KO and the Turk: Yosemite Has Bears and BEER!

In 1997, The Turk and I went to Yosemite for our 3 day honeymoon. Yosemite is my favorite National Park. But I haven't visited all of them yet. We ended our California vacation with four days in Yosemite, staying in a Curry Village canvas tent. Our timing was pretty perfect: beautiful sunny spring weather, melting snow created full waterfalls, it was early enough to miss the crowds but late enough for the opening of the road to Glacier Point.

looking down at Yosemite Valley, El Capitan on left, Bridalveil Falls on right. We hiked up to Artist Point to take this.

We noticed a few changes from our last visit 11 years ago. The most popular hikes are more clearly restricted to prevent wandering too close to dangerous waterfalls, or too far into delicate forest floors. The restaurants serve a broader choice of food, though still carb-heavy. There are now full service bars with craft beer available in different locations - at high prices. The park bus service is more convenient than before.

Turk finds a friend

Bridal Veil Falls

Half Dome at sunset

And the confusing change, all lodging and restaurant names have been changed. This will hopefully be reversed when a pending court case is resolved. The previous concessionaire, Delaware North lost their concession contract in 2016. They filed a lawsuit over the bidding process and took with them the Half Dome logo, the names of the lodges and campsites, and even the phrase: Yosemite National Park. They priced the value of these names and logos at a whopping $51 million. The new concessionaire was not required to purchase these and the Federal government is now entangled in a law suit to regain ownership of the names and logos at a reasonable rate. So the big change we saw was the result of $1.7 million in sign replacements and the use of unfamiliar names for familiar locations. Example: Curry Village is now Half Dome Village.

Our tent neighbors at Curry Village

Mattress was 3 inches thick. We had one outlet, one light bulb, and heat!

Near our tent, we noticed huge multi-story rocks and the remains of home foundations. Hmm. The more we looked, the more we realized that these rocks were older and recent rock falls from the granite cliffs looking down on our tent. The tent village, and additional homes, used to go much closer to the rock walls. But rock falls destroyed those structures. People have died as a result of rock falls as recently as 2017.

fireplace remains amid fallen rocks

these fallen rocks are not small

feeling small

The most challenging hike was on day 1 to Vernal and Nevada Falls via the mist Trail. The full hike is a 2000ft climb to a total height of almost 6000ft, over 6 miles round trip. It took 6 hours and was fun, challenging, energizing, beautiful and, near the waterfalls, very wet!

Looking down Vernal Falls

The real challenge was walking down the John Muir Trail, a longer but less steep trail. Our knees were screaming as we paced ourselves. We were happy to see good beer available at the end of the hike.

WHEW!

fresh made pizza!

Another high hike was to Sentinel Dome. We drove most of the way, and hiked the actual dome. I think next time, we'll hike beyond the dome to Glacier Point as it looks quite do'able and view worthy.

at time of Sentinel Dome

Our wandering along Yosemite Valley gave us amazing views UP the granite walls. We always saw rock climbers somewhere. Sadly, within a few weeks of leaving, those granite walls took the lives of 3 climbers, one from Half Dome.