I recently went on a trip with my family to California. For a very small segment of this trip, we stopped in Yosemite National Park. This was my first time in the park. I had heard about it through a recent interest in climbing. Watching documentaries like Free Solo and Valley Uprising gave me a glimpse of what the park is like, but it truly was an experience that needs to be seen in person

My sister and I spent the first night we arrived in the park deliberating over what route to take. We perused various websites, looking at trail reviews. I was feeling ambitious.

The idea of doing Upper Yosemite Falls was floated. It seemed strenuous, but doable. Until we watched a video of the upper part. I thought the view was distorted because it was a fisheye POV lense, but could agree that it seemed like a lot.

We settled on aiming to head to Glacier Point via Four Mile Trail.

I woke up excited. I was pretty packed, so just went through the motions of getting ready. We chugged coffee and got driven to the trailhead by my dad. The car ride was exciting. More coffee chugging.

When we arrived to Four Mile trailhead, I think we saw only one other car at the trailhead, so it was exciting to know that we were one of the first ones breaking trail!

We broke trail at 6 a.m. (5:53 a.m. to be exact). The start was pretty mellow elevation climb for about a half mile until some switchbacks started. The elevation was still very doable, and the trail was very nice terrain.

The sun was just coming up so it was really cool to see the light change across the valley floor as we got higher and higher

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We ended up making much much better time than I expected. We got to Glacier Point in just under 2 hours, right around 8 a.m. I was very surprised with the great time we made.

One very special thing about this experience (and I'll have to go back to confirm this) is that there is typically road access to Glacier Point, meaning that people can drive right up to there. It is fairly developed, without construction there is bathrooms, maybe a small gift shop, and parking.

So I believe (and again, have to go back to confirm this) that my sister and I being the only ones up there for about a half hour was a very unique experience in the park.

After sufficiently enjoying Glacier Point, we made one of the best decisions of the day. We decided to push onward to Sentinel Dome. Sentinel Dome is only 0.8 miles southwest of Glacier Point as the crow flies, and we made such good time to Glacier Point that I felt like we had to up the ante.

The going was pretty good, except for one part. My sister and I sized up the map and saw that there was a part of the trail that did a big kind of "cut around", so we had the brilliant idea to just beeline it up and meet up with where the trail wraps around.

It was doable, but insanely steep. I had to make "mini switchbacks" just to keep going upwards at some points.

Besides that, it went pretty well!

We got to Sentinel Dome fairly quickly, in about 45 minutes from Glacier Point.

Reaching the top was awesome. The view of the park was more of a "comprehensive one". The view from Glacier Point was more focused on the Yosemite Valley floor, but this view truly provided a beautiful panoramic view of the park. I guess that's why they call it Sentinel Dome, huh?

After getting our fill of Sentinel, we decided to embark down back to the trailhead. I always find this part exhilerating. Even when I run for exercise and do an "out and back" run, I find it fun to just be like "alright, now let's run it back!"

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