Yosemite at last

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Saturday 23rd August
We woke up to sun steaming through the tent and the sounds of lots of people getting ready to go out hiking. We had planned to go on a hike and bike tour of the valley floor to get ourselves familiar with our surroundings. So having hired very basic tour bikes, we joined the group and Star, our tour guide.

She described the area, the history, the geology, and facts about Yosemite very well and we were pleasantly surprised and glad we had taken the tour. We decided to keep the bikes for the day and use them to get to the start of several other walks.

The first one we tried was a loop around mirror lake. Unfortunately it was almost dry and there was no mirror image of the mountains just a lot of bugs enjoying the still water. So we moved onto bigger and better and started climbing to Vernal Falls bridge. We soon got to the bridge and could see a stunning water fall a little way up. Still having energy to get to the top of the falls we set of. ¾ of the way up we realised just how steep this climb was, but we were still determine to get to the top. It was all worth it when we finally made it to the top and could look down over the falls.

After almost running down, we decided on one last loop with the bikes to see the rest of the valley floor and a swinging bridge. We got some great views of the meadows and the stunning mountain scenery in the fading light. However we were both shattered when it came time to hand in the bikes and headed for showers and food.

Although it was a mass produced canteen catering for the hundreds of visitors the food was surprisingly good and cheap so after a huge tea we headed back to the tent for some well deserved sleep (we were in bed by 10pm) and this time nothing was going to wake us!!!

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