Yosemite Labor Day Trip

Two weeks ago we made a trip to Yosemite National Park! At first I was worried we would have to cancel it due to the wildfires at Lake Tahoe, but fortunately the smoke and fires stayed away. We did have to modify our plans somewhat however, since our original plans to camp at Cherry Valley Campgrounds got scrapped because all of the national forests in California were closed due to the fire risk. However, I was able to find some tent cabins near the western entrance to Yosemite that still had availability at the Yosemite Bug Mountain Resort. There is also a cafe there which served surprisingly delicious food!

We got there Sunday night, and planned to go into Yosemite National Park on Labor Day. Amparo had never been to Yosemite before, and I hadn’t seen any Sequoia trees the last time I was there, so we decided to go check out the Mariposa Sequoia Grove first. It was about a two miles hike from the parking lot to the Sequoia tree grove.

I brought my GoPro of course, and recorded some footage during our hike to the grove as well as the drive to Yosemite Valley afterwards.

One of the biggest Sequoias in the grove was the Grizzly Giant tree, and they also had a tunnel carved through one of the trees which you could walk through (and of course we did).

While hiking, we also saw several woodpeckers as well as a deer! After we got back to the truck, we ate lunch and saw a deer with two fawns grazing in some trees near the parking lot. We didn’t get any pictures or videos of them, but it was nice to see them while we were eating.

After finishing lunch, we headed to Yosemite Valley to check it out and grab some dinner at the Yosemite Lodge. Things were pretty dry, but there was still a little bit of water running through the creek near the Upper Pines campground. I went down to see how the water felt, it was surprisingly cool and a few people were swimming nearby. Last time I visited Yosemite with my friends, we tubing down the river which was pretty fun. Maybe if Amparo and I come back in the future, we could do that again, and hopefully stay in Yosemite Valley itself which is quite nice.

We went to the lodge to find some dinner, but it seemed like most of the restaurants were closed which I wasn’t really expecting. The only thing that still appeared to be open on Labor Day was a cafeteria, so we grabbed some pizzas from there and drinks. The pizza was a little disappointing, but we were hungry and ready for a break so we just had to deal with it. The food from the cafe in the Yosemite Bug Resort was better, so when we returned to our tent cabin we went back there and had some slices of pie that we had been eyeing since the previous day. It was much better than the pizza we had earlier, so we went to bed pretty satisfied.

The following day we packed up, and made the 5 1/2 hour drive to return home! Yosemite is a huge park, and despite having made two visits there I still feel like I haven’t had a chance to see most of it. Maybe next year we can come back, and see some other parts of the park as well.