It Was Cold and Wet, So I Took My Family to the River

I saw a picture of the Tower Bridge today. The river looked like it was about to reach it. I decided I needed to get my own pictures, so I dragged my family out in the cold and rain. Here they (both the pictures and the family) are:

The start of the trip

The water is at least 10 feet higher than normal. The trees aren't usually in the water.

I got my picture.

Rachel said the words I most love to hear when I'm photographing, "Let me take your picture."

I'm pretty sure that last time I looked the water level was at 11 feet.

We walked all the way to West Sac.

Then we got to the part of the trip that the kids liked the most:

 The stop action movie above shows Lennon doing something pretty cool, but the one below shows him doing something even cooler.

Yeah, he's basically a ninja. Actually, he's a water bender. If you look at the puddle in the second clip, you can see him draw forth its power to assist his leap up onto the platform.

 Back to the girls:

I told Lennon to make sure that we can see the top of the bridge and to make sure we can't see the pole on our left (your right). I even showed him what it looked like on the screen.  I guess one out of two isn't bad. And I'm definitely not going to criticize him, considering his now documented powers.

Yosemite June 2010 day 3 Service project and the Valley

Day 3 was the day I had been waiting for. Not because it was day 3 and I have some crazy thing about the number 3, but because it was the day we were planning on participating in a service project in the valley with some Yosemite rangers. If you recall my Lake Natoma Cleanup post, you know how much I love to volunteer my family for outdoor service projects (especially when free t shirts are involved). The day started out pretty stressfully. Due to getting a slightly late start and having the construction going on from the south entrance up to the valley, and then having to walk from the parking lot to where we were supposed to meet with the rangers, we were a little late. But we made it. The rangers explained our job: we were going to be removing invasive plant species. Then we got to work.

It was cool spending time with the rangers, although I don't really remember too much of what we talked about. I guess I should have blogged about this earlier. I do remember that the main invasive species that we targeted was a plant called Goat's Beard, and I think I could identify it if I were to see it. Later we targeted some type of thistle--Bull Thistle, maybe.

I used this picture for my mormon.org profile picture. It's my favorite.

As we were getting to the chapel, we came across a Yosemite local:

Yosemite black bear

I took that as a payment for our good deed.

pretty good family shot

Nanna the worker

After our service project, we did a bike tour of the valley. I was a little apprehensive, thinking that it would be too crowded to enjoy, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. We stopped at the Merced River for a little swimming, but the water was FREEZING!

Then we dried off and continued the bike tour and made our way to Yosemite Falls.

On our way out from the falls, we decided to explore this cool boulder.

The left side (looking at the picture above) had a built in slide.

Then we took a little breather

Before going back to the bikes

We saw this deer below the bridge next to Yosemite Creek

After we returned to the car, we made one last stop before we left the Valley: Bridalveil Falls. The waterfall was impressive, and so was the rainbow it was creating.

Yosemite June 2010 Day 2 (The belated 2nd of 4 installments)

 I posted the first day of our June 2010 Yosemite trip a while back. Here's day 2:

The next day we woke up early and made our way back to Yosemite. The plan for this day was to head up Tioga Road (Hwy 120), which is the road that goes across the middle of the park from east to west. My mom had driven into the park from highway 395 and had gone up and over Tioga Pass and she had seen a bunch of snow and wanted us to see it too. But I'm getting too far up the narrative road. First let me tell you about our drive. We were staying in Bass Lake--the town, not the body of water, which was about a twenty minute drive to the South entrance of the park. However, it's still about an hour's drive to the valley from there, when there's no road work in progress--which there was when we were there (as there was later when we visited Sequioa and Lassen). The following 2 pictures show how we spent a good portion of our time in Yosemite.

The white truck in the lead is a pilot car

See Rachel in the back seat. She's keeping the peace.

Shortly after we turned onto Tioga Road, we looked out into a big green meadow and saw:

Our first Yosemite Bear

There wasn't really any shoulder to pull over, so I did the best I could, flicked on my hazard lights, and we spent the next five minutes or so checking out this awesome guy.

same bear, different direction

My mom had been doing her research and had our day planned out for us, but we had to improvise a little since a couple of the trails we planned to hike were blocked with snow. Our first intended hike was to May Lake, but the road up to the trailhead was closed due to snow. Instead, we headed over to Lake Tenaya and stopped for lunch and a little relaxation.

Meghan enjoying Tenaya Lake

Then we headed over to Tuolumne Meadows, where again, our options were limited by the snow. We took a short hike to Parson's Lodge and Soda Springs

I can't remember where we took this one, but it's pretty

Me and the the only hiking partner I could find who wasn't too embarrassed to be seen with me. I don't get it.

More wildlife, this time a marmot (also notice Digicam in the bottom left)

Another marmot

water from Soda Springs

This is Soda Springs-- a spring of naturally carbonated water. We did not taste test.

My favorite picture of the Tuolumne River

My two hiker girls.

You can't be happy all the time

More of the beauty of Yosemite

mommy/daughter moment



Lembert Dome



Bambi's great grandson Sambi

Me, Meghan, and a gummi apple ring at Olmstead Point

I couldn't resist (By the way, the day of this post is a special one for Rachel and I. Let's just say it involves the number 13)

Zoomed in view of Half Dome from Olmstead Point

More Zoomed in view

After Olmstead Point we headed over to the trailhead for Lukens Lake, which is supposed to be a great family day hike--when the trail isn't hidden by snow. We didn't get too far before we had no idea where the trail was because in most parts the ground was covered in snow. We did our best to make sure that we could find our way back, but once we got to where we could see the lake from a distance (the picture in the collage is zoomed in, we weren't really that close), I was afraid to turn and head over there because I was afraid we wouldn't be able to find our way back to the trailhead once we changed directions. Also, you can't see in the picture, but behind the brush there is a stream that was mostly covered with snow, but not enough to confidently walk across. I was probably being overcautious, but I'm a worrier when I'm with the kids. So we called it good and headed back.

Lukens Lake hike