Belated Yosemite 2021 Post

Trip: Yosemite 2021 (super late)

Another summer Yosemite trip.
New things we tried this time around:

1. Made some Taiwanese breakfast food for the road.

They’re compact, but they sure pack calories.

2. Dinner the first night was this all-in-one pasta soup mix.

I was really excited about trying this out when I found this at the Valley Ford Cheese Company store. Turns out if I had read the instructions, I would know I needed to bring some cheese for this instant pasta and garden vegetables.

It was good, but definitely lacking without the cheese.

Not so appetizing by itself:

3. Subaru Rental

If you’ve ever been on the fence about buying a Subaru, look into Subaru rentals from the dealership. There are not really a lot of standard rental companies that have Subarus in their fleet. Luckily, some Subaru dealerships have rental fleets (and even then, this is pretty limited).

You can take a look at the Subaru website to find the nearest dealership to you that offers rentals. I drove about 55 miles to the closest dealership to me with rentals. I’m kind of on the fence for a Crosstrek Sport, and managed to snag a 2021 Premium for the rental. Not bad. To sum up my experience with the Crosstrek premium in one sentence: It climbed up Old Priest Road quite magically (in sport mode).

4. Multiple Campsites

One way of lengthening your stay during those summer months is to book whatever sites are open in the days that you will be there. I usually just book the bulk of my days at one site, but these days campsites are starting to get so saturated that it’s becoming increasingly harder to book more than 2 days in a row at Yosemite during peak season.

We tried booking multiple sites on this trip… and to be honest, I don’t recommend it unless you are planning on sticking around for closer to a week. We moved sites twice in our 5 days there, and each time we moved it took hours to break down and set everything back up. One morning we couldn’t move until the previous tenants vacated and they stayed til practically the last minute, which was noon.

5. New camp food!

Naengmyeon - korean cold noodles. PERFECT for a hot summer day. I’ll never do another summer camping trip without this dish again. Shoutout to DK+Daye for bringing this!

Not really new food, but we don’t often have dessert on our camping trips if it’s not for smores. Another shoutout to DK+Date for bringing this for my birthday <3

This one is not really a new dish, but just a lil somethin’ somethin’ different. Togarashi on hashbrowns. Try it, you won’t regret it.

And some standard food — KBBQ!

6. Taft Point

Attempted to hike here 5 years ago when I came here on an impromptu trip with some friends, but we got sidetracked when we found snow on the ground. After we finished our snowball fight, it was too dark to continue. I finally made it, 5 years later. On one of the hottest days.

We looped around a different trail on the way back.

7. Ahwahnee Hotel

In all my years of coming to Yosemite, I’ve actually never been to the Ahwahnee hotel.

Built in 1927, it is hotel of majesty. If it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to stay a night here, I would book a room just to try it out. I browsed the gift shop, their sweets shop, debated staying until the bar opened, and checked out all the cool spaces they had open for guests to view.

Check out the size of this fireplace!

8. Wawona

Near the Southern entrance of Yosemite sits the Wawona area. At the Yosemite history center, you can view horse-drawn wagons, a covered bridge, and historic cabins.

The covered bridge that used to be part of Wawona Road — the link between Wawona and Yosemite Valley. Wawona road was actually built by chinese immigrants!

Pre covid times, there are some buildings are open for you to explore inside. Unfortunately, nothing was open for us while we were here.

9. Lunch at Wawona Hotel.

Because of the pandemic, they only have premade to-go lunches. On this day, they had cold sandwiches. It wasn’t the most amazing meal, but it was relaxing.

10. Stargazing

Not new, but part of the road was closed at night. Managed to get some really fun shots here, and got to lay in the road, stargazing. Saw some really bright shooting stars on this night.