Yosemite - A Walk and a Half

Backblipping again...

So yesterday we limbered up with a short hike up to Mirror Lake but today was the day, the 8.4 mile Panorama Trail hike from Glacier point to Yosemite Valley. Yes, it was downhill and yes we got a bus up to the top, but it was some uphills too.

Although we set off about 1pm, a thunderstorm from the north west had moved down to cover the sun for a few hours reducing the temperature, which was a relief. The storm never actually reached us. The first extra is from Glacier Point looking down to the main valley, where we stayed last night and this night, and Mirror Lake to the left of the Half Dome.

The second extra shows the 2nd half of the hike where we descended down past 3 waterfalls to the back of Half Dome. The waterfalls were perfect and so different, we bathed our feet in the first two and our feet shrunk a bit. Ms H found a suitable seat to collapse for 5 mins.

The main blip is just about half way where we had begun climbing up for about a mile and we could see where we had come from on the left to where we were heading on the bottom right.

We had many stops and it took us about 7 hours arriving just as the shuttle bus back to the car was about to leave, yeehah. We passed a family of about 6 including some young kids heading up very steep steps to a waterfall and considering we reached the bottom in the dark, I have no idea how they managed to get back down... eek. 

We've done a fair few moderate walks in the US and back home through lovely landscapes and there was a resounding agreement after this one that it was the best we've done. Every step had a different vista and there was such varied terrain. It was difficult to stop taking photos and almost impossible to cut down the number of extras... I will be running out of them soon!

Mrs C is actually talking about the next time we do this hike... ok, I'm in!