When the National Parks reopened and Yosemite required reservations to be able to enter the park, we jumped at the opportunity, hoping to have a great biking day with less people in the valley. We got most of our wish, we arrived around 10am, seeing deer bucks on our drive through the valley and encountering a bear cub in our parking lot at the Yosemite Chapel. We never did see the mama bear. We began our bike ride into Curry Village and then on to the Vernal Fall trailhead where we parked our bikes and began the hike up to the bridge (going up the Mist Trail would have resulted in having to hike all the way around another 3 miles due to the COVID one-way restrictions). Our main goal was to bike the valley floor, so that was an easy decision to pass on. On the way, we had a tragic occurrence of a cell phone jumping out of one of the adult's pockets and tumbling off the path about 15 feet down. Brett assessed the situation, took off his backpack, and climbed down the sheer face to jump to the spot of the cell phone. After retrieving it, he was able to find footholds and hand grips to leverage himself out of the situation. We then secured our phones a bit more carefully after this. We then proceeded to Mirror Lake/Meadow, which we hiked around. We would hit the Visitor Center to get our passport stamp outside and then on to the Yosemite Falls hike. Not wanting to bike on a road with cars, we chose to bypass the rest of the valley by bike and drive it on the way out. Our next stop would be Tuolome Meadow and a hike of Lembert Dome. We would start our Lembert Dome 3.4 mile roundtrip hike around 6pm and quickly lost track of the trail, but Brett said that if we follow the rock face all the way around we would make it to the trail eventually. There was some serious lack of belief in the family on his ability to deliver on this promise especially with the sun creeping lower in the sky and the only flashlights we had being our cell phones... We made it to the top, enjoyed an amazing view, took a quick picture, and then headed back down, still not finding the actual trail. After a pep talk when we stopped to remove some pebbles from our boots, we made it to our car BEFORE the sun went down!
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| Bryce peddles into the lead...do you know where you are going? |
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| Half Dome in the background on a beautiful, clear day. |
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| There wasn't much to the volume of water coming down Yosemite Falls. |
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| Standing atop the sliding rock...it is looking a little smaller than it used to. |
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| Gotta get a couple's picture in. |
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| The bike crew in the valley in front of Half Dome. |
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| Half Dome is a great background piece for all pictures in the valley! |
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| Griffin wanted to add a rock statue to this prestigious garden. |
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| Half Dome from Mirror Lake/Meadow. |
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| Vernal Falls bridge hike romantic moment. |
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| Downriver view from the Vernal Falls bridge. |
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| Is everyone excited about using different muscles on this HIKE as opposed to biking? |
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| Brett's biking setup. |
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| Joy looking good on her bike. |
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| Garrett with his biking mask poses in front of Half Dome at our bathroom stop. |
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| Griffin poses on his bike, he now is on a big bike. |
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| Bryce in his biking disguise. |
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| We are ready to start our ride. |
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| Does Qi'ra really want to come with us? |
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| Qi'ra checks out the bike situation and grants her approval on the safety check. |
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| Continuing our National Park tour this month! |
