Here we go, part two of our trip to Yosemite National Park. Check out part 1 here.
Mist Trail
Next we rode from Mirror Lake over to the start of the Mist Trail and locked our bikes up for the hike. Yes, this is a popular hike. But, it was worth it. We let the shuttle bus drop off everyone and gave them a healthy head start so we wouldn’t have to hike with throngs of people. It was still kind of a shit show for the first mile though.
The first section is a paved steep path up and up and up to a bridge crossing Merced River. The trail crosses the bridge and then climbs 600+ steep granite steps with significant mist and spray for added difficulty. This section can be dangerous in that there is also oncoming traffic for people hiking it as an out and back. One misstep and it’s all over. We didn’t take many pictures of this section because it is basically raining heavy mist and everything is soaked.
At the top of the waterfall we took a short break to dry off and admire the view. We didn’t want to go back down those steep wet steps so we extended our hike to make a lollipop. Of course, this added even more climbing on. Oof. There were hardly any people on this section and it was nice and quiet as we finally headed down switchbacks to reconnect with the trail just above the bridge.
By this point my knees were bugging me significantly. They HATE downhill. Back down at our bikes, we rode over to Yosemite Falls for yet more waterfall action!
Yosemite Falls
You can see both the upper and lower Yosemite Falls from the paved path so it’s a busy area. This is actually a great place to people watch as well. It’s fun to see the reaction of people as they see the great falls. We stopped on our way around and took a few more pictures before calling it a day.
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