The drive from Tahoe down to the eastern entrance to Yosemite was a joy. We passed Mono Lake, another bright blue lake.

Tioaga Pass

We spent our first day at Yosemite in the northern part along Tioga Road. The ascent up the Tioga Pass is a beautiful valley, complete with cliffs, streams, waterfalls, and meadows.

This was our biggest hike of the trip - we tackled Lembert Dome. Here is the mountain from a distance.

We all started out and had a delightful hike. No, we didn't scale the face of the dome - there is an easy trail around the back side.

This is what most of the trail looked like. There was even the occasional pile of snow along the way.

Don and Rachel made it to the top. Getting to the top was pretty adventurous - we even got lost once. The "trail" leading up to the peak. Yes, that white area is snow. This part of the hike is a little scary, since the rock drops off in all directions.

Standing on the very top of the dome. We made it! This is where the term mountaintop experience comes from.

Yosemite Valley

We spent the second day at Yosemite in Yosemite Valley. It is an incredibly peaceful place, with meadows, the winding Merced River, and deer wandering around. In the distance, much farther away than it appears, is Yosemite Falls. It is mind-boggling - when you look at it, it is like you are watching a video is slow motion. It takes a very long time for the water to make it all the way down. If the wind is blowing, the water is nothing but mist at the bottom and gets blown away from the base.

Our longest hike of the day was Mist Trail, up to the base of Vernal Falls, which still had a nice flow of water for this late in the year. The area had a large snowfall this winter, so there was still plenty of runoff. We wanted to see Nevada Falls, but it just wasn't visible from where we were. (The wish to see Nevada Falls was unexpectedly fulfilled later.)

We also hiked up to Bridal Veil Falls and to the lower Yosemite Falls, shown below. This waterfall looks huge, but it is tiny compared to the absurdly high upper falls above.

We made our way down to El Capitan - yes, from the bottom - and spotted a few climbers using our binoculars. This is the largest rock monolith in the world, the ultimate gauntlet for climbers. Even with binoculars, the climbers are tiny and hard to find.

Here was the only place we found where you could see upper, middle, and lower Yosemite Falls all from the same place. This puts the above waterfall in perspective.

At the end of the day we stopped at Tunnel View, where from one spot you can see (left to right) El Capitan, Half Dome, Taft Point, and Bridal Veil Falls. If it weren't for Glacier Point, this would have been our Christmas card photo.

We stayed in a comfortable and welcoming lodge near the park entrance. It was a great location, but the hotel did not supply WiFi. Also, since we were in a valley, we had no cellular service. With teenage daughters, this was tantamount to not having running water or electricity. We had to rough it, but somehow survived the digital drought.

Glacier Point

For our third Yosemite day, we headed to Glacier Point. We didn't know what to expect, but we were not dissapointed! We could stand in one place and look down on all that we had done the day before. One location had a spectacular view of the whole valley. From there, using binoculars, we spotted hikers at the top of Half Dome. We were also treated to an overhead view of spectacular Nevada Falls, making up for not seeing it the day before.

This video shows a panorama from Glacier Point.

No, this next photo was not taken from an airplane. This is what you see when you look straight down from Glacier Point. This is the Merced River winding through the valley.

After Glacier Point we stopped at a few other overlooks, and then hiked about a mile out to Taft Point.

This was a pretty scary place to be, because you can walk right up to the edge of a sheer cliff that drops all the way to the bottom of the valley - about 3500 feet away. That's 2/3 of a mile straight down.

Unlike Glacier Point, Taft Point offers a great view of El Capitan.

Here we are, plenty of distance from the edge, with Yosemite Falls just to the left of us.