Mother's Day and Birthday Fun

Saturday morning we met Gayle in Fish Camp and headed into Yosemite together to spend the day soaking up some nature and celebrating Mother's day and her birthday. It was a beautiful day. It was warm, but not too hot, and it was the peak time for the waterfalls. I wasn't expecting too much water since we are in the midst of a severe drought, but there was actually quite a bit, which was great.

We stopped to check out Yosemite Falls.

By the time we got to the area we wanted to hike and found a place to park, we decided it was time for an early lunch.

I had made cookies.

We decided to hike the mist trail to the top of Vernal Fall. I had only done that once and it was during a hike to Half Dome, so we didn't even stop at the top. It was Gayle's first time to go beyond the viewing bridge, so we were all pretty excited about it.

There were so many beautiful spots along the way.

View of Vernal Fall from the bridge. 

This was as close as I dared to take a picture of Vernal Fall as we were heading up, after that things got quite wet. We were soaked by all the mist by the time we reached the top, but it was warm enough that we dried off quickly.

This is just after we made it through the worst of the mist.

 Some views from the top.

It was a great hike; the waterfall was spectacular and we had fun getting wet.

The river at the top was great too.

Happy hikers!

We headed up the trail to the Nevada Fall viewing bridge.

View of Nevada Fall from the bridge.

Instead of going back down all those wet stairs, we headed for the John Muir trail. That increased the distance to get back, but was a much gentler descent.

There weren't as many amazing views from the John Muir trail, but lots of smaller beauties and still a few great viewpoints.

Back at the car, we had a recovery snack then made our way out of the park.

One last view of Yosemite Falls.

We stopped in Oakhurst on the way back and ate lots of delicious food at the Old Mexico Taqueria. It was a wonderful day and a great way to celebrate with a wonderful person.