We took off for Yosemite Village to begin our hike to the top of Yosemite Falls. The park road was gorgeous, but the traffic jams and hoards of camera toting masses was unpleasant. The weather though was perfect and we explored the town for a few minutes before taking the shuttle to the Upper Yosemite Falls trailhead.
We started the hike at 11:00, seemingly a bit late judging by the large amount of people hiking downhill. A lunch stop about a half mile up the trail caused us to be right at the awkward pace behind a very odd European man, the pace where he's too fast to pass but too slow to hike behind. Once we did make it by him, he spent the next 2 hours of the hike stocker-esquely trailing us until he became overheated hiking in his polo shirt and khakis and had to turn back.
The early portion of the hike was pretty easy with numerous switchback and enough shade to keep the heat at bay. Once we got out of the trees, the views of Yosemite Valley and Half Dome were stunning but the higher temperatures caused us to frequently take food and water breaks.
After about 3.5 hours of hiking we made it to the the top of Yosemite Falls where the pristine pools at the edge of the 2,400' cliff provided a well deserved swimming hole. The falls themselves were nearly dried up due to the season but the pools were too deep to see the bottom. I swam while Liv was edged on to jump in by some emo rocker type kids to no avail. A German guy spent the afternoon trying to best everyone else at the pool and his obvious showing off was humorous. 
Restocking on water and feeling refreshed, we started the descent with the group of emo hikers to have strength in numbers if something went wrong. Nothing did, except the quick descent was taxing on the knees and the emos alerted us to a coral snake in the trail. Liv sent me ahead as the sacrificial lamb, but nothing turned up and we made it safely back to Yosemite Village after missing the shuttle bus and having to walk to town.
The drive back to the tent was painfully picturesque as a perfect sunset filled the valley with very deep colors. The excellence of the day was added to by the lack of bears visiting during the night.
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