Mono Lake and Yosemite National Park

From Lava Beds National Monument I made my way south through a corner of Nevada and then back into California.  I spent one night on the east side of Yosemite National Park at Mono Lake.  I went to South Tufa Beach and waited for sunset, which did not disappoint.  There were a bunch of people there, but I think I snagged a great spot.  There was a German couple that I spent several minutes chatting with, which was fun.

I got up really early the following morning and made my way west over the recently opened Tioga Pass.  The first part of the drive wasn't too pretty, but once you get up to elevation, it got spectacular.  I was going to attempt a hike up to Cathedral Lakes from Tuolumne Meadows, but snow (and the fact that I had three weeks of food in my car that must be legally stored in bear lockers - too big of a hassle!) and rerouting of the trail away from the lakes had me turn around and make my way to my campsite.

I had three nights/four(ish) days to explore Yosemite.  The place is huge, and I found the valley to be fairly busy.  Not packed, per se, but definitely busy and the scenic pull outs not well marked.  I spent about an hour or two driving the valley to get my bearings, and then the remainder of the day hiking around the valley to just explore.

The next day I drove up to  Glacier Point for a sunrise (meh) and then spent the day hiking from the Taft Point trailhead to Taft Point (there were two tightropes up there that still make my stomach queasy just thinking about - whoever did that has an insane lack of fear of heights!!!!) to Sentinel Dome, and then back to Glacier Point for more photos.  All told, I put on maybe 6-8 miles of hiking.

The following day I wanted to hike around the valley.  I hiked up to and past Mirror Lake and then up the Merced River to Vernal Falls and then up and over Nevada Falls.  That particular trail was spectacular (photo above).  Along the way back I encountered a fairly large bear; it was a good thing he was headed up-mountain as I had only the trail to travel on (down hill/cliff was not an option).

The last night there was pretty noteworthy.  First, some jackwagon who couldn't hold his liquor awoke most of the camp before his buddies could get him back to sleep.  There was some thunder in the background during his histrionics, but nothing exciting.  Within about 10-15 minutes the storm hit, and boy was it a light show!  Flash to bang was well under one second for about 20 minutes, and it was technically a thunder-snow storm.  It lasted all told for about an hour or so.  The photo above is the clearing remnants from Tunnel View from the next morning.  My timing was pretty good, since Tioga Pass and Glacier Point were both closed to travel due to the snow accumulation.

I'll get more photos posted from Texas, so stay tuned.  Have a great day!

Marc