The following is a report from our trip (2 Adults and kids 16 and 12) to Yosemite (July 28-31). We have a separate posting for the portion of our trip in San Francisco.

Surprisingly, it was hot & humid there last week, with afternoon thunderstorms. Good news is the waterfalls had more water in them than is typical for this time of year. We had reservations for a platform tent in Curry Village, and 3 days before we left home we were able to upgrade to a cabin - and we were so glad that we did. The tents were smaller than what we thought, and wedged together in some places rather tightly. Recommendation: stay in the valley if at all possible. The "outside" accomodations are really a far drive from most of the sites and trails.

A few downers: we came from the East Coast with the expectation of sightseeing and some mild/moderate hiking. No camping equipment and no heavy hiking plans or experience. Consequently, we had to aggresively seek help and guidance in how to plan our days. Advice: go directly to a ranger at the Visitor's Center first, unless you are a serious hiker and/or know ahead of time what you want to do. The overall attitude (except to the helpful ranger) was: here's a map - there's lots to do - go do it. The one thing we knew we wanted to do was the evening campfire in Curry Village. Found out upon arrival that it is by reservation, costs money, and they were booked for the entire time we were there. Very disappointing, and wished we had known ahead of time to make those reservations.

Highly recommend the Valley Floor Tram Tour - we did the 6 p.m., which was at a cooler time of day (also see the evening lighting changes). We wanted to be early in case there was a mix-up with our tickets. We stood at the Curry Village shuttle stop starting at 5:10; long story short is we barely got there at 6:00. Not sure what the advice is there, other than be prepared for full buses that don't always stop when you need to be picked up.

And finally, the previous comments on Fodor's about poor service during dinner at the Ahwahnee were absolutely true. Food was great, setting was gorgeous, but our servers were poor to mediocre (examples: didn't ask if we wanted appetizers or salads, just jumped to the entree. The candle on our table went out, and when we mentioned it to our server, he said, "yeah."...I ended up grabbing one from another empty table.)

faye1, We are traveling to San Francisco and then on to Yosemite with our two kids (same ages!) in just a few weeks. We have reservations at Yosemite Lodge. We have exactly the same expectations as you did and are also from the east coast. (would like to sight see and take mild/moderate hikes - no equipment!) Other than the valley floor tram tour, what else should we do? Any suggestions would be most welcome!

Susan
We stayed at the Yosemite Lodge earlier this year. Make reservations upon check in if you want to eat in their restaurant and ask for a window seat. You can have breakfast in their cafe. Both are walking distance from the Lodge. They also have a store that sells prepackaged sandwiches and wine, ect if you want to do a picnic lunch. They have an activities desk that you should check with upon registation. They will tell you about the layout of the park and hikes and tours. Drive to the Mariposa Grove in the park (tram does not go there) It is a wonderful, wonderful hike thru the redwoods! Some 30 feet across at their base. We loved this hike so beautiful and educational! The Lodge has a huge outdoor swimming pool if you kids like to swim. Also, there is no TV but also no music in the rooms so your children might want to bring their CD player and some CD's.

SOME redwoods are 30 ft across. Not all. Sorry.

A great easy hike is up to Mirror Lake - you can take the shuttle to the trail head (actually a road closed to all cars except park vehicles). It's a little steep, but isn't very long. You can hike along the road or on trails and you can make a longer hike by going around the lake if you want. The lake is nice and sandy so you will probably at least want to wade in.

Another hike - I think it's called the Mist Trail isn't strenuous.

A nice thing to do is just to wander along the trails that follow the Merced River.

Susan,

The most strenuous hike we did was to the top of Vernal Falls; this is a 2-part hike (the Mist Trail, as mentioned above). The first 1/2 is really not much, and you end up at a bridge with a view to the falls. We debated at the bridge, and decided to go for it. The 2nd half is much steeper (600+ uneven granite steps!), but the neat thing is you have several pull-off places where you get lightly showered by the mist blowing off the falls. And of course, at the top, you'll feel very proud of accomplishing it! Total time is around 3 hours, I think. We went early in the morning - around 8:30. We were so glad! By the time we were coming back down, there were hoards of people. I am a total wimp and not in shape at all, and survived it, with lots of stops and rests! Also, you will encounter steps that are slippery from dry sand/gravel, as well as the wet steps. Make sure you have shoes with decent grippy bottoms. I think you should do the tram tour early on in your trip, in order to get an overview of the park. Once you get there, buy a couple of bottles of water, and when they are empty, you can use them (refilled with wonderful glacial water! - from the faucets, not creeks or waterfalls!!!) on your jaunts. Have a backpack to carry water bottles, camera(s), binoculars. The ranger at the visitor station can give you hand-outs that outline every hike/trail with the level of difficulty. If you want to see the sequoias, you'll need to drive down to Mariposa Grove. After we arrived at the General Store at Wawona, (at the foot of the drive up to Mariposa)we discovered that we could park there and get on a free shuttle - the folks at the store recommended this, as parking up at the Grove is limited. It is a 6 mile ride. We found out that there are no picnic facilities up at the grove (we had brought box lunches from Curry Village, planning to eat them at Mariposa)...so we just sat on the edge of a log and had lunch. Another thing that I think most people do, we did - is drive up to Glacier Point, where you can look down at the valley. On the way to GP, there is a pull-off right before the tunnel, with a beautiful view back to Half-Dome. If you miss it going to GP, the tram tour goes there as well. Try to be available around 8 p.m. to catch the light changes on Half Dome. The one day that we had decent light at that time, we were stuck on a shuttle bus, and could only see it from the windows. The other nights it was too hazy, and we never had another opportunity to take those pictures.

One other thought about sequoias: my husband & I have both been to Muir Woods (north of San Francisco), and we actually liked that better than Mariposa - it was a more forest-y setting.

Between SF & Yosemite, we used 8 rolls of film.

Been to Muir Woods to see the Coast Redwoods and Mariposa Grove to see the Sequois, loved both. Would not have wanted to miss either. As the above poster said the car entrance to the Mariposa Grove is limited. We had to pull off to a parking lot and wait about 45min.

Just a side note about coastal redwoods if anyone is interested - south of SF in the Santa Cruz mountains are some of the nicest coastal redwood forests around. Big Basin and Henry Cowell State Parks are great for hikes and picnics if anyone is interested in seeing more "forest-y" coastal redwood groves than Muir Woods. Muir Woods is nice, just smaller and more crowded due to it's proximity to SF.