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Just got back from a family trip to Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia national parks. What a great trip of parks all located a stones throw from each other. If anyone’s interested I’d be happy to share our itinerary or thoughts/reviews if any. One thing I’ll say off the bat is that King’s canyon doesn’t get enough credit, what an insanely cool place. Once I get my pictures uploaded from my camera I’ll post some here if I think of it.
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Aug 31, 2022 19:21
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 07:05 |
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Awesome! We’ll I’ll try to add some pics later tonight if I can, for now I’ll just type out some of the details. My wife and I were super jacked about the trip, I really enjoy climbing and fishing, so it was great to see some of the worlds most famous rock walls and boulders in person. Trip included my wife, two kids (16, 6) and my mom and dad who are both 70. 8/20 - 8/26: Yosemite Valley Lodge, Yosemite NP 8/20 Travel day, we flew from MSP to Dallas, Dallas to Fresno, picked up our rental car and made the ~2 hour trip to Yosemite Valley. The last half of the drive is more or less in the park itself, and a very pretty, but windy, road. Our kids both got a little carsick, but when we came around the corner to tunnel view, man, what a beautiful sight!! We got out and just took in the view at tunnel view for about a half hour. We then checked into our lodge and had a quick dinner at base camp eatery before calling it a night. No AC in the lodge and it was hot, but that’s the valley in august! 8/21: day 1 in the valley We were exhausted from our travel day the prep leading up to it, we spent all night in the hospital the previous Tuesday with our 6 year old as he had 8 straight days of fever, then frantically had to pack everything the next two days, which left us with less than 3 hours of sleep the night before travel day. So we slept in. After a quick breakfast at BCE, and the took the valley floor tour from Yosemite Lodge, we listened to the Ranger talk about the valley and some of the changes that have occurred in the park, and spent a little while at valley view and tunnel view. Overall I think it was a good way to get introduced to the valley, especially since I did all the driving on the trip, sitting on an open bench and taking in the views was great. If I did it over again I’d book it earlier in the morning though, it was HOT. Lunch at base camp eatery again, nothing super special, but they get the food out FAST. Be prepared to spend some money on food if you aren’t bringing your own, it definitely added up across the trip. We then drove around the valley loop and parked at one of the many turn offs to go wade in the Merced river. It was super refreshing and I’d highly recommend a daily wade to cool off. We ran to curry village for supper, ‘the deck’ had really solid pizzas with a great view of half dome! We did a bit of shopping at the mountain shop and went back for an early night. My wife and I did a short hike to lower Yosemite falls just before dark which was cool! Not really any water coming down the falls, but that allowed us to scramble around the Boulder field at the bottom which was fun. I picked up a couple beers at the gift shop at YVL, and had a night cap. They sell beers by the can in the gift shop and markets, which is great! $1.50 per can or so bests the $9-14 per pour at the bars. 8/22: Day 2, Tuolomne Meadow and Tenaya Lake For day 2 we drove over to tuolomne meadow & tenaya lake which ended up being a great day trip. We did a short home to soda springs which was neat, but not like a game changer. Stopped and sat by the creek, had some snacks, and then ran up to the little market a mile past the visitor center. We bought a loaf of bread, some ham & cheese, and everyone made sandwiches for lunch. Probably our most affordable meal of the trip lol. After lunch we drove to tenaya lake, which took awhile with construction, and the spent some time just wading in the water and takin the fantastic view. Our youngest then pooped in the woods and we headed back to YV. We stopped at Olmsted point on the way back and took in another gorgeous view. We spotted a staircase leading down from the overlook and hiked maybe a few hundred yards out to a big rock ledge that gave us a completely unobstructed view of half dome and some of the valley. HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT LITTLE HIKE! We had the view to ourselves and wished we knew about it sooner, would be a great spot to enjoy a packed lunch. You’d have it all to yourself and it rivals some of the best views in the park, without a 3000ft elevation gain home attached to it! I think we had dinner that night and turned in for the night. 8/23: The Dawn Wall I’m a climbing geek(but not actually very good), so one thing I really wanted to do was get up early and watch the sunrise hit the dawn wall on El Capitan. My wife and I got up early, grabbed a few granola bars, and hit the road. We setup in El Capitan meadow and watched the sun light up the dawn wall. It was awesome, we were the only ones there and it was just really beautiful. I still can’t believe Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgensen free climbed it, you should all watch ‘the dawn wall’ if you haven’t yet! We then spent a couple hours fly fishing off of Tioga road, I spooked a few trout but no takers. I’m new to this fly fishing thing. We saw a bunch of really big mule deer in the way back, which was cool. We met my parents and kids for lunch at BCE, and then did a bit of exploring around some of the camps. I spent a bit of time trying to climb some boulders near the housekeeping camp, where I mainly just chickened out because I didn’t have a crash pad and man those Boulder are hard(and very tall). We then went and spent a little time in Yosemite village, hit the shops, visitor center for stamps, Ansel Adam’s gallery, etc. We had pizza again for dinner at the deck in Curry, and then went to bed early as we were pretty tired from our early morning. 8/24: A short hike at Mariposa grove, the grizzly giant, and The Mountain Room We ate another quick breakfast at BCE and then drove back to the park entrance to see some Sequoia’s! We got to mariposa grove early enough to get a parking spot(~10AM), grabbed the shuttle to get to the grove(saves like a 2 mile hike in and out), and took the grizzly giant trail. The sequoias are absolutely breathtaking, but this hike took a lot longer than expected. It’s maybe a mile and a half to the grizzly giant, with like 3-400 feet elevation gain, which seemed to be enough to tire out my mom, dad and youngest. But we made it to the grizzly giant and sat on its shadow for lunch. It was a cool experience just sitting there thinking about all the people who’ve sat in that spot, or all that’s happened over this tree’s lifetime. It’s just really surreal to stand next to something that’s been living for like 2000 years or more. We eventually made it back to the valley, my wife and I walked around camp 4 and I just kind of took in some of the famous boulders there. Pretty much in awe at what people are able to climb. Then we headed back for our dinner reservation at the mountain room. The food was good, but very expensive. We had mussels and clams for appetizer, they were very bad. But I ordered the trout for my main course and it was delicious. 8/25: The mist trail, Nevada falls, and sore knees My wife and I targeted one big hike for the trip, knowing our kids/parents wouldn’t keep up, and frankly we’re not exactly in exquisite shape either. That trail was the Mist trail. I hoped to then hike up to the top of Nevada Falls, but wasn’t sure if my wife would be up for it. We got started early, like a bit before 6 AM. Parked over near happy isles campground and got started. The hike is really broke into four parts: The footbridge, the stairs/mist trail, Nevada falls, and the hike down via the John Muir Trail. They are rated moderate/strenuous/strenuous/? Respectively. Honestly, the worst part for us was the hike to the footbridge. It’s uphill about 400 feet in a mile or less, but it’s just like a paved ramp that doesn’t really let up. We stopped and filled up water at the footbridge(the last place to do so) and sat for a bit. My wife said, ‘there’s no way I can make it up to Nevada falls.’ We then hiked to the top of vernal falls via the mist trail, which is really just a rock staircase of 600-700 stairs. Honestly, I didn’t think it was too bad! We took plenty of breaks, but got up to the falls at 800 AM or so. We sat along the emerald pool and dipped our feet in the water and ate some breakfast. It was divine! The view back towards the valley was spectacular, and after resting for about 40 minutes we decided to press on. At this point we’d gained 1000ft of elevation in about 1-1.5 miles of memory serves. The next stage of the hike is another 1200 feet of elevation gain in less than a mile. Again s lot of rock stairs and very rocky switchbacks. All in the shadow of Nevada falls and liberty cap, which is a beautiful rock dome. After a lot of breaks and rest we made it to the top around 1030. This turned out to be the highlight of the trip, it is absolutely breathtaking up there! We went upstream a bit to one of the feeder creeks, made sure to find a calm and safe spot, and had a snack and dipped our feet in the water again. Which is much safer in august than in the spring, but still be careful. We almost watched an older woman die as she walked under the bridge at the top of the falls to sit by the water. The bridge is like right at the top of the falls, she got about 3’ from the water and slipped on the rock, slid down and was up to about her waist in the water before she caught herself. She was literally like 30 feet from the waterfall edge and the water, even in august, was moving pretty good there. I think if she would have slipped another 6–12” into the water she would have been swept away. Scary and so stupid. We basked in the view for about 1.5 hours before hiking down the John Muir trail. You get some absolutely stunning views of liberty cap and half dome from this trail, truly awesome! By the time we reached the car our knees were aching and my wife legit hurt her knee. We also started almost rolling our ankles like constantly I think as our stabilizing muscles grew weak. The down hike was probably worse than the up home from that perspective. All in all, the trail climbs like 2200’ in elevation in ~2-3 miles, and with the John Muir trail down I think we were at nearly 8 miles total. Definitely the hardest hike I’ve done, but so worth it! We had dinner back at BCE that night and went back to the river in the evening to play around in the water. 8/26: our last day in the valley, el cap, swimming, and sunset at tunnel view We chose to take it a bit easy on our last day, we hiked to the base of el cap(.4 miles) and I just kind of walked/scrambled around at the base. It was actually super cool, just seeing first hand how tall and massive that wall is was something else. And the first bolts on some of those routes are quite a ways off the ground! We then went swimming for awhile after in the river right across the road, the water was cool but man did it feel good after the big hike the day before. We grabbed dinner for the kids back at Yosemite village, then the adults grabbed dinner from the 1889 bar in Curry village(the Mexican street corn was awesome), and I drove back up to tunnel view for sunset. I was about 15 minutes late, which really annoyed me, but it was still a great way to cap off the week in the valley. We got back and began the terrible task of packing everything back up. Next day we were on to our next leg, King’s Canyon. 8/27: John Muir Lodge and the General Grant tree We got up earlyish and hit the road. The drive to king’s canyon isn’t too bad, drive back to Fresno and then up to the park. We stopped at target to return the air mattress we didn’t need, hit in n out for lunch, and then made our way to the lodge. John Muir lodge was really nice, it sits at a higher elevation than YVL, so it was much cooler in the room, which was great. We got in somewhat late in the afternoon, went down the road to see the general grant tree(Awesome), and had dinner at the courtyard across from the visitor center. We hopped on a ranger led ‘what goes bump in the night’ walk up at panoramic point, which was pretty neat. Ranger Joe did a great job, and then we stayed for awhile stargazing at PP, it was really beautiful. My wife and I watched Valley Uprising on our phone before going to bed, another great climbing documentary that covers the history of climbing in Yosemite. 8/28: Kings canyon, Zumwalt meadow, an underrated place! We got up and hit the visitor center next to the lodge, and then made the drive down kings canyon to zumwalt meadow. What a wild and breathtaking valley. I found the views to rival Yosemite, but just different. Even now in august the river was running fairly fast, I can imagine it must be extremely wild in the spring, and I plan on coming back to find out. It was hot here too, but we hiked around zumwalt meadow, which was really nice! You hike through a cool Boulder field and have nice views of the meadow and surrounding canyon walls/peaks. We ate lunch at the lodge at cedar grove, and then began our drive to our next destination, sequoia. We stopped a couple places on the way back so o could try to fish, spooked a few BIG rainbows, and then drove back up the valley. We must have stopped 6 - 8 times on the way back up the valley as the views just kept getting better and better. The sun was hitting the other side of the canyon just right to just light it up. I was really blown away here, it ranks up there with anything else I’ve seen. We then made the crazy drive up the canyon, out of the park, and decided to not drive through sequoia to get to our cabin. Kids were getting carsick so we tried to take a less windy road. This meant going on something called Hog Back road and dry creek road, which turned out to be the worst road yet. Narrow, wild, and in the middle of nowhere. We finally arrived to Buckeye tree lodge and cabins around 8 PM, checked in and luckily found the restaurant next door (Gateway restaurant) was still open, everything else closed at 8. Turns out the Gateway restaurant actually had great food, but is pretty expensive. Either way, their clam chowder was phenomenal, as was their miso halibut, highly recommend. 8/29: Sequoia, our last day Our last day of the trip we planned on hitting some of the highlights in sequoia. We drove straight to Moro Rock and hiked up the ~300 stairs to the top for a breathtaking 360 degree view. The kids loved this and was just a cool experience. after our hike to Nevada falls this seemed like child’s play. We then drove up to Waksuchi lodge for lunch, which was a really cool lodge. Food was okay. Last on the agenda was checking out general Sherman. We drove to the trailhead, hiked to the tree and just took it all in. Again, you really need to see these trees in person, they are just really stinking cool. But also really sad, Sequoia NP lost like 20% of their Sequoia’s last year to fire, many of which you see as you drive through the park. Go see these trees before it’s too late. We drove back out of the park and went for a swim at our cabin(Glacier cabin at buckeye tree cabins was very nice!), then had another great dinner at the Gateway, then sadly packed our bags for the journey home. Overall, was an absolute stunning trip, and I’d recommend it to anyone without any hesitation. Cliff Notes: Stellar, awesome things to do -Tunnel view at sunset - Hike all the way up the mist trail to the top of Nevada falls and come down the John Muir Trail. - swim in the Merced river if it’s hot - Olmsted point overlook, walk to the rock ledge and eat lunch or something - Drive through King’s Canyon and spend some time there. - See some of the Sequoia’s, not sure if I’d say you need to see mariposa & general grant & general sherman, but at least see one or two of those trees. I’d probably do Grant/Sherman as they are shorter hikes, and then trade out mariposa grove for a cool hike in Yosemite or KC. - catch some of the viewpoints/overlooks at the golden hour. - watch a sunrise somewhere in YV, dawn wall was cool. - buy single beers in the gift shop, decent variety, and so much cheaper than at one of the food spots. Other Notes Food is expensive, be ready for it. But also really keep an eye on times as we missed open windows for lunch at a number of places and had to just buy premade stuff from markets. Fine for me, but my wife is picky eater and gets grumpy about it. It’s HOT in the valley, be prepared for that! We bought a bunch of snack food and stupidly a lot of them had chocolate. Our room at YVL was so hot that it all like got soft and melty and gross. If you’re doing longer hikes make sure your taking off early, as it gets HOT. We passed people starting the mist trail at like 2PM and I don’t envy their walk up the stairs in that heat. Also make sure you have plenty of water. If I was doing this trip again, I wouldn’t change much. I’d probably aim to spend like 50-60% of the time in YV, 30% in KC, and 10% in Sequoia. I felt good about what we saw in Sequoia in one day, but really wished I had another day or two in KC to check out some the hikes there. Only other regret is that I didn’t get off my rear end and hike the 4 mile trail. I really wanted to see glacier point, but with the road closed you need to hike there. Next time I’ll likely hire a fishing guide for a day and do more fishing, and maybe do a day of climbing with a guide as well. I’ll try to get some pictures up later, if you made it this far, thanks for reading! Roads got progressively windier and crazier throughout the trip, in rough order from least crazy and windy to most: Road to YV < Tioga road to Tuolomne meadows < King’s highway < hog back/dry creek road < road up to Moro rock from three rivers. Probably obvious, but be prepared for that. If you or anyone gets carsick take it slow or bring some Dramamine or something. Our kids didn’t enjoy the car rides and that was kind of tough. food notes Overall, food in the valley was decent, but expensive. Base camp eatery, YVL: Great for a quick meal, you order on a touchscreen kiosk, and the food is ready within like 3 minutes. Food was like pretty good, but nothing special. Bring your own beverage to save some money. Juice box is like $2.50, fountain pop is like $3.00. Say hi to Chongo Chuck who will probably be hanging out by the window. Mountain Room, YVL: Good food, expensive. Burgers were like $25. I’d probably not go here again just cause I’m a cheapskate and food doesn’t make me that happy. The deck, curry village: Really solid pizzas, I’d recommend eating here. Not too pricey if you’re splitting pizzas. 1889, curry village: Pretty good, on the expensive side. More apps/small plate type stuff. Street corn was awesome, wings were okay. The grill, Yosemite village: Okay, standard burger/hot dog/sandwiches. The courtyard at John Muir lodge: Slow, expensive for what you get, okay food. No other real options though, small market next door has some stuff you could cobble a meal together from. Gateway restaurant just south of sequoia entrance in three rivers: Expensive, but pretty drat good. Great service, clam chowder was from scratch and delicious. Halibut was caught by the owner in Alaska the previous week, awesome. Also they have some ringtail cats that hang outside on their roof, pretty cool little animals!
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Sep 1, 2022 21:00
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Would love any tips or suggestions for meal planning in Yellowstone. We are staying in the park for about 7 days, and it’s a big group. My wife, two kids, mom and dad, mother and father in law, brother and his wife + 2 kids, and my sister and her husband. We won’t be responsible for everyone’s meals, but they’ll be looking to us for advice. We have two nights at mammoth hot springs, two nights in canyon, and 3 nights at old faithful inn. Problem is we won’t have fridges at any of those places I don’t think, nor can we cook at any of them. Should we just plan to eat at off-times to try and avoid the rushes ?
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Oct 19, 2022 05:05
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We just got back from a two week trip to Yellowstone, grand Teton, wind cave and the badlands. What a great time, I wasn’t prepared for how awesome Yellowstone was. I thought it may be too ‘mainstream’ or popular or something, I don’t know, I was blown away though. We had 7 days at Yellowstone and I wish I had another 7 to do more fishing. Highlight of that trip was hiking to cascade lake with my father in law and catching tons of little cutthroat trout. And then we did a day of side by side rentals in island park Idaho and ran into a family of mountain goats that came and checked us out. Never thought I’d be like 10 yards away from a mountain goat! We may get down to gateway later this fall, we’re trying to bring the kids down there to see the City museum in St. Louis, which is about the coolest F’ing non-national park thing I’ve ever been too. And then w shave a family trip to St. John so we’ll check off Virgin Islands NP for the kids as well. A busy year for their passport books!
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Jul 3, 2023 21:50
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