Following our road trip in Yellowstone we headed to Yosemite National park while making a small stop in Reno for spending the night since driving all the way from Yellowstone to Yosemite was a no go for us!

We once again stayed outside of the park due to prices being quite expensive inside the park. We might rethink this next time since driving from the park to our hotel at night proved to be quite the feat due to the twists and turns of the road. On the other hand we were rewarded with a majestic sunset we wouldn't see otherwise!

Yosemite in autumn

A few things we didn't know about autumn in Yosemite were:

• less crowds: 👍
• dry waterfalls: 👎

Even if the main waterfalls were dry we had the chance to see some other ones and especially the Bridalveil one with a great rainbow!

If you are planning as well to visit the national park for the very known waterfalls then be prepared to see them dry! We didn't know about this and came out to be a somewhat disappointing experience. The whole park felt a bit dry as well. If we add to this to the clear aftermath of the previous season wildfires visible all around, we can recommend choosing a different season to visit this park or a different park in autumn, like Yellowstone!

Nevertheless we took profit of the two days we stayed there to explore and enjoy as much scenery as possible!

Yosemite valley and glacier point

We had our best views of the park inside the valley and on glacier point, getting numerous photos of El Capitan, Half Dome. On the way to glacier point we also stopped at tunnel view for some other majestic scenery.

The sunset there was very nice and we spent some time enjoying it before hitting the road on nightfall to see some other wonderful views on Wawona Road!

Mariposa grove and back to San Francisco

We were a bit tired for hiking due to our many days in Yellowstone so we decided to have a rather small and laidback exploration of Mariposa grove. Besides the numerous Sequoia trees we were also surrounded by squirrels all along our way making our walk more pleasant!

We had already been to Sequoia national park so we didn't spend a lot of time hiking and we picked the Grizzly Giant Loop for our walk!

With our energy levels being close to 0 after the long road trip we hit the road back to San Francisco where we relaxed for the remaining few days of our stay. Only This time we had the chance to see a better and clearer view of the Golden Gate bridge and we were even offered a nice sunset around the area!