Yosemite National Park – Day 2: Mirror Lake Hike & Lower Yosemite Falls

We had planned to do the Four Mile Trail today, but the temperatures dropped even more (low 40's! 😮) and there was fresh snow/ice on the top of the trail, so we decided “nope, not gonna happen." So we decided to do the Mirror Lake Loop, an easy 5-mile loop around a lake.

The trail started off nice....

 

.....an easy strolling following Tenaya Creek....

...to Mirror Lake, which was much smaller than expected.  Seems as if the park service (rightfully so) is letting nature take its course – which means the lake is returning to meadow.  Okay – great. But then change the trail description!

We saw four deer along the trail

Kept walking

And eventually had to turn back as the trail was washed-out from all the rain.

We never did find the footbridge or any way to make the hike a loop (nor did anyone else – lots of us were meandering different paths to try and find the loop), so it ended up being an in/out hike and very muddy on the way out as it was raining pretty hard!

We stopped at the walking path to Lower Yosemite Falls on the way back to the hotel.

And after dinner wandered around Yosemite Village trying to get warm

Onto Day 3!