There's no chance for a gradual warmup. Almost immediately, we are greeted with the main theme of the hike: up, up, up.
About a mile in, we come to a bridge with a glimpse of Vernal Fall. Here, we start up the Mist Trail, the sign indicating that it would only be 0.3 miles to the top of the fall. It still looks pretty far away...
Here we are climbing the stairs up to the fall. Thank goodness for hiking sticks! We would be encountering a lot of stairs on this hike.