El Cap
Sentinel Rock
closer up of half dome
There are over 12 miles of bike trails in the Yosemite Valley, the Valley Loop Trail, so we headed off to explore and see what hikes we could find.
Our first hike, was the 1 mile round trip to the bottom of lower Yosemite Falls.
Nice bench on the way back
Pretty Fall trees
Next a mile mile loop through Cook's Meadow
Swinging Bridge (which is non-swinging) The 1964 flood damaged the original swinging bridge and it was replaced with a non-swaying bridge for stability.
A view of the Merced River (and half dome) from the Swinging Bridge
more pretty Fall trees
Upper falls from Cook's Meadow. Yosemite Falls is the tallest falls in North America at 2425 ft. It is a 3 tiered falls with Upper Fall, Middle Cascades and Lower Fall
the happy bikers
such a wonderful bike trail
Upper Falls through Fall trees
I've taken a lot of pics of Half Dome
After hiking and biking, all afternoon we headed to our hotel in El Portal. On the way we stopped in the El Capitan Meadow.
And we found a few climbers on the 3,000 foot cliff
Nov 9, 2025 - Today it was an early morning in the park. The government shutdown doesn't seem to have affected Yosemite, except at the entrance gates, which are closed so entrance is free (not that it matters to us, because we have the senior lifetime pass, which always gets us in free).
Just past the El Portal entrance is this cool Arch Rock Entrance.
which doesn't look all that tall, but we actually saw a Yosemite bus fit through (without a whole lot to spare)
We went over to the tunnel view, since we weren't able to get into the parking lot yesterday.
It was 8:30 in the morning when we got there, and the light was quite nice on El Cap
We had to take a pic of Rocky with the nice view in the background
Now we're off to Bridal Veil Falls
It's a .5 mile round trip hike to Bridal Veil
Bridal Veil Falls is 620 ft
This picture puts the falls into perspective
Today's pic of Yosemite Falls with fog over Cook's Meadow
Next we decided to hike to Vernal Falls. We parked at Curry Village and for some reason didn't realize that we would save 1.5 miles by riding our bikes to the trailhead...oops. Pretty crazy X in the sky!
From Happy Isles trailhead we took the John Muir Trail to the Vernal Fall Footbridge (1.6 miles). Then we took the Mist Trail to the bottom of Vernal Fall (another .5 miles and a total of 600 ft elevation).
Vernal Fall
Most of the hike was pretty easy hiking except for the 600 elevation on top of being at an elevation of 4000 ft.
After our hike we enjoyed the Valley Trail on our bikes
It was a perfect day for a bike ride
Jennifer in her natural state
love our e-bikes
such a great bike ride!
We stopped in the meadow to watch the climbers on El Cap again
It was a lot busier today
more Fall trees
we pass this rock hanging over the road every day on our way to the hotel
more trees
There are lots of bear carvings at Cedars Lodge
We walked across the street from our lodge to hang out on the banks of the Merced River
Nice spot after a day of hiking and biking
cheers
pretty view of the Merced
a bear bench
more carved bears
Nov 10, 2025 - Today is our last day in Yosemite. We're leaving early and headed to the Mariposa Grove on the south side of Yosemite. Mariposa has its own Welcome Center, since it's an hour away from the Yosemite Valley Welcome Center. We parked at the Welcome Center and then took the Yosemite bus out to the trailhead (no cars allowed). This grove is the largest grove of sequoias in Yosemite. There are over 500 giant sequoias including some of the oldest.
Good bye Cedars Lodge
We took the Big Trees Loop Trail
The Fallen Monarch
Roots of the Fallen Monarch
those are some big trees
Next we took the Grizzly Giant Loop Trail (2 miles round trip). These are the Bachelor & Three Graces
pretty light coming through the trees
This is the Grizzly Giant, which is 209 feet tall, has a base diameter of 29 feet and is between 1800-2900 years old
And this is the California Tunnel Tree which is 274 ft tall
It was cut in 1895 to allow horse drawn stages to go through. It is the last standing sequoia tunnel tree.
Sequoias are only found on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range in California
We were happy to get "home" to Los Osos (which was only a 3 hour 45 minute drive from Mariposa). The Osos Bear greeted us in the fog.
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