Today started off early again with everyone heading out around 7am to get to the Yosemite stables by 8am. As usual, we got there significantly early (about 30 minutes), but better early than late. There were fifteen people all together in the group, with three guides. After watching a 15 year old “training video” warning us of the dangers of horseback riding by a narrator who sounded like he was out of an old western, we were told “enjoy the ride, partner” and were ready to head out.
Lenny the mule
We lined up and were each assigned a mule. Dad got a mule named Guiness (very appropriate considering his fondness for the beer of the same name), Jeremy’s was brown with a white mane named Uno, Mom’s was named Hawkeye, and mine was Lenny. We had a few couples as well as two families along for the ride, with a guide at the front, middle, and back of our single file line. The mules can walk this trail without virtually no guidance so you were just along for the ride more or less unless you decided to let them have a snack on a nearby bush.
We rode for about two hours, passed by Mirror Lake (which was more of a small pond at this time of year), and turned around at a spot where there was a rockslide in 2009 that closed off the trail loop. We doubled back a little and then went down some pretty rocky terrain, good thing the mules are sure footed. Both my mule and Mom’s we quite cautious, pausing at the top of any particularly steep spot for a few moments and figuring out the best way to go. After two hours we headed back to the stables, everyone was a bit stiff from the ride but overall we had a really great time and it’s definitely something we will have stories from and remember as a highlight of the trip.
We ate lunch out of the back of the car, making deli sandwiches and roughing it with no knives (Mom and I learned from the guys that you can just “rub the two pieces of bread together to spread the mustard around”…riiiight). After lunch we decided to split up, Mom and Dad opted to go around via the shuttle bus to the various gift shops and to see the historic lodges in the valley. Jeremy and I decided to go for a short(ish) hike via Mist Trailto see Vernal Falls.
Vernal Falls with a beautiful rainbow
The trail was listed as “moderate” in our guidebook (on a scale of easy, moderate, strenuous or very strenuous), and I hate to see what gets classified as strenuous. Granted the first half of the trail, which was quite popular and had the full gamut of age range hiking it, was a paved path but it went up quite steeply. I have decided it’s a very good thing to have a camera with you on these kinds of hikes as I would just “stop to take a picture” whenever I needed to catch my breath. The altitude definitely came into play here, it wasn’t that I needed to stop because my muscles were tired, it was just that I couldn’t catch my breath. Eventually though we got to the midway point where most folks turned around and just got a distant view of the falls, we decided to continue up the seemingly endless granite steps to finish the trail in pursuit of a better view. Every few hundred yards you would get an ever closer view of the falls, which had the light hitting them just right that there were rainbows at the base of the falls. The water comes over a sheer rock wall so the view is breathtaking seeing the water coming over, and the water rushing around all the huge boulders that have come off the wall over time. Granted, this was the lowest the falls had been all season, so I can’t imagine what it looks like at full capacity in the spring after the snow melt.
One of our avian visitors
We made it to the top of the falls and then walked back a bit to the Emerald Pool that feeds it for a snack stop. We sat in the shade on a big boulder and almost immediately after pulling out our granola bars we had peaked the attention of the surrounding birds and squirrels. A few were quite bold and landed or walked within a few feet of us, making for some fun wildlife photos but we eventually shooed them off. There were huge smooth slightly sloping rocks that in spring must be under a few feet of rushing water but, being we were there at the end of the season, were dry and offered a very comfortable spot to recline for a bit and soak up some sun and listen to the rushing water. We saw glimpses of a wooden bridge and an even higher waterfall, Nevada Falls, so I suggested we walk up a bit farther to try and get a better view and set that as the pinnacle of our hike. We made it up to the top, took a few more photos and then made the significantly faster journey downhill back to the shuttle stop to meet up with my folks.
We swung through the store to pick up a tri-tip steak to grill along with some corn, sweet potatoes and rice for dinner, and we will eat the bit of leftover chili as well to round out the meal. It has been a great stay in Yosemite, not too hurried, not too slow. I feel like we have seen a lot of the “famous” landmarks but managed to avoid really feeling like you were in a tourist spot, I think the photo walk and trail ride helped with that. Tomorrow we have a 5ish hour drive to Napa. On the way we will probably stop in Modesto for lunch somewhere (we will see what Yelp recommends), and be in Napa at our next AirBnB home between 4 and 5pm.
If you’d like to take a look, all of my Yosemite photos are up on Flickr.
