Today we headed up to Yosemite National Park and had an awesome time! The KOA is about 23 miles from the entrance to the park, and then you follow a loop around the park, through Yosemite Valley that’s about 10 miles long or so. Following this loop, we first stopped at Bridalveil Falls which is one of the most prominent falls in Yosemite Valley. It is 617 feet high and runs year-rou
nd. Along the way we stopped and saw El Capitan, which is a 3000 foot vertical rock that is a favorite of rock climbers. It's an awesome sight!
From there, we stopped at the Senteniel Beach and the Swinging Bridge, which spans the Merced River…the weather was beautiful and the water was clear and clean. Yosemite is in the middle of a renovation project to restore the shores of the Merced River, so parts of the shore were roped off, but there was ample room to enjoy the scenery.
We continued on to Curry Village, which is a fairly populated area containing several campgrounds, one of which consisted of elevated tents called Camp Curry, two others called the Upper Loop and Lower Loop that had tents, as well as RVs. We had tried getting reservations in one of those campgrounds, but apparently you have to reserve spots 11 months in advance! But after the drive into Yosemite Valley from Mariposa, we were glad we’re staying at the Mariposa KOA! Anyway, we saw where Corinne and Patrick will be staying in Camp Curry and the tents are very nice structures. They’re on elevated wood floors, with actual doors with locks, and outside each tent is a locked metal bin for food so the bears don’t get it. Yes, there are bears in the area, although we didn’t see any while we were walking around.
The loop continued on to the Yosemite Falls, which consists of 2 falls, with a combined height of 2425 feet. You can walk up to the top of the upper falls, but it’s a 6 to 8 hour hike so we chose the short hike to the lower falls instead. The combined falls is the world’s 5th tallest falls.
After our visit to the Yosemite Falls we drove through Yosemite Village and past the Yosemite Lodge, and then started our drive back out to the entrance.
From there, we stopped at the Senteniel Beach and the Swinging Bridge, which spans the Merced River…the weather was beautiful and the water was clear and clean. Yosemite is in the middle of a renovation project to restore the shores of the Merced River, so parts of the shore were roped off, but there was ample room to enjoy the scenery.
We continued on to Curry Village, which is a fairly populated area containing several campgrounds, one of which consisted of elevated tents called Camp Curry, two others called the Upper Loop and Lower Loop that had tents, as well as RVs. We had tried getting reservations in one of those campgrounds, but apparently you have to reserve spots 11 months in advance! But after the drive into Yosemite Valley from Mariposa, we were glad we’re staying at the Mariposa KOA! Anyway, we saw where Corinne and Patrick will be staying in Camp Curry and the tents are very nice structures. They’re on elevated wood floors, with actual doors with locks, and outside each tent is a locked metal bin for food so the bears don’t get it. Yes, there are bears in the area, although we didn’t see any while we were walking around.
The loop continued on to the Yosemite Falls, which consists of 2 falls, with a combined height of 2425 feet. You can walk up to the top of the upper falls, but it’s a 6 to 8 hour hike so we chose the short hike to the lower falls instead. The combined falls is the world’s 5th tallest falls.After our visit to the Yosemite Falls we drove through Yosemite Village and past the Yosemite Lodge, and then started our drive back out to the entrance.
Before entering and after leaving the Park, we ran into a stretch of road that had been hit by a landslide that literally buried the road! We had to take a detour bridge over the Merced River and back again to get around the landslide…pretty interesting!Tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, we’ll take a scenic drive along Route 49…about a 30 mile drive that takes 1 ½ hours each way due to the winding, curvy road. But there are all sorts of little towns to stop at along the way and the KOA manager said it’s definitely worth seeing. Wednesday we leave for San Francisco and more adventures!
2 comments:
We stayed at Yosemite Pines since we could not get reservations. Yosemite Pines is an RV resort, campground, and lodge located near Yosemite National Park offering Yosemite lodging. Yosemite Pines offers Yosemite camping near Yosemite National Park with full hook-up RV and campsites Yosemite camping. Yosemite Pines also offers Yosemite lodging and cabins near Yosemite National Park with Yosemite cabin rentals. Amenities include a clubhouse, gold mine, gold panning, petting zoo, swimming pool, hiking trail, general store, children’s playground, horseshoe pit, and volleyball.
Thanks Jerry...I'll keep that on our list of parks if we head out this way again! The KOA was very nice too!
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