Her View 

Yosemite - Caywood's perspective

 

Yosemite: a place of continuous mountains. In my opinion this is one of the most beautiful national parks that we’ve been to on our trip. We did not get to spend much time here, but we quickly agreed that we want to come back here for a 4 or 5 day camping adventure. We chose to only do one hike, which was the Lower Yosemite Falls hike. For this entry, I am going to tell our story through the advice rather than doing them one after another. 

 

My advice from our experience:

1. Go in either May or June. We went in early September, and the things I was most excited to see were all dried up. For example, Mirror Lake was now Mirror Lake Meadows. With the lack of the still water, it was not possible to see the reflections of the Dome and the other nature beauties in the area. Even our hike to Yosemite Falls fell somewhat short; even though the hike was beautiful, the falls were dry so you just don’t get the same experience. The ranger we spoke with said that they dried up earlier than normal this year due to California’s current drought (no shocker there). On typical years these two parts of Yosemite usually dry up early August. But regardless, he said May or June is the best month to visit Yosemite. May will be a bit colder, but you will have less tourists around you.

2. Plan almost an entire week here. There’s great camping, and so many hiking trails to do. And every single trail leads to something beautiful. There are three waterfalls, Mirror Lake, and so much more. Also, they even have horseback riding available for the afternoon. 

3. Walk with your camera in hand; don’t put it in the bag. Why? There is wildlife everywhere in this park. I got SO CLOSE to four deer, and they weren’t scared of me at all. I quickly slipped off my flip flops in effort to be more quiet, and climbed over a fallen tree to get near where the deer were eating. Three does, just enjoying some grass and some shade from the sun. After snapping about 100 pictures between the three of them, I notice the baby deer behind them. No joke - this baby deer looked just like Bambi. Check out the picture below to prove it. Seeing and photographing these deer was easily one of the top 3 highlights of our whole trip thus far. And although we didn’t see one, I hear the park also has a healthy population of mountain lions.