Billy in it and then started our "easy" hike.

After descending 400 feet on a beautifully forested trail, we finally entered the grove of sequoias. It was very quiet here and I remember seeing a deer almost right away. Next, we turned a corner and saw our first giant sequoia...breath-taking...they really are magnificent and majestic trees.

The sequoia below had a hole in it large enough for me to sit...

or even stand!

Next along the trail came this giant sequoia that you could walk through...the "Tunnel Tree." This tree was originally bored through in the early 20th century so that tourists in stagecoach's could pass through. Hmmm.....not sure that was a great idea.

Yeah, looks big enough for a stagecoach!

After rock-hopping across a little stream, we came upon "Dead Tree," which is a sequoia tree that has fallen over. It is BIG and really interesting to walk around. I took a couple of different photos of it...the first one with deep depth of field...

The second with shallow DoF. Either way...it was very pretty.

Tunnel Tree from the other side...looking up into the forest.

Beautiful fall leaves...up close.

Oh...another deer spotting!

Look closely...there's a raven on that log!

Oh, another raven on the trail (photo a bit blurry, had my camera settings wrong).

"Danger Flying Monsters," was written in black (looked like a chalky substance) along the trail. Actually, there were several of these "warnings" along the trail. Maybe they were referring to those ravens :)?

On our ascent back up those 400 feet (here is where the moderate hike comes into play), we stopped here to catch our breath...I took the photo below, and I liked it!

Well, we made it back up those 400 feet and we were very happy to climb into the car and start heading back to Yosemite Village. One stop at another Half Dome lookout point.

Back down the beautiful road to the Valley.

A stop to take a photo of El Capitan (below) with the sun shining on it's granite peak.

Finally, our last stop was at Valley View again...this time at dusk. I even pulled out my tripod and set-up shop for about 30 minutes while the sun set. Below is a shot of Cathedral Rocks and Bridalveil Falls with the sun glow on a couple of peaks.

Here are a couple of El Cap and Cathedral Rocks as the sun was setting.

Okay...time to really head back now. By this time, we were tired and hungry. We were planning on going out to the Awahnee tonight, but quickly realized that was not going to happen. Instead, we ordered sandwiches from the lounge at the Yosemite Lodge...BIG mistake..they were awful. We should have stuck with our cheese and crackers after all. Well, it was a long day and the soreness was already setting in. Time to go to sleep. Goodnight.