Day 40- May 29th

Dad and I woke up bright and early in June Lake. We let Claire and Micah sleep in for a bit and decided to go and take a little drive around the 4 lakes in the immediate area. The lighting was perfect for a few reflection shots. Here's my favorite:

You'll see a lot of pictures in today's post. Remember, I took them all with my iPhone!!

We picked up the sleepy-heads and went out for a nice breakfast at the local breakfast spot. Thanks Dad! As soon as we finished up we headed out towards Yosemite!

We climbed up and up into the snow on Tioga Pass Road, which just opened not too long ago. Soon we were met with a BUNCH of snow and some incredible views! Micah hasn't seen too much snow so we had a mandatory snowball fight!

Descending down from 9,900 feet, we stopped where the PCT intersected Tioga Pass Road. This is mile 943 of the PCT, and we're only at mile 450 when we get back to Agua Dulce, so we still have 500 miles until we're walking through this area. We walked 1.2 miles north on the trail to give them a little taste of the PCT.

Lembert Dome

A couple deer were drinking from a spring-fed marsh

After that we drove west all the way down into Yosemite Valley. Because it was Sunday on Memorial Day Weekend, the traffic was so backed up it took us almost two hours to inch our way into the village in stop and go traffic and finally park.

We took the free shuttle from the visitor center out to the John Muir Trail trailhead. The PCT and the JMT share the same trail for mush of the duration of the JMT. However, when the Pacific Crest Trail crosses Tioga Pass Road and continues north, the John Muir Trail drops down into Yosemite Valley, and ends where we started hiking today.

We climbed up to Vernal falls, one of the most beautiful things I've seen. We took the Mist Trail which was properly named because we got soaked on the way up!

Left to Right: Half Dome, Mt. Broderick, Liberty Bell, Nevada Falls

After descending back down in a loop fashion, we waited in the 45 minute line to get back on the shuttle to where we were parked. We only hiked between 4 and 5 miles total, it it was such an awesome hike!!

On the shuttle, Dad met someone named Emily who had accidentally parked way above the park at Glacier Point, and didn't know there wasn't shuttle service back to her car. It was getting dark, and dad offered to drive her way back up to her car, not knowing it was 30 miles out of the way!

We were so hungry we had to eat some food first. Emily was super nice and bought us all pizza for our troubles. The shuttle wait was so crazy that we didn't get to the restaurant until after 8pm.

It was already way past my bedtime, and by the time we dropped Emily up off up at Glacier Point it was after 10:30. Then we had a 2 1/2 hour ride from there to a Best Western in Fresno, landing us at about 1am. 

The plan is to sleep in until checkout tomorrow! Today was a super full day. It was very fun despite the traffic waits and the long detour to take Emily back. We are definitely enjoying our rest and scenic adventures with Dad and Micah. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

-Thanks for reading!