Yosemite National Park

Overview

Yosemite National Park was established October 1, 1890, and is one of our favorite parks because of its breathtaking views of mountains, waterfalls, rivers, valleys, and amazing granite cliffs. 

Accessibility

Yosemite is no ordinary park because in the heart of the park lies Yosemite Valley and Half-Dome Village.  This small city offers several restaurants, a post office, a good size grocery store, showers, swimming pool, laundry, museum, Ansel Adams gallery and more! This village reminds us of the village at Whistler except for the fashion clothes stores.

The park is open year around but the most popular and best time to go is early summer to see the thousands of waterfalls throughout the park. Due to climate change, the waterfalls are drying up earlier and quicker each year. We visited Yosemite in October and there were only a few waterfalls left that you can see and even so, they were much smaller than what you would see in the spring or early summer. 

Regarding accessibility, the park is very kid and wheel-chair friendly for visiting famous viewpoints like Glacier Point. You literally do not have to hike more than a few blocks from the parking lot to experience unbelievable views, and this makes Yosemite one of our favorite parks for families of all ages.  

Park Highlights

Must see ViewPoints for sunsets or sunrises:

• Yosemite Tunnel View is outstanding views right from the parking lot. No hiking needed and is perfect for kids. There is a trail right across the parking lot that we hiked up to to see a better view without people. Harvey really liked this hike for sunset.

• Merced River with El Capitan is also another spot that does no require hiking. Pull over and bam, it’s right there! We had lunch at the El Capitan picnic area and it was great place to have lunch and watch climbers from below. Don’t forget to bring your binoculars!

• Glacier Point Overlook - This is about an hour drive from Yosemite Valley and it’s worth the drive because the view is outstanding for sunset. Harvey fell in love with sunsets after seeing this sunset.
  

Yosemite Tunnel View at Sunset

El Capitan at night

Glacier Point Overlook

vernal Falls

Vernal Fall Footbridge - We hiked to the Vernal Fall Footbridge via the Mist Trail that was located a couple blocks behind our campground at Upper Pines. The hike is 1.6 miles round trip with 400-ft of elevation and we had allocated 2 hours to complete the hike with Harvey. However, because of the dryer fall season, Vernal Fall was miniscule with the naked eye at the Footbridge, so we followed the crow and climbed the rocks to the top of Vernal Fall.  This additional hike resulted in a total of 2.5 miles round-trip hike with 1000-ft of elevation climb.  With a few extra adventurous off trail explorations and a long lunch break at top to enjoy the scenic view, our hike to the top of Vernal Fall with a 4 years old took a total of 5 hours.  Surprisingly Harvey completed 90% of the difficult rock climbing part of the hike and had me carry him through the less fun and flat trails.

Bridal-veil Fall - As the result of the dryer season, the 0.5-mile round-trip Bridal-veil Fall trail became a rocking climbing and exploration experience for Harvey.  In the wetter season, the mists from Bridal-veil Fall is truly amazing but in the late fall, you could only see the mists after climbing through a few rocks at the end of the trailhead. Nevertheless, this was quick fun hike for our family and Harvey enjoyed climbing rocks and playing with the streams of water from the fall. 

Sentinel Dome in the morning

Sentinel Dome - Energized from the spectacular sunset colors reflected from the Half-Dome from the prior night at Glacier Point, we made it a mission the following morning to hike and see Yosemite at sunrise from Sentinel Dome.  The Sentinel Dome trail is considered an easy 2.2-mile round trip hike with 400-ft of elevation climb.  Estimated to complete the hike is 1-2 hours, and with a 4-year old it became a 2-3 hours excursion. The drive to the trailhead from Yosemite Valley is about 45 minutes so please plan accordingly.  Although we missed the sunrise at top, the morning lighting still gave us a stunning 360 degrees view of the entire park and we hope that our photos captured the picturesque mountains and granite cliffs that Yosemite offers.

Lodging

We were lucky to stay at Upper Pines campground in the Yosemite Valley because October is considered peak season for climbers due to the dryer and cooler weather.  We learned that October is also called “Rocktober” at Yosemite.  If you’re planning to travel to during the fall season like we did, please plan 3-5 months ahead and book your lodging through the recreation.gov website.  If you experience challenges finding consecutive lodging at the any of the campgrounds in the Valley, we recommend that you be consistent and check the recreation.gov website for cancellations. Lastly, we recommend that you stay in the Yosemite Valley because of its close proximity to all the facilities, hikes and waterfalls.   

Closest Cities to the Park: 

The closest airport is the Fresno-Yosemite International Airport (FAT), which is about 65 miles south of the park, which equates to a 1½-hour drive. 

Other major cities are Sacramento Airport (155 miles to entrance, 2.5hrs drive) and San Francisco (170 miles to entrance, about 3.5hrs drive). 

Recommended Length Stay: at least 5-7 days

There are endless hikes to beautiful views, waterfalls, and activities in the village. Also, the park is quite large and will require a lot of driving to get around. 

Would we be back? Definitely! You can count us coming back to this park again and again! 

For more photos, they can be found here.

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Overview

Lassen Volcanic National Park was established on August 9, 1916, and is located northeast of California. The park has geothermal/hydrothermal areas, lava beds, mountain views, and volcanoes. 

Accessibility

Although the park is open all year around, the winter months have limited access because of extreme and unpredictable weather. Many of the facilities are only open in the summer so please check the NPS page before you visit.  

We did not get to hike the Bumpass Hell Trail to see the famous geothermal/hydrothermal area because it was closed for renovation through December 2018. We were informed that there is an alternative route to the Bumpass Hell Trail geothermal/hydrothermal areal, but that requires some backcountry hike through and with a 4 years old, we were not ready for any surprises mid-way through a long hike.  

Overall, this park has kid friendly trails but according to our 4 years old son, it did not have a wow factor. 

Park Highlights

Lassen Peak Trail

• We hiked Lassen Peak, the largest plug dome volcano in the world as well as the southernmost volcano in the Cascade Range. Harvey was able to hike about 1 mile before he got bored and the climb got harder beyond the 1 mile marker.

• Cinder Cone was our favorite hike and also our top highlight at Lassen. Harvey really enjoyed climbing up the Cinder Cone and leaving mommy behind in the dust. He learned about the lava and thought they were really neat. This hike can be very difficult if you’re not in good shape or have bad knees since the climb is quite steep and on gravels. Harvey is a climber and loves to climb mountains and stairs so please use your own judgement for your children.

• Manzanita Lake has a great photo opportunity when the lake is calm to reflect the mountain above it. Unfortunately, it was very windy during our trip so could not capture the reflection you often see online. 

• Lastly, the park offers great night photography of the Milky Way and one of the best places to do so in at Chaos Crags. We did not get a chance to do this because we have a little one and hiking there would be challenging when his bedtime is at 8:30pm. :-) 

Cinder Cone

Harvey is loving the hike up

Top of Cinder Cone

Lodging

Manzanita Lake Campground is a popular place to stay when you’re at Lassen because of the famous Manzanita Lake where you can hike to get a view of Lassen Peak. We stayed here and thought it was very nice but the bathrooms were extremely cold in October and all the facilities like showers, laundry, store and visitor center were closed. We had to drive to the southwest entrance to Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center. 

Closest Cities to the Park: 

Redding and Susanville

Recommended Length Stay: at least 3 days

You can do the view points in one day but if you want to visit all the highlights we mentioned above, it will take you at least 3 days without rushing it. 

Would we be back? Maybe if we had time and was driving through Redding.  

For more photos, they can be found here.

Redwood National Park

Redwood National Park has so much to see and three days was not enough to see everything. Between the world’s tallest tree,  fern canyons, beaches, and wildlife, you can easily spend a week here and still haven’t seen it all. 

We decided to stay at two different campsites since we wanted to experience different parts of the park. At our second campground, Elk Prairie Creek, we had elks hanging out near our campground while we prepared and ate dinner.  In the evening and later that night, we had gray foxes playing right outside our trailer. Additional animals included deers and blue jays that were curious at what we were eating. It was an amazing and memorable experience for all of us.

Hiking in the Redwood is most amazing in the afternoon and early morning because of the fog and moisture in the air.  This creates beautiful sun rays through the trees and parries. Additionally, there are often less people on the trails and less noise which means more animals to see! 

If your’e not a hiker, well, Redwood has a drive that will take your breath away through giant redwoods called the Howland Hill Rd. The drive is narrow and only one car can go through at once squeezing between the TALL tress. It is so much fun for both kids and adults. Our son was amazed by the countless tall trees. Some of the trees, you can’t even see the top of it! 

Fern Canyon

We also did a hike to the fern canyons, a quick drive from Elk Prairie Creek campgrounds. The ferns are really something different and definitely worth going to but make sure to have an SUV because the roads are really bumpy and you have to drive through small creeks depending on the season. Smaller cars can get stuck or have to turn around. The canyon has a few inches of water flowing down the canyon so please bring rain boots or sandals so you can make it through the canyon without worrying about getting your shoes and socks wet. We wore waterproof hiking boots and it was a little challenging balancing on those rocks and tree trunks. 

When people think of Redwoods, they think of trees but part of the park extends to the beach area which we recommend stopping by for lunch to hand out watching surfers ride the waves or just play in the sand. 

Our recommend length of stay at Redwood National Park is at least 4-5 nights, to allow you to enjoy amazing hikes, drives around the park’s beautiful natural landscape and relax. 

For more photos, they can be found here.

Crater Lake National Park

This was our 2nd time at Crater Lake and it’s still amazing to us. The prestine crystal blue water is a sight to see when you hike down and from the rim, the dark blue color is breathtaking. 

The rim drive is a must do and something that took us around 2 hours to do even with a toddler stopping at almost all of the view points. We did the pinnacles trail and that was very short and sweet hike to see pinnacles emerging from the ground. A really good hike for kids.

We did not hike down to the waters this time around but we did do that last time we were here and I would recommend hiking down to see clear the blue water. Hiking down is very easy and gravity just pulls you down but hiking up is SUPER steep and will take you double the time to do. We went in the summer time and there were sooooo many bugs while hiking so be prepared to bring bug spray. In the fall, we did not see as many bugs this time around so I feel like colder weather is better to hike at Crater Lake. 

Crater Lake campgrounds closed after Oct 1st and since we came a few days after and so we booked the Crater Lake Lodge, the only available lodging option at Crater Lake. It is a very old hotel which is ran by the parks services and closes in the winter time due to weather and driving conditions and therefore, the prices are expensive for a 2-star quality hotel. I would recommend camping at Crater Lake instead of staying at the lodge so go before Oct 1st! 

Our recommend length of stay at Crater Lake is 3 nights which will allow you to relax and enjoy the rim, hike down, and go to hikes in the park but you can also take a day trip here from Portland as well if you move quickly. 

Beyond Crater Lake is a hidden gem that we highly recommend driving the extra hour to get to Umpqua Hotsprings. There are 8 pools with different temperature (hottest is the first pool and then gets colder as you go down since the hot water runs from the top). It is a very short 3/4 mile hike up to it and pretty easy going down during the non winter months. Winter months, it can take up to 2 hours because of how steep it is. Our 4 yrs old toddler had no problem walking on this trail and he loved the hot springs. For more photos, they can be found here.

Relax and soak in some perfect temperature water

Mount Rainier National Park

Fall colors at Mt. Rainier

Mt. Rainier was no where to be found

Mount Rainier was the first stop on our 7 months road trip. We were excited to start this adventure and everything would go smoothly as planned. On our first day at Mt. Rainier, she (“Mt. Rainier”) did not want to come out to say hi. We drove from one viewpoint to another in search for the best portrait of her and yet the clouds quickly covered her at every viewpoints we stopped. The park ranger said, “she has a mind of her own”. Luckily, the beautiful fall colors were there and we were able to see the fall season of Mt. Rainier, something we have never seen before. The colors were amazing and we couldn’t be happier to see them.

She came out

to say hi!!

That evening, it rained like cats and dogs, and setting up camp was tough because it was the first time we actually used the cricket and putting up the awning was not simple. Even though it rained and we weren’t able to get a fire started, we felt pretty warm and dry inside our Cricket camper trailer. Again, thanks Mother Nature for testing us.

The next day, as we were heading out of the park, we saw Mt. Rainier right above us. She came out and we said, “hello there!”. So, we took off on another short chase for the best portrait of her and made a fun game out of it with Harvey. During our chase, Harvey wondered why we were chasing a mountain, we responded with “because it’s fun”.

We will be back in the fall again to visit her because it’s a colorful time of the year to visit Mt. Rainier. I would highly suggest anyone coming to visit Seattle to put Mt. Rainier on their itinerary. It is a 3 hrs drive that is worth every minute! To see more photos, please go here.