Wow, what a day! Let’s see how many of our adventures I can remember. We experienced multiple failed plans where we needed to shift and adjust (I only felt like crying once), but managed to cover about 15 miles of biking and hiking in this one day!
The resounding tip I read from other blogs was to arrive early to the park. This definitely helped us, although we didn’t get off as early as we had planned, and had consequences for it. My plan was for us to leave our RV park at 7am and make it to the bike rental place by 8am when it opened. We didn’t actually leave the park until 7:30am, so we were about half an hour after opening by the time we arrived to rent bikes. We brought bikes with us for Nick, Beau, Behr and Carmen, so the only rentals we needed were one for my mom, and then one for me to pull a trailer for Karis to ride in behind me.
I was aware of two main bike rental places – Yosemite Lodge and Curry Village. I’d read that Curry Village tended to have more parking available, and was less busy, so I wanted to try it first. Boy, that was the first mistake. Everywhere in Curry Village was packed, mainly because of people who stayed their overnight, I believe. So parking was hard to find, and by the time we arrived to rent bikes at 8:30am, there were no trailers available anymore, which we needed for Karis. So they called and found out there were some available at Yosemite Lodge, but refused my request to reserve them for us until we arrived.
It then took us a good bit to get to Yosemite Lodge as we tried to navigate the roads and maps. We took a wrong turn and doubled back (this will all be easier someday if we ever return! ha), but finally made it to the bike rental at Yosemite Lodge, which was less crowded, for sure. I wish we had started there. Thankfully, they still had trailers available! So we grabbed our rentals and returned to the car with the good news!
We chose a full day bike rental since I didn’t want to be cramped for time to make it back for the half day checkin. For Mom’s bike it was $40 for a full day, and for my bike and trailer it was $75.
I strongly recommend bikes as a way to see so much of Yosemite Valley. You can cover much more ground during a chunk of time, and it was truly so fun (although exhausting!) riding through the Valley in the middle of so many iconic pieces of scenery – truly unreal! Nick said to me at one point, “We may become bike people,” and Behr made a point to tell me one time while riding next to me, “I love this, Momma. I was worried about it at first and how hard it might be, but this is really awesome!”
We managed to make the entire 12 mile loop with a few hikes scattered in – not as many as I originally planned, but I really felt like riding the bike was such a neat experience…I don’t think I wanted to stop any more than we did.
So because we started at a different place that we originally planned, our intended stops were a bit off. I had on our list to stop at Swinging Bridge for a picnic, but we were there by 10am, ha, so we simply rode through it and near the Meadow boardwalks (another stop we considered making), and continued on a mission to visit Mirror Lake.
That’s when our next hiccough hit. Right past Curry Village, Nick’s bike threw a chain – he switched me and needed to ride the rental pulling Karis because his bike didn’t have working breaks on the right handlebar, his only good hand/arm. Thankfully, we weren’t too far from the bike rental at Curry Village, so we walked the bike back and waited for a mechanic to show up with tools to fix it. Then we headed on our way again.
The bike trail up to Mirror Lake was pretty challenging for our bunch, with significant enough inclines that made a few in our group need to stop and rest fairly often. We ended up pulling over earlier than we had to in order to walk the remaining 0.4 miles to Mirror Lake.
We were beyond due for lunch, as it was near 1pm, so we sat near several rock formations and ate chicken salad/turkey sandwiches with fruit and protein bars that we had packed (The kids had already eaten many snacks during the bike chain episode – oh and Karis had quite a memorable dirty diaper during that time as well), so we mainly just enjoyed resting. It was significantly hotter and the hike uphill was pretty tiring.
Mirror Lake is considered a seasonal lake, which means that currently it has zero water in it. I was aware of this but hadn’t told them until the end, so they were a little disappointed, but enjoyed walking in the dried up bowl of the lake some which obviously isn’t something you get to do every day. We also had a great view of Half Dome from where we sat and picnicked.
We passed by and didn’t stop at the beach near Mirror Lake where several were swimming and sun bathing, and walked back on the actual road that we could have biked in order to return to our bikes. It was easier walking than the rocks we had hiked on our way uphill.
It was so great to return to the bikes, and we then rode our longest stretch, all the way back to Yosemite Lodge. We intended to stop at Lower Falls and hike there, but right when we passed A— Hotel, Nick’s bike threw the same chain again, so he had to walk it with the trailer the remaining 2 miles to the bike rental store, which meant we passed Lower Falls – everyone needed a refill on water and, as Carmen put it, a bathroom that wasn’t a hole in the ground. Ha!
When we arrived at the bike rental place, they were super kind and refunded our money not just for the faulty bike, but for both bikes, so the entire $115 was put back on our card! They then told us to rest, and take out again with a new bike and trailer if we wanted to still get the benefit of the full-day rental.
So that’s what we did! We refueled a bit, and then headed back to Lower Falls. Right before we left the parking lot, Mom had a muscle cramp in her leg, and decided to stay back while we did this last hike, which wasn’t too far away and wouldn’t take too long. We biked back to the trailhead and then did the 1 mile loop to Lower Falls. I read that the Upper Falls would take about two hours, and would be more worth it earlier in the summer/late Spring when the falls were flowing more. We certainly were not up for a two hour hike at that point, so we did the one mile loop, enjoyed the view and grabbed a few pictures, and then headed back to the bikes.
Upon return at Yosemite Lodge, we had considered going back to Swinging Bridge for a swim, but decided just to grab some popsicles, ice cream and cold drinks in the gift store before loading up and heading back to the RV park. Karis ran around and mooched off of everyone’s snacks during this time and we enjoyed resting a bit.
Knowing what I know now, if I could redo this day again, here’s what I would suggest for others who may have the size and age family we have:
- I would be sure to arrive probably at 7:45am at a bike rental, and would begin at Yosemite Lodge
- Bringing your own bikes is best, but the bike rental was definitely worth the money – even though ours was refunded, ha! I would do it again, for sure.
- I don’t think we’d make the trek up to Mirror Lake. Instead, I would love to do more of the flat / level places to explore like the Swinging Bridge area and Meadow boardwalks.
- I would definitely do Lower Falls again.
- For sure ride the bike trail counter clockwise…that direction seemed to be more downhill, haha.
I cannot recommend biking enough – it was truly such a fun way to experience the park. I remember two years ago when we were in the Grand Teton National Park seeing families biking a flat trail around the mountains, and I knew then and there that it was something I wanted to do. I’m so glad we had the chance!
One adventure back at our RV park included Nick watching someone back their trailer into the water hookup at a site, causing it to explode with water for about ten minutes before maintenance cut the water off to fix it. Surrounding families had to pack up rugs, chairs and other outdoor items in order to avoid the flood of water rushing downhill and through multiple sites. He got a video of it – it was quite the entertainment for a bit!
We ended the day with some hobo meals (ground beef and a variety of vegetables) that Nick cooked outside, and the kids played until it was pitch black outside. We all crashed, exhausted and sore but grateful for a fun day.
jami lee gainey 