Yosemite, been on our list already for a while and finally we made it up here. Clearly a place you want to see, but be prepared for the crowds. With more than 4 million visitors a year it will be tough finding the lonely spots at least in Yosemite Valley. But on the other hand, you have to see it once.
Yosemite Valley
Grey skies when we got there, so not the best start and plenty of cars and people around, but having an afternoon hike up to the Vernal Falls was still beautiful and at least not as crowded as down in the valley. And the views got much better, even though the falls are not having lots of water now in winter and the sky was still more or less grey.
But next morning the weather looked totally different. Waking up with blue sky motivates for the morning walk up to Columbia Rock and a short visit at the Yosemite Falls, the highest waterfalls in the USA.
Despite the fact that lots of people were on the trails, we even found some wildlife up there.
After a morning hike it was time to relax a bit, so we took a scenic drive through Yosemite Valley with a couple of nice stops on the way.
And in the late afternoon we still found some energy and motivation to hike up to the Mirror Lake. Not a bad spot at all and the views were beautiful in the afternoon light.
So how to spent an evening in Yosemite? Well, camping is by far not as lonely as we love it, and the temperatures were rather low when we were here, so having bit of fancy #vanlife camping is not what you can find here. Reality looks rather like this…
Mariposa Grove
For the last day of the year 2019, we decided to explore the Mariposa Grove. Part of the Yosemite National Park and famous for the Sequoia trees. And as it is winter, there is no bus shuttle as during summer, so it was also not as crowded as it usually might be. So a beautiful walk through the forest to get there…
Not bad at all, but there are better spots to see giant Sequoias. If you managed to visit for example Calaveras Big Trees State Park, you might want to skip it, but on the other hand, if you have the time and this is anyhow your direction of driving, why not going for a hike. 🙂
So for us this was the last day of a great year, of course some ups and downs as you might know when following us either in our blog or on Instagram, but a privilege to travel for so long. Exactly 300 days are we on the road now, closing the chapter of 2019! And still not tired of exploring the world, so closing this blog with the last picture of the year…
A beautiful evening by the campfire, just outside of Yosemite, can there be a better spot to reflect on the year and the trip so far and plan for exciting days to come in 2020? Not 100% sure yet in which direction we are heading now, but guess we will figure it our very soon…
