Our trip was in two parts. First, we flew to Fresno and drove to Mariposa to visit Diane's cousin Lynn and her husband, Roger. We spent two nights with them and took a drive on the highway that leads to the El Portal entrance to the Park. Later that day, we escaped the heat by going to Oakhurst to see the movie, The Lion King. We left Roger and Lynn on Thursday morning.
We went down the road and stopped at the Mariposa Coffee Company. It was then on to Yosemite. The traffic was light and we made good time. We started our hike at the McGurk Meadow about 12:30PM. We thought it would be a warm up hike. After we passed a meadow of brilliant wild flowers we noticed the trail was going up and down. We saw very few people on this hike. Our destination was Dewey Point, an outcropping that would give us a view of Yosemite Valley. The closer we got to the point, the steeper the trail got. Near the top we encountered two elderly ladies coming down and they told us, "10 more minutes" which we took to mean 20 more minutes. We were right and after 20 minutes we got to the top and were treated to some magnificent views. We took pictures and then headed back down to get back to the shade of forest. It was not a straight downhill return. Remember those ups and downs I mentioned. The downs were now ups, so we had some climbing to get out of there. My GPS said 8.5 miles roundtrip. We got back to the car and headed for the cabin check in about 4:30 PM. We cleaned up and headed to the Valley to get provisions at the store and eat at the hotel. We got back to the cabin and went to bed pretty early.
Friday morning we had a decision to make. We were both feeling pretty tired and sore so we decided that the Thursday hike was the hard hike and we would do an easier hike this day. That pretty much ruled out Ostrander Lake which was more than 12 miles. Luckily, we chanced upon reading about Sentinel Dome. We decided on that and headed out Glacier Point Road in the morning. The mileage turned out to be about 4 miles roundtrip with some climbing at the end to get atop the dome. Once on top, we again got some great views and took some pictures. We went back to the car and drove down to the Valley and did the short hike to Bridal Veil Falls. We had our lunch there and drove the rest of the way into the Valley. It was bumper to bumper and finding no place to park we decided to head back to the cabin.
On Saturday, we packed up and headed toward Wawona and had breakfast at the Big Tree Lodge. We then went to Mariposa Grove and did the Grizzly Giant Loop Trail. It was a good thing that it was mostly in the shade as it was getting pretty warm. We finished that hike and then headed back to Fresno where we found out we had been upgraded to First Class. What a way to end the trip!
