Yosemite

 

Our family spent this previous 3-day Easter weekend in one of the most beautiful places in this world I have ever been to.  It seems like every year since the last time Eve and I went to Yosemite, when Cameron and Haylee were really small, I have told myself that it's time to take the family there again.  Finally we did so, and had a very memorable time.

Being now a family of six, we rented an Airbnb about an hour from the center of Yosemite Valley.  While it would have been nice to stay in the valley right there close to the hiking trails, we enjoyed having extra space in a cottage at a fraction of the price of the valley lodges (and we planned the trip way too late to get a reservation in the valley, anyways). Even with driving to and from the cottage in Mariposa each morning and evening, we still had time to see what we wanted in the 3 days we were there.

On the first day in the park our whole family walked some short, easy hikes together.  Each of the next two days we split up; Landon, Cameron, and I would do one of the strenuous day hikes each day; and Eve, Haylee, and Waylon stayed at the bottom of the valley to explore.  Haylee enjoyed the shorter walks and taking pictures.  Waylon liked to get out of his stroller to explore or play some baseball with his mom.  The older boys and I hiked the Upper Yosemite Falls hike one day, which was a 7 mile round trip with an 2900 foot elevation change from bottom to top, taking us about 8 hours total (I stopped a lot to take pictures).  The next day we went up the Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls trail, a 2000 foot elevation change that took us about 6 hours. 

It's difficult to describe in just a few words what made the hikes so fun:  the challenge, the terrain variety, the awesome vistas.  But what I enjoyed the most was hiking with my sons over terrain completely new to them with scenery they had never experienced before.  I was also very impressed with how capable they were with the difficult hikes; they were faster than me and ahead of me almost the entire time both days!  I expected that from Cameron, after just finishing a fantastic freshman cross country season, he is easily in way better shape than the whole family and more than I have ever been anytime in my life.  But even Landon, who is about to turn 12 and does not get the regular exercise that his brother does, did both hikes without hardly any complaint (aside from some sore feet from hiking shoes that he wasn't used to).  At the beginning of the trip I didn't expect that he would be joining Cameron and I on the more difficult hikes.  But I am glad the 3 of us could have those adventures together, and then enjoy hearing from Eve and Haylee at the end of the day what they experienced.