The other post that I'm going to do is a summary of our big summer trip to 3 different National Parks. We left on Saturday, June 29th. We drove to Great Basin National Park in Northern Nevada.
We only had the one day, but the park is mostly a scenic drive up to Wheeler Peak.
We picked up Jr. Ranger booklets for the kids to see if they could complete them in our limited time. They could, but it required a ranger lead program which was scheduled at a certain time. This limited us a bit. But we still enjoyed the drive up to the top. We even did a short hike up there.
We didn't make it to the lake due to time, but the older kids made it far enough to get a picture of the peak.
They earned their Jr. Ranger badges and then we were off for Ely, Nevada, where we had a hotel reservation. We ate dinner at a pizza place and we all swam in the hotel pool.
Our next destination was Yosemite National Park. It was a crazy snow year and the snow pack was much deeper than the average year. We knew about this ahead of time and we anxiously checked the park website in the weeks and days leading up to our trip to see if the road we needed to drive on, through the park, would be open in time. We were confident it would open up since the latest date it had ever opened up was in the first few days of July, and we needed it open on June 30th. On the night before, we checked to see if it was open and found out that it was only open for limited use. Meaning, we had a one hour window, between 10 and 11am and another one hour window between 3 and 4pm in which we could enter the pass and drive straight through. We had planned to stop along the way and see some stuff on this side of the park since we knew we wouldn't be coming back this way, but that was not an option any more. It also meant that we had to time the 6 hour drive leading up to entering the park right, so that we would be able to enter the pass during our 1 hour window. The drive was uneventful in some of the most boring scenery we have ever driven through. In fact, I think our GPS labeled the road we drove on "The Lonliest Road in America." The one highlight was a 5 mile stretch of dips in the road that Danny probably drove way over the speed limit on. The result was super tickly tummies that got us all laughing pretty hard. We ended up having to wait for awhile at a gas station at the bottom of the pass opening for awhile and probably could have gone back and driven that bumpy road a few more times, just for fun. We got to the park entrance about 30 minutes before 3 and the kids had fun playing in the snow.
We got to our cabin around 5 and enjoyed the evening with Brian and Maryn and their kids.
The next morning, we were up and on the road by 8. Our destination was Glacier Point. We had planned to go and see the sights and then to do a couple of hikes before lunch. It was amazing up there at the top of Yosemite.
I would have loved to hike to half dome while we were there, but I missed the lottery in March to obtain a hiking permit. I also didn't know if I could convince anyone to do it with me. I decided that I could enjoy the sights from different viewpoints and try to imagine what it would have felt like to be up on top of Half Dome.
The first hike we went on was to Sentinel Dome. It was a 3 mile round trip hike and seemed like it was kid friendly from all of my research.
The hike wasn't bad. It ended with this climb up on top of a rock dome that overlooked all of Yosemite Valley. Standing on top of that dome was probably my favorite part of the whole trip. I think being up there gave me a good idea of what it would have felt like to be on top of Half Dome. Only difference was that I wasn't nearly as tired as I would have been after the long Half Dome Hike.
After the first hike, we decided that the 4 younger would not be up for a second, equally long hike to Taft Point. Brian and Maryn offered to stay back at the trailhead with the littles and Danny and I took the older 4 at a much faster pace. The end of this hike brought us to a lookout point that consisted of a small railing separating people from a sheer cliff that dropped all the way to the valley floor. Super scary for anyone afraid of heights. Alyssa is one of those and I'm surprised that she got as close as she did for this picture.
These boys had fun playing on the rocks while they waited.
We headed back to our cabin for lunch after the two hikes (Danny and I left our packed cooler there which contained half of the food for lunch. Oops). That afternoon, after a bit of down time, we headed into Yosemite Valley to scope out some things for the following day, like restaurants and a river rafting reservation. We got to drive through this really long tunnel on the way down there.
The next morning, we got an even earlier start. We hit all of the popular spots early, before the crowds arrived. The first stop was at the tunnel view lookout.
Next, we stopped at Bridalveil Falls. It was a little cold that early in the morning, but the parking lot was empty.
Our next stop was Yosemite Falls. We just walked to the bottom instead of the 7 mile round trip hike to the top.
After Yosemite Falls, the parking lots were starting to fill up, so we drove our cars over to the parking lot where we planned to finish our day(river rafting) and left them there, opting to use shuttles to get around, instead. We split up at this point. Maryn and I took the older kids up to the top of Vernal Falls. The Dad's stayed back with the younger ones, hiking the same trail as far as the footbridge. Here are Robbie, Alyssa, and Lydia on the footbridge, with Vernal Falls behind them.
The mist trail was another highlight of the trip for me. It was sooooo cool.
We got pretty wet, but it felt so good and cooled us off after and during a hard hike.
The last little bit of the hike was just steps, like 500 of them up to the top of the falls. It was nice to just sit and relax and enjoy the feeling of accomplishing something so difficult.
After we got back to the bottom, we all went and had lunch at this café. The food was good and a nice break from sandwiches, after 3 days in a row of picnic lunches. The dads and older kids then went off for their river rafting trip. The moms walked the littles down to the river so that we could see them launch off. The boys had fun throwing rocks in the water.
Here they are walking across the river to launch off.
And there they go.
We took the littles back to the cabin after watching them go. The float was 2 hours long and we didn't want to try to entertain them in the valley after an already long day. The boys had fun taking a bath together.
Day 3 was another early start. We decided to explore the less popular part of the park, Hetch Hetchy. It was an hour and a half drive to get there. It is basically another valley, like Yosemity Valley, that they built a dam and flooded. The purpose of the dam and water is to provide water for San Francisco.
We did a relatively flat hike along the lake to this amazing waterfall. The hike was super long, but the waterfall was so worth it.
Only Brian and Robbie braved the bridge that was still spilling water occasionally over the top. They were also the only ones that had to hike back with wet shoes and socks.
Here are some of the pictures we took during the hike.
On the way back from Hetch Hetchy, we stopped at the rangers station so our kids could earn their Jr. Ranger Badges for Yosemite. They were kind enough to give Camden one, too, even though he was asleep while we were there. This ranger was one of my very favorites from all of the National Parks we have been to.
The next morning(the 4th of July), we left Yosemite and headed south. We read in the news about a 6.9 magnitude earthquake that had hit Southern California that morning and we thought, "Wow, we just barely missed it." Our next destination was a cabin just outside of Sequoia National Park. The cabin was located about 75 miles away from the epicenter of the earthquake. We thought that it was possible that we might feel an aftershock or 2, but didn't think much more of it. We stopped for lunch and grocery shopping in Vasilia (the biggest town near our cabin) before heading towards our cabin. We had considered coming back into Vasilia for fireworks that night, but noticed that they did their firework show the night before, so we didn't bother. It was a very different 4th of July for us. We reflected on our freedoms and the beauty of nature, but it mostly went by unnoticed for us this year.
The next morning, we headed out early to explore Sequoia National Park. We started at General Sherman's Tree, figuring that that would be the most popular destination for crowds.
The trees were so BIG!
After General Sherman's Tree, we did a hike on Congress trail. All of the biggest trees had names in reference to Presidents, or Congress.
There were a lot of trees with burn marks in them.
There were some fun tunnel trees and fallen trees.
After our hike, we had planned to drive to another parking lot and park again to eat and do another hike. The park was packed, though and we were never able to find another parking space. We did stop at the rangers station on the way out of the park and let the kids earn their 3rd Jr. Ranger badge from this trip. I think they have now collected around 10 badges. We love the way that the booklets teach them about the unique qualities of each park. We feel like it makes visiting the National Park a little more meaningful to them.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out in the cabin. That night, we let the kids roast marshmallows over the BBQ Grill(no open fires allowed in this area). While they were roasting, we got to experience an earthquake! At first we thought it was an aftershock of the first quake. But after looking it up online, we discovered it was even bigger than the first one. It was looooooong. Like 45 seconds to 1 minute long. We continued to feel aftershocks all night long. Anything that was over 4.5 magnitude, we could feel. It freaked the kids out a bit, but they also loved being able to tell people that they had felt such a big earthquake.
We were glad to head out the next morning and not have to feel the ground shaking so much. We said goodbye to Brian and Maryn and family and drove on to St. George. We took a road that probably took us 10 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake. Besides seeing emergency response vehicles, we didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. And because we were driving, we didn't notice any more shaking. That night, Danny took the girls to the Tuacahn Outdoor Theater in St. George. I got to take them 4 years ago, so I thought it was fair to let him have a turn to see the theater and what they could do with the theater space. I took the boys to the swimming pool.
We headed home the next morning after sleeping in a bit. We pulled into our garage about 10 minutes before the start of church. We changed as quickly as possible and left everything in the car to unload later. It was a fun vacation and the highlight of our summer.
