These boots are made for walking (but my legs may not be anymore)

8/25:

Today I rose bright and early (more or less) and took Jane to Yosemite Valley. We stopped at some nice overlooks before parking in the main lot – there's a shuttle system that runs around the main valley area . I opted to take that instead of driving because my wallet was screaming after being charged a whopping $5.11/gallon for gas at the only nearby station. Gas was totally reasonable in the rest of California, but definitely not so in Yosemite! Ouch.

First view of Half Dome

A cool tunnel

Up the other end of Yosemite valley

El Capitan

A porky squirrel with lots of spots

Lovely view from a trail next to the river

An unexpectedly famous deer

Jane and a bunch of orogenic events frozen in time

I stopped off at the visitor center to ask about good hikes in the valley, and the rangers told me that only two waterfalls are running – Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls (Nevada being upstream from Vernal). Famous Bridalveil and Yosemite Falls have both apparently been reduced to wet spots on rocks. So, my options were pretty limited! But that suited me just fine.

I took the shuttle to the trailhead and booked it up to Vernal Falls. And when I say “booked it”, I mean “proceeded to hike my legs off for no apparent reason other than to pass every other hiker on the trail as a point of pride”. The trail was 1.3 miles to the falls with an elevation gain of 1,000 feet... I hiked it in 30 minutes flat. I still don't know why. Either way, the falls were very beautiful even in a somewhat diminished state:

Some lady wanted to take my picture and I was like "okay"

Now having completed that portion of the hike in record time, I figured I had time to hike on up to Nevada Falls (another mile and a half up). This was another 1,200 feet of elevation gain and by this point my legs were no longer on board with the “hike as fast as possible” program so it took me a bit longer to get up. There were a lot of cool views to see on the way too.

I've gotten marginally better at selfies, I think

I took the John Muir trail back down the mountain. Though longer than just turning back and walking the way I came, it's a less steep path and of course it had new views to check out! I was super glad that I did take it as the first half of the trail had a great overview of the nearby domes and peaks and the sun shone just right on them for some really great pictures.

Once I got down below the tree line I started booking it again as I had decided I wanted to go see Mirror Lake before the end of the day. For a while there was someone right on my tail going as fast as me but any time I scooted over to let them pass they didn't. So we just walked awkwardly close to each other for a while. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore so I stopped to pretend to take a picture of some leaves, at which point the guy following me said, “Man girl you were really cruising! Good job!”. Saw him again at the bottom of the trail and he confessed that he was done for hiking for the day because he had come off the mountain so fast. I smiled, bid him farewell, and went to do another 2 miles. I must have had some kind of weird vendetta against my legs or something.

Anyways, I got to Mirror Lake only to discover that the lake does not currently exist! I guess the drought has required that its waters be repurposed for other uses. All I found was a big pit of sand. So I sat in it for a while and considered Half Dome, which towers over the lake typically. And then I remembered half of a melted Twix bar in my pack, and I found out that the sand is made of magnetic rocks (must be iron-rich or something), so overall it was a pretty good hike.

Hundreds of these stacks!

By the end of the day I had hiked 9 miles or so, just in one afternoon. Nine miles isn't a lot to hike, generally speaking, but with the elevation gain and the time elapsed and my general state of fitness I was fairly impressed with myself! So I went back to my campsite and pretty much immediately got ready for bed. The next couple of days I will do more driving than strenuous hiking, I suspect! Kelly signing out.

Jane and El Capitan near sunset.