May 23 - The Mist Trail

We were up earlier this morning, got packed up and headed back to the valley in hopes of beating the crowds, it being the Friday before a holiday weekend. We made a quick stop at tunnel view which wasn't that impressive since the sunlight washed out a normally magnificent view. 

Then we headed to charge while we did the Muir/Mist Trail hike to the Vernal Falls footbridge. This hike was short but quite steep, as expected. The view from the bridge was cool - both ways. Again, the river was full and just stomping down through the boulders. 

View on the way up the John Muir Trail

The views as we climbed were really pretty.

We reached the footbridge, and the sounds of the river were thunderous. 

Looking downstream from the footbridge.

Looking upstream from the footbridge. Vernal Falls in the distance, peeking out from behind granite formations.

Another view upstream

We had only committed to going as far as the footbridge when we started out. However, after a rest, we decided to continue up towards Vernal Falls. While we could see Vernal Falls far in the distance, the lure of getting to witness its power during the spring melt was too much for us to turn down, being the waterfall/whitewater lovers that we are. We didn't have any mist from the falls yet, and we wanted to experience that. This section was similarly steep, and eventually we reached the falls and the mist. The falls mist was a unique experience, as was the view of the falls. We made it all the way to the base of the falls.

I was really glad I brought my hiking poles. They helped me keep my balance as we traversed very steep, wet steps up the base of Vernal Falls.

The volume of water was really impressive.

There were several rainbows we could see as we ascended.

This is the view looking down from the base of Vernal Falls

We got a fine mist over us as we enjoyed the view. If we had climbed to the top of the falls, we would have been soaked. Given that the volume of people was building and a lot of them had NO idea what they were doing, we decided to head back down at this point.

We had a snack here while we enjoyed the mist, then headed back down, having exceeded our initial goal. The descent was pretty scary as you traversed steep, wet, uneven rock stairs without a handrail in some places. That said, we had no issues getting down and continuing back down the trail. While this hike was just over 2 miles, it took 2.5 hours with many stops to recharge. 

We caught the bus back to our car while we decided what was next. We considered driving back to the tunnel or moving our car, but decided against it. The park was clearly full; we could see cars everywhere seeking parking spaces - and certainly there were none available anywhere. We left our car there and enjoyed a picnic lunch before checking in to our tent in Curry Village. It was ready early, so we appreciated that. We took some downtime in the lounge then got golf cart assistance to get our stuff to our tent. It was a good 5-minute ride on the cart, and we had to take all our food since it could not be left in the car.

Once we got settled into our tent, we got showers and then headed back to the lounge to work on our blog. We had dinner at the grill in Curry Village and we both agreed the salad and burger were both very good, especially for a park. After dinner we decided to take a bus tour. We considered a walk, but the mosquitos were prevalent, so we headed back to our tent for an early bedtime.

I captured one more picture of El Capitan as the sun began to set, making the rock glow.