As with any camping experience, you tend to awake with the sun. While most of us (except the boys) awoke at some point in the night to the sounds of the wilderness around us (and a crying baby – ugh), we all were pretty much awake and ready to go by 8am. Not the crack of dawn, but still pretty early given the pace of our vacation earlier.
I made sandwiches for lunch, and put snacks together for our day and fed the kids organic pop tarts (not quite the same, but when you’re hungry, you’ll eat anything!) We changed clothes, added mounds of deodorant (since there was no shower in our near future) and headed into Yosemite Valley. Our first stop was Bridalveil Falls. 
It was beautiful, and very easy to access. Pete was already beginning to protest hiking (uh oh) and I began to think that perhaps he did not get as good a night’s sleep as I had thought. We took a few photos, and then headed on into the heart of the valley.
They had a place where they wanted people to park and take the shuttle, so we found a spot, missed the shuttle and decided to just walk the 10 minutes to the visitor’s center. We discussed hikes with a ranger (a close quick loop to see Yosemite Falls, and then a longer hike to see other falls across the valley were suggested), and then decided to see the 15 minute movie they offer “Spirit of Yosemite.”
After the movie, we had our sandwiches and took the hike to Yosemite Falls. It was a very easy hike, all on paved trails, and was very crowded with hikers and bikers alike. These falls are the tallest in North America, and, I think, the most crowded. When we reached the falls, there were people EVERYWHERE. They were like ants! They were crawling over the rocks and wading in the river. So, what did we do? Andy climbed on the rocks, and Em, Pete and I waded in the river! When in Rome…
After a few more photos, we started the hike back and that is when the realization hit me. It’s HOT and way too crowded. At one point, Peter just stopped in his tracks and refused to walk any more. Bumbas don’t do hot very well. I looked at Steve and said “We’re going up into the mountains to finish this day!” We were able to make it back to our car where the thermometer read 93 degrees. Steve and Emily walked over to the camp store to get ice, and I wished I had stopped in there with them, but we had become so focused on getting out of the heat, that it was a quick stop (and nowhere to park at the store anyway).
Really, we couldn’t leave the valley fast enough. I took a few photos (the ones that everyone takes), but other than that, we were GONE and headed up to Tuolumne Meadows. The ride on Tioga Road (which is closed in winter) across the Sierra’s was wonderful. We stopped along the way and got a backside view of Half Dome (one of the more popular and photographed mountains in the valley), as well as lovely views of the high sierra meadows and mountains.
My first concern once we got to Tuolumne Meadows was food, since I knew we would need to have a dinner plan (Steve and I had decided early on that we weren’t going to cook at the campsite on this trip, which was a good thing as I never made it to the camp store!). Tuolumne Meadows has a “Lodge” which is really a tent village with a main tent center. It reminded me of the TV Show MASH. Everything was wood framing with canvas over it. Steve stepped into the Lodge, where a sign said “Dinner Reservations are Required” and promptly got our name in for 6:15. It was 3:30, so we decided to keep the car parked at the Lodge and find a trail to hike nearby.
We didn’t have to go far! The John Muir Trail was right behind the lodge. We took that trail which crossed two forks of the Tuolumne River, and after awhile, we had no one nearby. We put our feet in the river, photographed flowers and dragonflies, and had an absolutely WONDERFUL time! Oh, and did I say that the temperature was 72 degrees? What a difference a mountain makes!
It was truly a wonderful afternoon. We headed back to the lodge, where we still had time before dinner, so we sat outside and played cards. It turns out that the tables for dinner in the lodge seat 10, so at dinnertime we were seated with two couples from the San Francisco area. They were wonderful to visit with (they said Yosemite is their playground and the come often – lucky!), and the food up there was really great. Steve had Salmon, Emily had a greek linguini dish and Andy and I had the steak. The atmosphere was wonderful as well, We were right alongside the creek we had crossed earlier, and part of the flap of the “lodge” was pulled back and you could see and hear the creek right there!
A ranger stopped by and asked if anyone was interested in a guided hike tomorrow, and the pained look on my face was obvious. We were leaving tomorrow! The ranger also said that the only reason we were able to be enjoying dinner up there was because the Lodge was established well before 1919 when the US Government put a ban on such things in the High Sierras. Tuolumne Meadows Lodge was grandfathered in as it had already been there for quite some time. So eating in the High Sierras was even more of a treat than I’d realized!
The couples we sat with touted us on coming back sometime and hiking from camp to camp in the high sierras. The camp at this lodge was one of the stops. There are eight miles between camps, and they say it is a wonderful experience. I’m putting it on my ‘to do’ list for the future!
After dinner, we said goodbye to our dinner companions and stepped outside where a fire had been built, and people were sitting around singing campfire songs. While we would have loved to stay, we knew it was another hour back along the Tioga Road to our campsite, and it was already 8pm! So we said goodbye to the best part of our day and headed back to camp. Sadly, I had to break the news to Pete that it was getting too late for another campfire, and that we’d just be going to bed when we got there. After a bit of protest, he relented, and was soon fast asleep in his sleeping bag.
Meanwhile, I’m just counting down the days until I get to a shower…
No comments:
Post a Comment