Back to the valley

Today we went back to Yosemite Valley. We had to skip homeschooling in order to make it to the valley in time to take the hike that we were planning on taking, but it was definitely worth it. After parking our car, we walked to the beginning of the hike, which was only about half a mile from our car, then we started the hike. The hike was called Mirror Lake for the lake at the end of it that (in the summer) made a beautiful reflection of Half-Dome. Unfortunately we were there in the fall, so the hike was more about the great view of the face of Half-Dome. Just over half way through the hike I thought that I heard something in the woods, we all stopped and listened, but we just assumed that is was leaves falling, or a squirrel. Just around the next bend, we saw a family on the side of the trail, they asked us if we had seen a bear on the trail! It turned out that they had been going the opposite way of us, when they saw a bear marching towards them, and the people about 100 feet in front of us had scared it of the trail, and we didn’t even see it! In retrospect, we realized that it was probably the bear that I had heard in the woods. I think it would have been crazy if that family that saw the bear hadn’t told us about it and we just never knew that we had been very close to a bear! The rest of the hike was fairly normal, and luckily flat which made for an easy 5 miles. After the hike we took the shuttle back to the car and stopped by the park store to grab a snack, and a water bottle. Then we got our junior ranger badges and left the valley.