I still had a bunch of hikes I wanted to do, but only a little time left, so I decided to go with something else that was easy to get to from the floor of Yosemite Valley... and to stick to waterfalls.

I took the bus to the Vernal and Nevada Falls stop and walked around the base for awhile, enjoying the stone work.

The walk was lovely, with lots of rapids and pretty bridges. It didn't take much work to get near the top of Vernal Fall and then wanted to get all the way up there... but I didn't make it. I took the path that included 600 "steps" - thinking it meant "footsteps"... but it meant "stair steps"! And that bad knee of mine that can dance all day for days in a row just cannot climb that many stairs, especially ones that are that high and wet to boot. I had interesting talks with other climbers. A pair of teenager girls stopped every day or two to take pictures. One was clearly uncomfortable with the height and I gave her some advice: before you get any higher, turn around and go down a few steps... because going down is going to be more difficult than going up. She did, and promptly decided she'd gone high enough.

I found out later that I could have taken a different trail (the John Muir Trail instead of the Mist Trail) and not had to climb steps. Oh well. I'll just have to take another trip to Yosemite in a year or so...