Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite

Brad and I went to Yosemite for a few days last week. It was soooo fun! We went to Tuolumne Meadows and were lucky enough to get a campsite. After we set up our tent and other camping gear, we went a-hikin'! We hiked Lemert Dome which is 9,400 ft. Not taking any time to acclimate to the elevation, I was really gasping for oxygen. But, we did it. Brad went all the way to the top, and I made it almost to the top. I was happy where I was. We met a couple from Finland on the hike up and she didn't go all the way to the top, either (and she was a lot younger and in better shape than me). We met several people from all over - it was fun talking with them. We also hiked to Dog Lake and ate our lunch there. After we came down from that hike, we went the other way and went on the John Muir Trail a ways, to Twin Bridges and a bit beyond. We waded in the cold river water. It was really beautiful. We took many pictures. Here are some of them:

This is the backside of Lembert Dome elevation 9,400 feet


Here is Brad at the top of Lembert Dome

Here is as far as I went (and it took a LONG time to get to this point!)

Here is Brad taking photos in a meadow by Dog Lake

Here is our campsite

Some shots of the Dana Fork of the Tuolomne River




We stopped at this lake on our way out of Yosemite at the east entrance


I will post more photos when Brad downloads them from his camera. These shots were taken with my little Cannon digital.
We hiked from 11AM to 5PM. When we got back to our campsite, we hopped in the car, drove to the Tuolomne Meadows store to buy a few things. One thing we bought was a dark chocolate Haagen Daaz ice cream bar and it was sooo yummy - and we didn't worry about the calories one bit since we'd been hiking all day! We fixed our dinner back at our campsite - Knorr Parmesan Noodles to which we added lemon pepper tuna, cleaned up, sat and looked at the stars for a while (and batted away the relentless mosquitoes! Yes, we had bug spray on) then we went to bed. We had been told it got down to 38 degrees the night before, but it was very pleasant when we went to bed. It got increasingly colder until we had put all our layers on and I was still cold. About 2AM I needed to visit the little girls' room and it was quite a little hike from our campsite. There was no way I was going out in the pitch black by myself 'cause there were bears. So I woke Brad and bless his heart, he accompanied me. When we got back to our tent, I put on socks, a fleece jacket, put a few more layers on and then I was warm and we slept. I even slept through the morning chorus of birds, which usually wakes me up. We brought our bikes with us and cycled around the campground the next morning. You can only bike on paved surfaces, which was fine. We decided we will go to Yosemite Valley on the off-season, when it is not so crowded. And we will hike to some falls next time. I LOVE YOSEMITE!