A Day in the Park

It rained early this morning and thunderstorms were forecast, but the day turned out great! It did keep a few people from coming into Yosemite until a little later which was good for us. We split up into four main groups today - Doug, Bev, Ahren & Amanda went to a railroad town south of Yosemite and took a ride on a steam train - Tami, Hannah, Sariah & Makayla stayed at camp - Katrina, BJ & Andy did the strenuous hike to the top of Yosemite Falls - the rest of us did two hikes, one to Vernal Falls and one to Mirror Lake.
This is the group that hiked to Vernal Falls, except for Gary, who hid behind all of us! The Vernal Falls trail is marked "moderate" so we decided to do it first thing in the morning. It was a little challenging for those of us that aren't as active, but it was do-able.

Ron got first duty helping Malia up the trail. Grandpa Gary helped out, too. As you can see, she had a rough time navigating the trail!
When we got to the bridge we were at the halfway point. Ron & Isaac made the rest of the trip to the top of the falls and the rest of us took our time going back down the trail.

After lunch at Camp Curry we headed out for our second hike. This was on the road to the trail to Mirror Lake. It was only a mile walk and this one was ranked "easy", which it was. We were glad that we had done the more difficult hike first.

The lake was cold though there were a few people who walked into it. We just found places to sit and visited with others who had made the hike.

Mackenzie, Malia and Mallory did a little wading in the lake.

We waited for the tram at the end of our Mirror Lake hike - we were pretty exhausted. When we got back to Camp Curry we headed to the ice cream shop and gave ourselves a treat. As we relaxed in the lodge the trio who had climbed Yosemite Falls returned and we applauded them for their accomplishments then sent them to get some ice cream, too!

It was nice to return to camp - Lady and Apollo were glad to see us! We had a campfire in the evening and the kids made s'mores. The campground is full for the weekend. We expect Jen, Jeff and Besso to come in either late tonight or early tomorrow. I just hope they arrive safely, whenever it is - I'm going to bed!