FLtraveler

We got back from Yosemite yesterday. The waterfalls are incredible at the present time. They have had more snowfall this past winter than usual and the falls are flowing over. The weather is cool. The merced river was too high to white water during the first of the week.
However, since it stayed cold and the snow did not melt the river came down a little. Zephyr company until this time was not taking kids below 14 due to the high river level.
They are working on roads within the park which sometimes makes it difficult to travel through it. We were staying at Yosemite View Lodge & would wait 30 min. to get into the park.
Sentinel Dome hike is a great hike. Fairly easy and you get a 360 degree view of El Capitan, Yosemite falls, half dome, and Vernal And Nevada Falls.
I have an active 12 & 14 yr. old and they loved riding bikes There is a nice bike trail by mirror lake. It was also beautiful crossing the meadow and viewing yosemite falls.

The park was crowded more than Yellowstone at this time. The hike to Vernal falls was particularly crowded after 12 go before then to avoid crowds. The mosquitos were bad on this trail - take repellent also a water camera to take pictures on all the falls.

Sequoia National was great lots of beautiful hikes and we saw 6 bears. Lots of excitement for the kids. If u want to see bears look around the Giant Forest Trail around 4pm & early a.m. the rangers state they go their often. We saw a huge 400 lb. male & 200 female crossing the meadow. It was incredible.We saw one get darted, weighed, and released. It was very interesting. Have a great time!!

kopp

Enjoyed reading your report. The falls sure sounds beautiful, so big and roaring. Amazing story about the bears. Thanks for sharing.

cd

I enjoyed reading your post also. It makes me see the Park all over again except I'm jealous, we did not see one bear.

FainaAgain

I saw bears at Sequoia... how do you know what they weighed? You said you saw only one darted, weighed, what about the other one? Or is it your guess?

FLtraveler

The rangers told us their sexes & weights. They also place GPS trackers on their necks which is reported back to them on an hourly basis this helps them figure out where they like to roam, where they are eating etc.

FainaAgain

Oh, I see... they do the same with Condors in the Grand Canyon, when I was there we saw #20.

I was on a day tour of Yosemite, and our bus was on a road parallel the Merced river. One of the rafters fell off and others tried to pull him in. Unforgettable scene

J_Correa

When I was a kid, we used to go backpacking in the Los Padres National Forest up by Ojai. We saw a condor once and it was absolutely magnificent. I think at the time there were less than 20 in the wild and we saw one. It was Sunday morning and we had hiked up to a rock out cropping to have a short Sunday morning prayer. When we openned our eyes, we saw a condor flying off in the distance. I was 9 years old and I will never forget that.

MileKing

We just returned from Sequoia and Yosemite as well. Great trip. Weather was excellent and we saw four bears (including bear #56) in Sequoia and nine bears in Yosemite. Not one bear in Yosemite Valley and I'm not surprised with the number of people there. Six of the bears we saw were at Crane Flat in the small meadows on both sides of the main road right near the gas station there. Very popular bear area in the morning and late afternoon. The other three bears were a mother and two cubs on the road to Hetch Hetchy. We saw one of the cubs scurry up and down a tree there....an amazing sight.

utahtea

Mileking,

There are bears in Yosemite valley, infact that's the only place I've seen them in Yosemite. We saw one last October and one this April. It's possible that it was the same bear because both times they were wondering though the Upper Pines campgrounds.

Utahtea