Half Dome

The main reason that Jeremy wanted to go to Yosemite was to be able to hike Half Dome with his Dad.  It was a 19 mile hike with two very difficult sections.  One of them, you only have cables to hold on to.  This picture was one of my favorites... the sunbather laid down just as they were going to take the picture of them on the diving board.  He looks like he's pointing right at them. 

Jer and Michelle did a lot of it together.  They did great.  They did this 19 miler in 12 hours... Yosemite says that it's a 16 mile hike that takes 10-12 miles to complete... so I think they did amazingly.

This is the cables.

My first day

Since neither of the younger two nor I were up for an 11.5 miler, we started at the Mist trail base and went up as far as I felt comfortable doing with a 3 year old in tow.  We ended up hiking about to the top of Vernal Falls, which is a 3 mile hike.  Seth loved the rocks and Evelyn loved having mom time.  They loved that the squirrels weren't afraid of people and would follow Seth especially just hoping for him to drop something to eat.  One thing that we've learned is that the signs are not marked with the right mileage for each of the trails.  The Panorama trail was supposed to be 8 miles and was 11.5... El Capitan was supposed to be 3 miles away from the top of Yosemite falls and ended up being 5 miles away and 5 miles back.  We started asking if things were in miles or in Yosemite miles.  It was a lovely hike and we did the steep uphill part while it was all shady.  I even made friends with a couple from the Broncs and Pikipsy.  The kids very willingly got out their rain coats to keep from getting too wet on the trail and wouldn't take them off even on the way down.  Seth kept saying that he was like Superman but a boy.  We got in trouble for peeing on the side of the tail instead of hiking 100 yards away from the trail and digging a 6 inch hole to bury a 3 year old's pee.  We made it part of the way up the stone stairs by Vernal Falls.  It was gorgeous.  I decided to turn around when some of the stone steps were a little too big for the 3 year old to step up and he'd try to go around them near the edge of the cliff.  I called that good and we went back down to the base.  We took the shuttle to the van and Seth fell asleep as soon as he was sitting.  Evelyn and I read and then we picked up our very tired hikers from the Panorama trail hike to take them back to camp. The valley where we did all the hiking is an hour drive from our camp, so it was a very exciting thing to get back and forth every day.

This is at the Yosemite Falls bridge, almost a mile up the mountain.

Evelyn got into maps and compasses.  She figured out pretty quick how to read a compass and tell me which way we were going.  It was super cute.

First day

First day, Sam and Ada went on a 11.5 mile hike called the Panorama trail with Jer, Jim, Amy, Jay, Emily and my friend Michelle.  Sam was happily surprised that he could hike (Michelle was key on that one) and Ada found it a challenge.... but it was her first long hike without her hiking buddy, Mariah.  She still did it and she's willing to do Timpanogos this summer.

My hikers

Seth and number 4

Seth has been obsessed with the number four. His favorite is when he gets a red 4 but any 4 will work.

Games

No camping trip without games. I found this giant Uno game at the store and had to bring it. The kids were pretty happy with it.

Family trip 2018

Each year we do a big trip somewhere.... sometimes it's a week camping at Bear Lake.... this year it was a week camping at Yosemite National Park.  We've been preparing for this for over two years.  Jer made camp reservations a year ago.  We invited any and all of our two extended families for anyone that wanted to come.  We got a couple of takers, but it was hard for a lot of people to plan that far in advance. We left on Saturday after a false start.  Our trailer was a little bit too unbalanced and started swaying on the freeway, we stopped and repacked it before actually leaving.  We decided to take a little detour to the Ely Charcoal Ovens.  I've been wanting to see them since we went to a train show a couple of years ago and they were talking about their role in building the railroad.

It made a great run around stop.  It was funny watching the kids pop in and out of the ovens.  Like one of those movies where they pop in one door and out another during the chase scene.