Yosemite in April is for waterfalls

 Similar to last year, a friend of Mrs Notthat ended up with an unused reservation at Yosemite Lodge, so we grabbed it and spent Monday through Friday in the wonder that is a Yosemite springtime.

Is springtime the best time to visit Yosemite? That depends on what you prefer:

The good:

• The waterfalls are insane. Look at any valley wall and you will likely be able to spot at least a tiny ribbon of water running down its side. The main waterfalls are flowing with unmatched enthusiasm.
• The crowds are not insane. There are still a lot of people there, but it's not like it will be in a few months.
• It's not hot. This can be a mixed bag, but in general, it will still be cool at night and in the shade during the day.
• It's green everywhere.

The bad:

• Not everything is open. Tioga Pass and Glacier Point are closed. All of the valley restaurants and services seemed to be open though. Some trails are closed, although these tend to be the more aggressive ones that most people wouldn't try anyway.
• It can be cold and wet. We had a front move in Thursday evening that brought wind and rain. 

This was off our room's deck. The dogwoods had just started blooming a few days before we got there.

The main view off our room's deck. Pretty nice! (We had a great view of Upper Yosemite falls out our front door, but that was only seen when we went through the door.)

Tuesday was predicted to be the nicest day of the week, so we chose that day to do our most aggressive hike - to the top of Vernal Falls. Neither of us have done any hill training recently, and the hike to the top of the falls is a significant climb (about 1800' the way we went, over a bit more than six miles total).

We took the bus to the Happy Isles stop, then started up the paved bit of the Mist trail to the bridge. This is a fair climb all on its own, but is very popular and there were lots of people making that trek. At the bridge, there are toilets and a place to get water, but both were closed due to a dangerous looking tree. 

At the bridge, looking at Vernal Falls and our goal.

We now had to make a decision - keep going up the shorter, steeper Mist trail, which is guaranteed to make you very wet, or go up on the John Muir trail, which is longer and will require you to climb a bit higher than necessary, but will keep you dry. 

We failed to bring any ponchos to keep us at least a bit dry, so we chose to go up the long route. 

There were a few places on the trail where snow was still present.

The trail is nice, although there are a lot of switchbacks (which make the trail not as steep as a more direct route would be, but also make it longer). The one thing I hadn't realized is that the long route actually takes you well above the top of Vernal Falls.

See those tiny people on the lower-right? That's where we were headed. It still looked a long ways away. 

At the top of the climb, there is a spur "trail" that takes you down to the top of Vernal Falls. This trail was pretty challenging, both in difficulty and in just trying to feel comfortable that you were actually on the trail - it was pretty vague in a few places.

Also worth noting is that the John Muir Trail was closed at this point - you could not continue up it to the top of Nevada Falls. (You could still get to the top of Nevada falls using the Mist trail though. Supposedly you don't get very wet on that section of the Mist trail.) 

That's Nevada Falls on the right. On the left is the hulking Half Dome.

Us braving the squirrels at the top of Vernal Falls, eating a light lunch.

After finally making it down to the top of Vernal Falls, we had another decision to make - go back the way we came or go down the shorter Mist trail. Our initial thought was to go down the Mist trail and just get wet - that bit of "trail" we had just come down was not fun and we didn't relish going back up it.

That's the very wet Mist trail - note the people wearing ponchos. 

While sitting there, we noted how wet the people were as they came off the Mist trail. We also noted that going back up that pretend trail we had just come down would likely be easier, at least from the fall risk perspective. While it was nice out, it was not particularly warm - getting wet would mean getting cold, maybe really cold. Some of those that had just come up the Mist trail looked very cold.

So we chose to go back the way we came. (It was funny that when people found out we had come up the John Muir way, they had a lot of questions since they did not want to go back down that Mist trail. Telling them they would see snow seemed to sell a number of people!)

Diane looking over the top of the falls - it's kind of funny how being at the top of a waterfall is not as inspiring as seeing it from its bottom.

And that's about it for this hike - the climb back up that "trail" to the John Muir trail was indeed not as bad as it had been when coming down it, and going back down on the John Muir trail took a while but was uneventful.

That hike wiped us out. We did the Yosemite After Dark tour that night, which involved about a mile of flat hiking and headlamps.

Upper Yosemite Falls in the moonlight - taken as a long exposure with my phone. (There was talk of a moonbow at the base of the falls that night, but the clouds were mostly blocking the moon, so it likely did not go well.)

The next couple of days were nothing too special - we kept it simple while letting our sore muscles recover. We did drive over to see the new Bridalveil Falls area, which has been under construction for maybe ten years (it seems like) - the improvements were really nice, and the falls were stunning. (During the day, there is a lot of work going on in that area, so there are big traffic delays. We went later in the day and had no issues driving right into the area.)

As with all the big falls, you could get closer, but you would get pretty wet.

On Thursday, we used our bikes to ride from the lodge up to Mirror Lake. 

It had been a while since we had brought up our bikes, and they really were a great way to get around the valley - it was surprising how fast we could get from the lodge to the village area while just cruising along. (Taking the bus would have been 30-60 minutes while walking would have been maybe 20 minutes - the bikes were maybe 10 minutes.)

Eating lunch at Mirror Lake. It was nice when the sun was shining, even with the breeze!

Diane with the bikes. The bikes are really old and hadn't been ridden in years, so I had spent a fair amount of time working them over before this trip. It was worth it!

The breeze made Mirror Lake not very mirrory.

And that's about it. We went into the park on Monday using the 140 route, but had a couple of long construction-based stoppages, so we went home on the 120 route which worked fine.

Our hope is to go back this summer when more is open - one goal is to take the bus up to Glacier Point, then hike down the Four Mile Trail.

Yosemite is a special place that's worth some of the hassle (crowds, reservations to get in, wildly high prices for food and such). We're hoping to spend a bit more time at sites other than the popular ones (but the popular ones are popular for a reason!). We also would like to spend some time in the Hetch Hetchy area - there are some nice waterfalls and trails there too.

That's it - move along…