Today, we're lucky enough to wake up directly in Yosemite National Park. This means we can start our hike early, or at least earlier than usual.
So, at 8.30 a.m. we set off on our first hike, the Mist Trail. It's an 11km hike with almost 700 meters of ascent. It offers numerous views of a river generated by a waterfall a little higher up. In fact, the Mist Trail will take us to the top of this waterfall. The hike isn't that easy, and since we set off a little further than planned, we finished it in 3 hours with 14 kilometers on the clock. The hike gave us a good view of the waterfall and the mountains opposite, including the famous Half Dome.
After a short break for lunch, we set off on another hike. This one takes us to the foot of the Capitan, an emblem of Yosemite National Park. At the foot of the Capitan, I think of Free Solo, the documentary film I saw a while back on Netflix in which ... climbs the Capitan with his bare hands and no equipment. The feat is best appreciated from the foot of the mountain, looking up. Anyway, we won't linger here too long, and the hike isn't very long anyway - the aim was just to get to the foot of Le Capitan, so we're off again.
After a short break at our accommodation, we set off again, this time for the sunset. We make several stops en route at different viewpoints, and also look for good spots from which to photograph the Milky Way, even if it looks compromised because of the overcast sky.
We settle on Glacier Point for sunset, a magnificent 180° viewpoint. We're at sunset 1 hour early, so we can take advantage of the colors and the best spots for photos. After enjoying the sun for 1 hour, we head back to our accommodation.
After dinner, we set off again to take photos of the stars, which look pretty clear. On top of that, there's very little light pollution, which I expected given how busy the park is. We find a spot to stop and take our photos, and we take quite a few, trying out new concepts such as a panorama of the Milky Way. But we're often hindered by passing cars, even though it's very late... We return home after an hour of photos.