Day 6

We packed up and left our apartment nice and early, sad to say goodbye to San Francisco but feeling happy about the prospect of going somewhere warmer.

Our first stop was a little café I’d found in Emeryville called Rudy’s Can’t Fail, (seeing as my best friend is called Rudy, we obviously had to go!) it was cool place with a skater punk ska type of vibe (sounds just like Rudy in 1999). The décor was pretty cool with loads of different dolls lined up in a cabinet wearing ‘I am Rudy’ badges and funky toilet doors. We had a lovely breakfast but didn’t hang around; we were just too excited about getting on the road and making it to Yosemite.

The drive started with us passing farms and orchards, we’ve no idea what they were growing but the trees went on for miles and were in the straightest lines I’ve ever seen trees planted.

We saw a big reservoir, which looked quite empty though it was still pretty. From this point on the scenery became more and more stunning. All of a sudden we were faced with a sign warning us to turn our air con off for 5 miles, I wondered why, I soon realised it was due to the long, winding, very steep switchbacks we had to drive up. There were quite long drops and no crash barriers for a lot of the way, it was a bit scary; I would’ve been terrified if I hadn’t been focusing on the amazing views.

There were many miles of gorgeous woodland which was very pretty, at one point there was an area where there had been a wild fire and only charred trees remained.

All of a sudden we reached a scenic vista and there in front of us was Yosemite Valley with Half Dome in the distance. It was absolutely breathtaking.

From that point on everywhere we looked was beautiful, we had to park the car and get out to take photos every few hundred metres, Natalie did well not to cry. So did I.

We finally made it to the valley floor and checked in to The Lodge at Yosemite Falls, which has very friendly reception staff. Our room in Willow (number 4324) has the most perfect view of Yosemite Falls, it’s just a shame there’s no waterfall by this time of the year. But if you ever come before July, be sure to request this room, you’d have an amazing view from your balcony!

View from room 4324 in Willow at Yosemite Falls Lodge - that's the falls right there!

Once we’d got settled in we went to have a wander around and bought a lovely ice cream, it was huge. We just had time to eat it and then had to make our way back to reception to start the Valley Floor Trolley Tour, a 2 hour ranger lead trip around the valley. We booked onto the tour after phoning to reserve places on the Glacier Point bus tour and the sales person recommended this too.

The tour was fantastic; our ranger guide who had lived and worked at the park for over 15 years was fun and really knowledgeable, she told us stories about the park’s history, rock climbing, types of trees and wildlife and quite importantly, how to deal with bears.

El Capitan on the left. It's over 3500ft from valley floor to the top - three Empire State Buildings high!

Incredible views on the valley tour

One highlight of the tour was going up to Tunnel View, we didn’t realise this tour would take us there so it was a nice surprise. The view from here is the iconic picture perfect postcard image; it’s pretty impossible to describe how breathtaking it is.

Tunnel View.Wow.

Towards the end of the tour we started to see more wildlife, we saw rabbits, a hawk of some kind, quite a few deer and their baby deer (we can’t remember what they’re called!) but the most exciting thing was seeing a bear walking along the river bed sniffing out food. He was a fair distance away when we first spotted him but started walking up towards the trolley, he ended up being around 20 feet away from us; I wondered when the ranger was going to start shouting at him as she’d told us to do but it turned out that as he was just doing normal bear things there wasn’t the need to scare him away this time.

A bear! Blue 53.

After the tour we went for dinner at the Mountain Room restaurant, a lovely big room with high ceilings and huge windows looking out towards Yosemite Falls. The service was wonderful, our server Sydney was lovely and the food was very tasty.

We came back to the room and looked out at the stars for a while but decided not to stay up too late, it’s been another busy day and we have to be up very early to get the bus to Glacier Point and hike back down to the valley tomorrow.