After the conference in San Francisco finished up and we did a little sightseeing in the area, we headed west to Yosemite National Park. We spent part of our honeymoon in Yosemite and we wanted to introduce our son to the magic of the Yosemite Valley. Plus, we didn’t have as much time there as we would like the first go around so we wanted to see more.
Day one – Yosemite Valley, Yellowstone Falls
We drove out of the park to our hotel in Mariposa, about an hour away. We didn’t make reservations early enough to get affordable accommodations in the park, and I decided that we should spend some time exploring the nearby area.
The drive to Mariposa was a little long but the drive along the Merced River was very pretty nevertheless. There were a few hotels along the river that were closer to the park and we definitely should have splurged and chosen one of them instead for the proximity to the park.
After checking into the hotel we ended up having a great meal at an outdoor table at the 1850 Restaurant. This was one part of the drive to Mariposa that we enjoyed – local food establishments with friendly staff.
Day two – Mariposa Grove, Wawona Hotel, Tunnel View, Ahwanee Hotel
We drove southeast from Mariposa to enter the park through the South Entrance. We parked at the buses for Mariposa Grove and took a bus to the trailhead where we hiked up to the Grizzly Giant with Max. Max has been carried on hikes in national parks before but this was the first time that he powered up one using his own two feet and we will never forget it because of that.
We continued up the road to the Wawona Visitor Center and Wawona Hotel, where we ended up finding a picnic table for a snack.
After completing our drive in we stopped at Tunnel View for a few commemorative photos of our first trip to Yosemite with Max. We continued into the valley and decided that we were going to try to go wading in the Merced. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a close parking spot, and had to walk in from across the meadow. Once we finally found our way we had a fun time nevertheless as Max loves playing in the water.
When we were done we stopped in to the bar at the Ahwahnee Hotel for some food and then headed back to the hotel.
Day three – Tioga Road, Olmsted Point, Tenaya Lake, Tuolomne Meadows Visitor Center, Tioga Lake, Mono Lake
On the third day we used our permit to drive across Tioga Pass and being the drive to Glacier National Park. It wasn’t the fastest way to get to Montana, but it gave us another day to explore a part of the park that we had missed before. On our prior journey Tioga Pass was still closed when we were there because of too much snow, but this time there had been less precipitation over the winter and the pass had been plowed and opened. After climbing up the road, we had great views into other parts of the park from the scenic overlooks such as Olmsted Point.
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One of the highlights of Tioga Pass was stopping at Tenaya Lake for lunch. It was absolutely beautiful and we had a great time, including making fun of a group of people taking social media photos far too close to us in an otherwise deserted space around the lake. The only thing that I missed out on was casting in a line to try my luck at a trout.
When we got back on the road we ran into construction on the road – the road was torn up to gravel and they were escorting groups of cars in an alternating fashion. This made it harder to enjoy Tuolumne Meadows, as we couldn’t really drive back and forth up there without waiting for an escort from the construction crew.
We pulled off and enjoyed some time at the visitor center, but then got back on the road after a break there. The area around Tioga Pass near Inyo National Forest had two lakes and some great scenic views, followed by our descent down to Mono Lake.
Mono Lake was a sight because it is a saline soda lake in the Great Basin with no water outlets running away from it. As a result, and the diversion of water that was flowing into it for other uses in California, it has a high salt content, greater than the ocean. It is over one million years old and one of the oldest lakes in North America. Discovering it was the perfect sight to see before turning north away from Yosemite and heading toward Glacier National Park.
