If you’re craving solitude amongst big trees, Merced Grove of Giant Sequoias is your best bet. The least visited of the three groves, this grove of sequoias is my favorite in Yosemite National Park.
Cold weather is quickly creeping upon us, and the best way to keep warm is to keep your noggin’ covered. The Outdoor Research Mainstay Beanie is a fun pop of color and poof for retaining heat on your head. I was instantly drawn to obnoxious brightness of the black/lemongrass combo.
If you’re looking to experience a Yosemite waterfall on a budget, Carlon Falls is for you. Situated just outside of park gates, you can hike into the Yosemite wilderness and never pay any entrance fees. This isn’t the biggest, or even the most impressive, but if you just like waterfalls of all shapes and sizes, you’ll like Carlon Falls.
I’m not gonna lie, I’m addicted to my phone. I use it to keep in contact with friends, manage social media, check my email, track my hikes, take photos, and more. Now is the time where I also admit that I’m really good at doing the projectile phone thing. This past summer, I decided to make my phone more bomb-proof. I’d been rocking a little Speck case that I stole from my boyfriend, but with a billion upcoming trips, I wanted something indestructible, but still manageable. When Lifeproof came out with the TouchID compatible Nuud for the 5S, I was sold.
Hetch Hetchy Valley was once a mirror image of Yosemite Valley; now it’s a reservoir providing millions of San Francisco Bay Area residents like myself water. Despite this, Yosemite’s counterpart is still a wondrous sight to behold, and lacking in the millions of visitors Yosemite Valley receives.
Multi-day backpacking trips to Yosemite National Park’s northernmost wilderness give you access to glacial lakes, or you can opt for day hikes near the reservoir. Going into Thanksgiving, my original plan was to do a four day backpacking trip in this area, but unforeseen wrenches thrown into plans a little bit of weather thwarted those original plans. Instead of completely scrapping the idea of Hetch Hetchy, I ended up setting off on a solo hike to Rancheria Falls while the boyfriend was stuck working on Black Friday.