YOSEMITE DAY 5

Day 5 was a HIKE around the rim and into the Yosemite Valley with the Phillipsons and Hammonds.

Not just any hike either.  It was a monster hike for 6 crazy parents, 9 endurance walking kids, one teen, and one backpack riding 2 year-old.  The 17 of us took a shuttle bus to the top of Glacier Point and then hoofed it the 8 to 8.5miles to the valley floor.   It's called the Panorama trail and Yosemite lists hikes from Easy to Severe and this one falls under Moderate.  This means that when they call it Severe... they are not kidding.  When they call it Moderate, they are.  Wow.  I will say, while there are 5-6 miles of downhill on this trail, my calves were very mad at me at the end and I was super proud of our kids.  They hiked it like champs.   I would do it again for the scenery alone, but I can't say that is true of all my family.  At least one anonymous wife is definitely of the "one and done, been there, done that, have the photo proof, and you can find me at the river reading my book" variety.   She and Zeus (who is not allowed on trails) will be bonding I think. 

Here's the photos.

The pretrip views of the valley (the falls to the right of half dome are in our destination route).

We hiked from Glacier Point, down to Illilouette Falls for lunch and to cool our feet.

Then zigzagged back up the other side of the valley across from Half Dome to Nevada Falls where we rested, snacked up, and swam a little.

We then headed down the famous misty trail to Vernal Falls and finally to the valley floor.  All in all, we started hiking at 10:30am and ended about 6pm which made for some tired feet.

That's enough to call it a very full day.