Yosemite

In early May the three of us made a trip to Yosemite, during the Japanese Golden Week holiday. My work generally sticks to Japanese holidays, so I was able to get this time off, and since it's not a holiday in the US the park was relatively uncrowded.

We stayed at the Lodge at Yosemite Falls. Although the rooms were pretty spartan and felt a bit rundown and tattered for the high price, they're in a great spot. We had a beautiful view of Yosemite Falls, and the restaurant at the lodge was surprisingly good.

We brought a baby carrier backpack that friends gave us (their kids have gotten a little too big to carry on their backs any longer), which worked great for Elena. We did the Vernal/Nevada falls hike, about 5 miles roundtrip, with Elena on my back the whole way. She actually fell asleep for much of the ascent, even during the steepest part, the mist trail up alongside Vernal falls, where we got absolutely soaked! The falls were beautiful and pretty swollen, even though volume is apparently way down this year due to lack of rain/snow fall.

Elena is still pretty small, only 8kg or so, but it was still pretty tiring to do the whole hike with her on my back. She was a real trooper, too -- she only cranked out for a few minutes during the descent. Otherwise she was pretty happy for most of the hike.