Yosemite: 3 Rims in 3 Days - Day #3 "Glacier Point", and more!

Today, Saturday, we have *just* a short jaunt up to Glacier Point on a trail named "Four Mile Trail", which is actually 4.8 miles long. Originally it was 4 miles, but it was way too steep and it prevented people from making the trek up there, so they re-routed the trail and took out the steep parts which made it a longer trail. Anyway, we got a late start - 10:30am due to much lolly-gagging in the morning and everyone taking their sweet time to re-group and get going. After all, it's only 4.8 miles, so I think mentally we all thought it wouldn't be a problem if we got going a little later. We had to drive to the trailhead for this hike too. The problem is that everyone else in Yosemite is out and about parking at all the prime spots for the trailheads too. We waited for a long time for parking spots to become available before we even started our hike. So 10:30 we start hiking and we all go our own pace up and up, switch back after switch back, watching the amazing scenery of Yosemite Falls in the backdrop and various other waterfalls and peaks along the way. It's an uneventful journey to the top, but magical to be in such a beautiful place. We all meet at the top for our final group picture and the official end of our "3 Rims in 3 Days" journey. Our leaders also promised us all ice cream at the cafeteria at the top (yay!). People are able to drive to the top of this peak, unlike the other 2 peaks, so it was definitely a different vibe at the finish of this hike. Lots and lots of tourists hanging out up there (we're not tourists, of course - we own the place!), enjoying the view of the entire Yosemite Valley, all the waterfalls, including Nevada & Vernal Falls, Yosemite Falls and other waterfalls that don't have official names because they are usually not present like they are this year due to the heavy snow and long winter. We spent several hours up there before people headed out to go exploring with their families, many of which drove back down to camp and/or did other short, scenic hikes. The six of us who did not have family there decided to hike down the "Panorama Trail" back to camp, which is 8+ miles long, surrounding the Valley and connects to the top of Nevada Falls again, then along the John Muir trail and down to our camp. This took another 5+ hours to complete. We all reached camp by 8:30 pm - still plenty of daylight, but not for long. We all agreed that we would go get pizza and beer at the pizza place in Curry Village for dinner that night. We rode bikes over there since there was so much auto traffic on all the roads to the village. What fun to ride at night in Yosemite Valley with our headlamps on after completing 3+ marvelous hikes over the last 3 days. We were all having a great time! We got to the pizza place just minutes before they closed and were so happy about that. We even got to do some star gazing on our ride back to camp. I had the best time :)

Exhausted at 10:30pm, I showered then crawled into my tent and slept really well that night. I left Yosemite the next morning at 9am, with two sore and swollen knees and ankles! I don't know what the ankle swelling is about but I don't care. I felt so alive the past 3 days. I'm glad it wasn't "4 Rims in 4 Days" or else I might have had to sit out the last day :(

We calculated the mileage over the 3 days for our little group, "the over-achievers", who added the Panorama Trail to the end of our journey, to be 50 miles! Wow, I feel so complete now.