This is the first part of a two-part trip report from last weekend's visit to Yosemite.

A Change of Plans

Last Monday, the plan for the weekend was to stay home and sit still. It was a simple plan. It was a good plan. It was also a plan doomed to fail.

Later that day, I was online and thought it would be fun "just to see" if there was anything available in Yosemite. As expected, recreation.gov came up empty and yosemitepark.com came up with a room at the Ahwahnee, which is an expensive equivalent to empty.

A person truly intent on staying home and sitting still would have quit at that point, and I was that person for another fifteen minutes or so. But then it dawned on me that what I wanted wasn't to stay home and sit still. What I really wanted was to visit Yosemite. As soon as I accepted that, the search for a place to stay for the weekend began in earnest.

With persistence bordering on obsession, I was able to snag a spot in Housekeeping Camp for Friday night. It took another day of constant checking (and a bit of luck) to secure a second night.

With both reservations printed and placed in the safety of my backpack, all there was left to do was pack and think about potential hikes.

The Valley

We arrived in the valley just after noon on Friday. Our first stop was camp, to see if any sites were ready. There were a few, but we were told to come back between three and five to officially check in.

Not wanting to wander off too far, we decided to stay in the valley and see how differently everything looked compared to when we were last in the park, on New Year's Day.

The snow-covered meadows were now lush and green.



Flowers and plants buried by snow or dormant for the season were in bloom.



The waterfalls, which were little more than a spray, were booming.



And the quiet Merced River was once again a thoroughfare for rafts and kayaks.



Our last stop, before returning to camp, was the Yosemite Chapel. It recently celebrated its 130th birthday, but looks good for its age.



An Anniversary

One of the main reasons I went from wanting to stay home to wanting to make Yosemite happen was M. Last week was our fifth anniversary, and while I was initially set on taking her out for a nice dinner, I quickly realized I wanted to do something more for her. That ended up being Yosemite. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but it's where we went for our first "official" date¹.

To mark the occasion, we had dinner at the Mountain Room Lounge, which is part of the Yosemite Lodge, and across from the Mountain Room Restaurant. We initially planned to dine at the restaurant, but after seeing the line of people waiting to be seated, we chose to eat at the unusually empty lounge.

While the lounge has a smaller menu than the restaurant (just three entrees), the quality of the food is still high. If I'm not mistaken, the same chef prepares the dishes for both places. (For the record, I had the roasted chicken with a glass of Chateau St. Michelle Riesling.)



A Show

After dinner, we returned to camp, showered, and ventured across Southside Drive to the LeConte Memorial Lodge, a small granite and wood building that is home to the Sierra Club. The lodge has several educational displays and a collection of books about Yosemite, the Sierra Nevada, John Muir, Joseph LeConte, and more. It's a beautiful place, outside and inside.



That night, the lodge was showing "The John Muir Trail", a video by Lee Turkelson, who was on hand to narrate and answer questions. The film followed Turkelson and his companions as they hiked the JMT from Mt. Whitney to Happy Isles.

What was most striking about the video was the way it blended two trips (one in early summer, one in late summer) to give a broader picture of the trail. The most memorable moments of the film were the interviews Turkelson conducted with thru-hikers he met along the way. My favorite was the artist who used watercolors to paint the view from his tent (and where he was headed) every morning.

¹ Not only was it a three-day first date, but was also a climb-to-the-top-of-Half-Dome first date.