December, 2024. I took a week vacation and set off to a tour of some places in US west coast. I planned Yosemite knowing it is not the correct time to visit that place. So, it would just be a very quick tour. This blog is about the shortest tour that you can possibly have while visiting Yosemite National Park.
The day before I was to go to Yosemite, my son sprained his leg pretty bad and had to wear ortho boot to comfort him. So, now even medium hikes were out of our scope. With no specific plan in mind, we reached Curry Village at Yosemite National park around 3:30 AM in the morning. We encountered a lot of fog and snow covered path on the way. Snow was not so bad as to stop us from driving a two wheel drive car, but it did slow us down a lot.
Got keys to our tents in Curry Village and then crashed on the bed to wrap up the day and get ourselves out of the air travel fatigue.
The Loop
In the morning, we started with the Visitor Center (2). Curry Village is located at (1). This is where we had spent our night. I knew Glacier points were already out of bounds as it is winter. So, we were looking at a much smaller set of things that we can stop at. Also with hiking out of our equation, the set gets even smaller.
Morning in Curry Village
Come morning we went to the restaurant for some nice hot breakfast. Even though there are quite a few dining places in Curry Village, most do not open for breakfast. The only one that was open is Seven Tents Pavilion. As soon as you move in, you are greeted by a nice and cosy environment out of the freezing cold outside. It was renovated recently and I do see they did a remarkable job. A nice hot breakfast boosted our spirits and we were all ready to face the day. As the morning progressed, and the sun brought its warmth, it became much less cold, and Yosemite started to show its grandeur.
Visitor Center and Gift Shop
The first stop was to the visitor center. I always carry America the Beautiful pass, so I did not need additional tickets. Also, unless you are going in peak seasons, you will not need any reservations as well. The park ranger we met with was very helpful, and she drew all the places that we can visit by car. The most that we may need is to hike on easy flat land. Map above shows approximate locations for all the different places of interest.
Gift shop is right next to the Visitor Center. We stopped there for mementos. You can buy regular mementos like fridge magnets, shot glasses, photo albums, variety of tee shirts etc at the gift shop. Spent quite some time and came out with a big bag of stuff.
Yosemite during season also runs a shuttle. You can find the map for shuttle online if needed. Basically they run two routes. East loop and Valley loop. You can park at the visitor center and get on a shuttle to go to various points of interest.
After we were done at the gift shop, we started on the loop trail for the first scenic stop.
Yosemite Falls Trail and Cook’s Meadow Trails
We started our Yosemite scenic tour from Yosemite Falls. We stopped there to have a view of the falls. From this viewpoint you can see both upper and lower falls. There is also trails that you will be able to hike to go closer to the falls. The lower Yosemite falls is an easy hike and can be accessed from here.
Right across the street there is an easy trail called Cook’s Meadow loop. It is a very easy trail and gives you views of Upper Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, Royal Arches and Sentinel Rocks. This is a partly paved trail and should not be missed.
El Capitan Picnic Area
El Capitan (the Captain) is a famous landmark. It’s famous with climbers. That is the next stop in the loop. The easiest way to view this is the picnic area. There are car parking spots right next to the street. There is a very nice view of El Capitan from this spot.
Valley View
The next stop in our loop is Valley View. This is one of the beautiful spots to catch some reflections. We were here in the morning, but I guess the best views would be during sunset. When the water is still, reflections look awesome. When we went to this place, water was still, very still. I was able to capture some nice reflections in Valley View.
Since I really wanted to see how this thing will look during sunset, I put some AI to get the effect. So here it is, left is what I got that day, and on the right is a AI representation of what it may look like at sunset. Enjoy the view.
Bridalveil Falls
We continue our journey to Bridalveil Falls. This is also a easy trail to the falls and there are only some stairs to the fall. Rest of the path is fairly easy. In winter the fall water is much less than during the peak. However, it still presents a nice view.
We parked at the parking lot and started our way along the trail. It was fairly easy and we soon reached the waterfall.
Tunnel View
Tunnel View is a recommendation that we got from a family we met at Curry Village. According to them this is one of the best spots in Yosemite. So, we were excited to go to this spot. Next spot on the drive was Tunnel View.
Tunnel View is unique. It gives a nice view of Yosemite valley where you can see a view of El Capitan, Bridalveil Falls and Half Dome at the same time. I am sure this place will also look very pretty during sunset.
Conclusion
That was mostly what I visited at Yosemite. We made stops at other viewpoints as well. Every viewpoint presented a unique view of Yosemite.
This time we missed one big part of Yosemite because of snow. We intend to come back again during season and visit all points including Glacier point and Firefalls (Horsetail Falls). Also at that time, I would love to hike the trails that Yosemite provides and get closer to the views. But at least to me, end of the trip, it was a trip worth remembering.
I thought I will put my short Yosemite trip in this blog and if someone gets in the same situation as me, they can traverse the same path. Ciao for now!