From Desert to High Sierra… A road trip (part 2) Yosemite in a Day, and the drive home.

The trip’s original plan was simply to get away for a few days together, to see how we traveled together, and to introduce Gael to Yosemite…  And this would be her first time in the Valley… John Muir’s Valley of Light, Ansel Adam’s muse in Black and White… and one of my favorite places…

But this year, in Yosemite, both the Valley and the high country is not normal… it is a wet year… after an extended drought.  And with water Yosemite’s waterfalls are spectacular… spectacular in ways that they haven’t been for many years.  The High country still has snow… snow along the road to Glacier Point… snow on Tioga Pass so that road is still closed.

We were staying at Wawona (aka the Big Trees Lodge) nearly an hour out of the Valley.  The entrance to the Valley via Hwy 140 was via a tunnel… a tunnel through solid granite, which opens onto a spectacular over view of the Valley… from a pull out called Tunnel View…   Ansel Adams took and iconic photo from this place… Gael had seen the Valley from above the evening before.  Now she was entering this special Shangri-La for the first time.

The overview was spectacular as expected, but possibly less dramatic, as a result of the previous evenings overview from Glacier Point.   The overview was crowded with tourists… some in cars, some in busses… Others searching for their Yosemite experience… The parking lot is full but not quite overwhelmed.

We regained the Jeep, then descended into the Valley… pulling off at Bridalvale falls… a parking lot… with little available parking… with a long line for the restroom… for more people love Yosemite than Yosemite can support… this is the first place we see this… It is a short walk to the base of the falls… Bridalvale has a small watershed… and while running full is not unusually spectacular… the rocks at the bottom that usually are full of rock hoppers are wet and so abandoned… I suspect that most visitors don’t understand what they are seeing…

Back to the Jeep… Lines to the restroom are still long and overwhelming… we head along the south road, into the valley with its views.  Views of the Three Brothers… Views of El Capitan… El Cap… the massive granite face… a face her son has climbed…

We continue up the south road… stopping at Swinging bridge.  This is a familiar place… a place my family gathers every other Thanksgiving for a cookout…  part of an Biannual family reunion… A reunion which claims its origin to the 1940’s… but is better said to have restarted in 1968… when I first visited Yosemite…

Today Swinging Bridge is in flood… the water above the bottom of the bridge… the path from the north side of the bridge to the Lodge (the Lodge at the Falls… previously Yosemite Lodge) flooded.   We walk across the bridge… I take the path towards the lodge… two feet deep in water.   The river is at near flood stage, full and overflowing… fast but strangely not seeming to threaten…

Back across Swinging Bridge… pausing at the restrooms which do not have a line…

Back to the Jeep… on to Curry Village, hiding the Jeep in the “15 minutes to check in” area… Curry Village is sadly now Half Dome Village.. sadly with the name Curry on the iconic wooden arch changed via a vinyl sign tied across…  Silly corporate games are screwing with history.  We walked about… looking at Stoneman Lodge where we would be staying over Thanksgiving 5 months from now… Finding where we might find coffee (coffee is important). Looking at tent cabins, explaining “bear boxes,” getting a sense of the place.

Back to the Jeep… we head towards Misty Isle… finding a place to park at the old dump site where they once had grandstands to watch the bears feed on the human trash… then hiking towards Misty Isles where the river was raging but not in flood… we found a bench to pause for lunch, but found that we had forgotten the crackers… so I went back to the jeep to retrieve them. Then we headed up the trail towards Vernal Falls…  It’s a steep trail… busy and paved… and steep…

Along the way there are views of both Yosemite Falls and the more elusive Illilouette Falls… both giving excuses to pause and look… excuses needed on this steep trail.  We made it to the bridge over the Merced… Here the river was angry… full and dangerous.  Beyond, up hill was the Mist Trail… we chose to forgo that, instead taking selfies with the water falls then headed back down the (steep) trail to Misty Isles where there were lines for the shuttle, for the bathroom and for the drinking fountain…

Back to the Jeep… then over to the stables and North Pines to look about… (mostly we saw parked cars) then back to Yosemite Village and on to the Ahwahnee Hotel (now the Majestic, thank you very much Delaware North) to walk about then have a drink in the bar…  The space is spectacular… we need to eat her next November…

On to Yosemite Village… walking through the store with its bear shot glasses and such… Along with cold beer, wine, cork screws, chips and crackers, fire wood and anything else you might need… all with long lines… on to the Ansel Adams Gallery where some jewelry may have been purchased… and finally on to the Visitor Center… then back to the Jeep… then on, into the traffic headed west… out of the Valley…

We stopped and parked near the base of Yosemite Falls… hiking up to the viewing area at the base… the bridge near the base was wet… as if in heavy rain.  Here the water was not just raging… the mist of the falls a thick raging swirling fog… it was spectacular… the spectacular that we hoped for.  It was for both Gael and I a new experience…

Back to the Jeep… back into traffic… a ranger was directing traffic at the Lodge… (once Yosemite Lodge, then Lodge at the Falls… not sure what it’s post Delaware North name is… )   Pausing at Climber’s camp…  there was a deer beyond in a meadow… the only deer of the trip…  then again at the base of El Capitan… to look at the face for climbers… Gael’s son is a climber and has climbed here.

Beyond we climbed regained Hwy 41 and climbed out of the Valley… through the tunnel and back to Wawona… We dined, sat outside our room on the porch, and headed for bed and sleep…

Tuesday arrived… We got up, packed up, then headed out of the park… now heading home… only a few miles outside the park we took a small road down to the old saw mill site… now a collection of vacation cabins… I was looking for a road to some redwoods beyond, but failed at that mission, then back to the main road, stopping in Oakhurst at an overwhelmed Denny’s for breakfast...

Then down the road to Fresno, to Hwy 99, to Bakersfield then east towards the Tehachapis… We paused for gas at a station that was the opposite of the infamous Brady’s Market… clean (spotlessly so) and nice and surprisingly inexpensive… then over the mountains… there were few trains in evidence so we didn’t stop at the loop… heading down the mountain past Mojave and into the desert… Past Boron and the 395 junction we were surprised to find the new freeway beyond was partially open speeding our passage on to Barstow…

At Barstow we took old Route 66 through town… stopping at the railroad station… a grand station with its Harvey House, now in part a museum of Route 66… a museum that I have never seen open… We had our final picnic of the trip on a bench overlooking the railroad yard eating cheese and crackers and the last of the roast beef.  

Leaving Barstow Gael took over driving… learning the quirks of the Klinger the Jeep…  We were now pointed home towards Las Vegas… Until we became distracted at ZZXYZ…  We left the highway to explore the one time desert community… the product of a snake oil salesman…  Today the Desert Studies Center…  academic site meets abandoned resort… palm trees marking the place.  

Back on the road arriving back in Las Vegas just before 6:00 pm… We have discovered that we are compatable traveling companions… a wonderful gift…