Yosemite is VERY crowded in the summer, especially on weekends. With that in mind I’d suggested that we drive out Tioga Rd, CA 120, instead of going into “The Valley” today since I knew Sunday would be a busy day. Monday might not be much better, but we’ll see. I figured that most people who are in The Valley won’t venture up to the high country and it would be less crowded up there. The lady at the campground confirmed my suspicions and we decided that it was a plan.
Suzy, the gal at the campground, said that to really beat the crowds you need to leave the campground by 7 am. With that in mind I set my alarm for 5:15, only later realizing that I’d set it to go off at 5:15 on WED morning! Oh well, I woke up on my own at 5:55. I was ready to head out by 7 am, but Mom and Dad had overslept and weren’t ready to go until 8.
We didn’t encounter any traffic as we entered the park and started up the road. As soon as we got up over about 2000 ft the views started! We stopped at a few overlooks and a picnic area to check things out as we drove in.
The best part of the drive up was when we got to Olmstead Point. From there you can see into the valley and you have a great view of the backside of Half Dome! I wasn’t expecting to be able to see it from there so it was doubly exciting! We took pictures and Dad got out his spotting scope so we could see the hikers on the cables on Half Dome. We realized we must be looking at the truly hardy souls (or those who made their Half Dome climb a two-day affair) since you have to walk 8 miles before you get to the cables and it was only 10 am. We were letting anyone who wanted to take a peek in the scope and almost upstaged a Ranger’s program, but he was good sport, in fact he might have been happy to have someone else run the show for a few minutes!
The next stop was Tenaya Lake. Tenaya Lake is a crystal clear lake presumably formed by glaciers. It has wonderful views of what might be Polly Dome (not to be confused with Polychrome Pass in Denali) and another dome. Dad and I walk a short way around it, we would have gone further but the trail was flooded over and there was no way around without getting wet!
A little more driving and checking out the domes and marveling at the climbers and we finally reached Tuolumne Meadows! It was a beautiful flat spot with grass and the promise of wildflowers soon. The snow only recently melted up there!
We found a picnic table for lunch and then it was decision time. How to get back? Go back the way we came? Or take the extra scenic route over Sonora Pass. Suzy at the campground had said that Senora Pass is just awesome and that you can do a loop of the Tioga Rd, then up 395 to CA 108, over the pass and back around. It’s about 250 miles though. Mom said she wanted to see something different and we were already going to be driving 100+ miles even if we just went directly back, so we decided to go for it.
Before we did we took a quick 2.2 mile hike into the backcountry near Tuolumne Lodge. We hike down the John Muir Trail to a spot where 2 foot bridges cross the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River. What a magnificent spot! Water, meadows, mountains, and the bluest sky you have ever seen! WOW!
When we got back to the car we continued east to Tioga Pass, which is at 9,950 ft (or close to that) and headed down! The mountains on the other side were pretty amazing! I was stunned that no one had told us about that! We continued down the mountain, mom and I both trying to take pictures as we went down! At the bottom was the town of Lee Vining and Moro Lake, which a friend of my parents had told us to go see.
We stopped at the Whoa Nellie Deli and got ice cream and other snacks! I got a big bottle of water because I’d drunk most of what I had and I had a horrible headache that I was positive was from the elevation (it was about 9,000 feet when I really felt it hurting) and thought that drinking more water was the best cure. Lee Vining was also exciting because I had full cell phone coverage!
We blew right past Moro Lake – we didn’t have time to explore! The landscape had changed and now was more desert looking and I wasn’t that interested. Soon we were cruising down the road toward Sonora Pass.
I was looking forward to Sonora Pass, but not to the elevation gain, it was also over 9,000 feet, because my head hurt so bad! I remembered the 1st day in Sequoia when my head hurt and I’d attacked it with water, Advil, and my inhaler and that made it better – I wasn’t sure what part of that equation worked though. I was already trying the water, I’d drunk almost a whole liter since Lee Vining and it wasn’t helping so at the 1st overlook where Dad pulled over for pictures (and for me to use the “ladies room” because of all the water I’d drunk) I used my inhaler…and wouldn’t you know, it helped!!!!!! Within a few minutes my headache was almost gone! YAY!!!!!
Sonora Pass is simply AMAZING. You climb higher and higher and there are mountains of all types – snow covered, tree covered, grey rock, brown rocks, alpine looking, desert looking. There are also meadows and rivers and wildflowers! I’m sure there are also bears and other wildlife – we saw a deer and a marmot. The road was tight – 26% grade in places! and not for the faint of heart, but of boy was it worth it. To make it even better….no people. Well, very few, a few cars, most overlooks were empty. (They are all in Yosemite Valley!) There were a ton of National Forest Service Campgrounds in there there and many of them were empty. You can’t get a big RV into the campgrounds though, but still they were mostly empty.
After enjoying the last little bit out of the daylight, and knowing we still had close to 100 miles to go to get “home”, we headed into the town of Sonora which was much bigger than I expected! I had some surprise cell phone service, 3G even….and it lasted most of the way up the mountain! We grabbed dinner at Carl’s Jr. before heading back to our campground in Buck Meadows.
Tomorrow Dad and I are heading into The Valley to do some hiking, hopefully it won’t be took crowded. After a full day of driving today neither of us is willing to be ready to leave by 7 so we’ll sleep in bit and hope we aren’t too late to get a parking space!
 |
| Yosemite: Tioga Rd & Sonora Pass |
No comments:
Post a Comment