We woke up early and looked outside and decided to look around the resort until it was time for us to take out Winders of Yosemite tour. The area around the cabin was still fairly dark and the sun was coming up. The paths were lit and it was really pretty.
We decided to go have some breakfast at the restaurant. The food was good and the staff was really friendly. Since it wasn’t time for our tour we went to the general store to get some things to stock our room and also wandered around the property.
General store and registration
Old Growth Evergreen near the rec center
Lawn outside of the main common area
Eventually it was time to go check in for our tour so we went to the recreation center and checked in. We were given a voucher to take to the general store to get lunch to take along with us and waited for the tour to start in the sitting area in the main common area where they lit a fire and it was very cozy. The signs outside were indicating that they would be having tie dye shirt making and other activites for the kids later in the day.
Recreation center and main common area
When it was time for our tour to start we met our tour guide Jesse and a couple of his friends who were new and riding along to learn – Noah and Matthew. They were all great. We also had another couple on our tour as well as a 12 year old named Arthur and his mom and grandmom. arthur was very interested in elevations and other details so we sat him up front with Jesse and they chatted the whole way.
Our first stop was the Tuolumne grove of Sequoia trees. We took about a 3 mile hike in that area to stopping to see a lot of the trees including the famous tunnel tree.
our guides Jesse, Noah and Matt inside of the Tunnel tree
After the Toulumne Grove visit we went down into Yosemite valley. Jesse had a special spot where we could have lunch in a quiet meadow beside a stream with a fantastic view of El Capitan. We sat and had lunch and took pictures of El cap and some climbers who were on the face of it but that you couldn’t see without binoculars or a long lens.
El Capitan
Climbers on the face of El Cap
Climbers camping on El Cap
After lunch we went to look at the Yosemite Falls. It was super crowded and very hard to find a parking spot. The Yosemite lodge was right in the middle of the chaos with hotel guests fighting for parking with visitors to the falls. We were glad that we didn’t stay there. Jesse dropped everyone else in the van off at the path to the falls and then went off to try to find parking. It was super crowded but a very impressive falls. It was tough to get a picture without a million people in it but we did our best.
Yosemite falls
Yosemite falls
below the falls
Yosemite falls
After the falls we took a walk around the valley near the falls for views of Half Dome and other views of the falls.
Half Dome
A different view of the falls
After our walk we headed out of the valley, the weather was pretty quickly turning bad and we wanted to get a view of the famous Tunnel View.
Tunnel View
Tunnel View
We headed back to the resort and had a great dinner and enjoyed our fireplace in the room.