Double Hike Day

Katie was feeling a little better today so after letting her sleep in, we went into the park to do Sentinel Dome. It was late in the morning when we left, so the traffic was horrific, and the parking lot was full. Luckily we got a chance to park at a pulloff where there was a forest road that we could take to shortcut the trail. So after a shorter hike than we anticipated, we made it to the top of Sentinel Dome where the views were spectacular. The lighting was great with some patchy clouds and the visibility was the best that it's been the entire trip. It was a little windy and cold at the top but we found a nice place to sit and eat a late lunch while enjoying the view of Half Dome.

Since we did a shorter hike than intended, I talked Katie into doing a second hike. Yosemite National Park has 3 different Sequoia Groves, so we picked the one that was the shortest hike, just 3 miles round trip. The Sequoias were massive and really cool. They felt so out of place with their girth but weren't that much taller than any of the other trees around them. We got to see some dead and knocked-over Sequoias as well as a dead sequoia that had a passage cut out of it for us to walk through. It was really cool.

Overall, we did 4.5 miles of hiking and a little less than a thousand feet of elevation gain. It was a great day and we hope that Katie's ankle didn't get too stiff from doing that much hiking.