YOSEMITE (Day 8 - part 3)

(left) Click for a larger view of the map

This mule deer was completely unconcerned about all the people walking by.

A loud raven

Surrounding rocks ... and North Dome (on the other side of the river from Half Dome. It's over 1,000 feet shorter.)

Both the river and falls were completely dry.

The base of Lower Yosemite Fall

Walking back

In this legend, a group of dangerous spirit women lived in a pool at the base of the falls. One day, a maiden went to the stream for some water. But when she dipped her basket into the stream, it came up full of snakes. She went a bit farther upstream and tried again. But over and over, she kept getting a basketful of snakes. Eventually she reached the spot where the spirit women lived. Suddenly a super strong wind blew her into the water. During the night, she gave birth to a child. But when she brought it home to her village the next morning, a violent wind arose and blew all the people of the village into the pool. No one ever saw them again. The moral of the story? I have ZERO clue!!

We took the shuttle back to the car. It was so full at this point that it started skipping stops, in spite of all the people clustered at each one.

For dinner, we decided to leave the park drive to nearest town of Buck Meadows, population 50. Fortunately it did have a nice little place to eat.

Mmmmmm.... veggie burger!

We headed back as the sun started to set. Once back at the tent, we hopped straight into our warm sleeping bags.

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