Yosemite National Park – Day 1: Top of Yosemite Falls Hike

We went to Yosemite National Park over the Memorial Day weekend. We’ve been there twice:

October2008 – when we hung out in the valley and did some Glacier Point hikes

August2016 -  when we sent time in Tuolumne Meadows, the High Country, and Yosemite Valley

and both times at the end of the season, so we’ve never seen the waterfalls in full flow. Given that this winter Yosemite saw 178% of average snowfall, and it rained everyday we were there (and cold – there was cold-front with temperatures 30-degree lower than normal!), the waterfalls were raging!

We stayed at The Yosemite Valley Lodge (which has really gone downhill since the last time we stayed – super disappointed) and on Saturday we were on the trail for our first hike – to the top of Yosemite Falls , a 7.2 mile, 2,700 ft elevation gain/loss (14.6% grade) RT hike by 8:15am. It was cold! We each started hiking with pants, two-long sleeves shirts, fleece jackets, rain jackets, hats, and gloves! However we were quickly taking off layers as the hike immediately began with a steep ascent.

It was super-steep, as described, through trees and fairly rocky.

We had some good valley views on our way up (and obviously down too).

 Just under two miles in, we had views of Yosemite Falls

And there was a lot of spray! Our rain jackets were quickly donned!

We arrived at the top of Yosemite Falls in about 2 ½ hours and 

meandered the area for about half-an-hour. 

We decided to walk past the top of the falls a bit to the bridge that spans Yosemite Falls

over Yosemite Creek

It started thundering the last mile or so, which was cool, and did end up raining on us the very end of the hike, as we walked back to the hotel room in the rain. 

It was a great hike – we are glad we did it and this was one of the reasons we came to Yosemite this time of year.

Onto Day 2!