Morning Walks

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Geo: 36.5077, -118.575

We got up with the sun (Arya made sure of that), cooked breakfast and set out for the touristy parts of the park again, up the side of the mountain. Our plan was to do our "hardest hike" first up Moro Rock. I say hard only because carrying a toddler on your back makes any walk more difficult. We would have had no trouble hiking up and down this rock normally. However, if you're not in reasonably good shape (meaning you hike regularly), you will likely have some trouble with this small hike. A lot of people were not used to the elevation and were huffing and taking multiple breaks to get up the granite steps to Moro Rock. Because of the steep cliffs on all sides of the trail, we kept Arya in the baby carrier 100% of the time. No matter how angry she got, lol. The views of the surrounding peaks at the top were gorgeous. It's pretty much a granite slab with cliffs on three sides, and you're kept in the center by metal poles. Don't, under any circumstances, go on the other side. Best case scenario, if you slipped, you'd be dead. Worst, you'd break most of your bones. But- AMAZING views. Worth the climb.

After that, we hiked back to the shuttle stop. We weren't really sure where the shuttle would take us further down the road so we decided to see. The shuttle stopped at Crescent Meadow, which the driver said was a nice place to hike, and it looked way less touristy. So we hopped off again and set out to explore. There was a 1.8mile loop hike that ended up taking longer than we anticipated. We circled the giant open meadow, passed large redwoods, and at some point Arya just passed out in the baby carrier on Chris' back. When the trail met where we began, we stopped for lunch at the picnic tables by the parking lot. We ate our salami sandwiches and honeydew melon and mused over the dirty longterm parked cars in the lot. Apparently, we were at a trailhead for some serious backpacking. The bees quickly found Arya again, and she was less than amused per usual. So we finished our food, used the bathroom and then hopped on the next shuttle back to the big parking lot.

We were getting tired and the shuttle had left Chris and I a bit nauseous, although Arya discovered she was absolutely in love with buses. She was really upset we had to get off. We sat at the visitor's center before embarking on one last walk for the day. We wanted to hit the Big Trees Trail 'cause that's what we came to see, right? This one was a little shorter, 1.2miles, completely level and much more crowded. The trees were definitely huge but I could have done with less humans.

We were tired and Chris was starting to get the beginnings of a migraine so it was time to head back to camp. He needed a nap. After an hour resting in the tent he felt better, and he went to the swimming hole with Arya and I. This place ended up being way better than I imagined.

It was a short three minute walk behind our campsite to get to the swimming hole. I really think that's what most people come to this particular campground for. It's hot and pretty removed from the rest of the tourists in the park. There was one large pool with a bridge over it, and then several small waterfalls that led to a smaller second pool. It was approaching dinner time so a lot of people were headed back to the campground. Arya never really swims for long but she tolerated a good twenty minutes in the water while Chris and I explored and took pictures with her. The ice cold water felt amazing in the late afternoon heat. We also watched some crazy guy jump off the bridge into the pool below. It gets really deep so you really need to aim well. I wasn't in the mood for doing CPR. He made it, though. He'd apparently done it several times that day. So final review? Absolutely loved the swimming hole. I made Chris promise to go back the next day, too.

We headed back to our campsite so Chris could cook our delicious steak dinner with asparagus and mushrooms. As you can tell, we love BBQing when camping. I still wasn't eating much from constant nausea and bloating but I managed to eat all my dinner. It would have been a disgrace not to. =D We ate our dinner in the tent- this was probably a big mistake considering it was bear country. (I didn't sleep well that night... worried about being invaded by bears).

After dinner and clean-up we still had time to kill before bedtime. We'd already walked the small campground loop several times, so I decided we should head back out to Hospital Rock right outside the campground. We hadn't been there yet and there were supposedly some neat petroglyphs. We took pictures of Moro Rock at sunset, too, along with the "blood smear-like" glyphs. Seriously... it's named Hospital Rock and all you see is this smear of red until you get a closer look and I'm thinking... what kinda hospital was it? Even neater are the bedrock mortars. They're everywhere from when the natives has pounded and grinded into the stone for I assume herbs, medicines and food. It was a nice end to our day of walks.

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