California Day 4

My Tent Cabin
The Tunnel View

A Fissure

Taft Point

Big Tree

Monday, June 26

Got up early and checked out for the trip to Yosemite. The main route into Yosemite, Hwy 140 was closed due to a rock slide earlier in the summer. (I actually had to change my plans because of it.) So I drove from Merced to the South Entrance of Yosemite. On the way I stopped in a small town, Oakhurst that was a nice town, for some last minute groceries. From there it was on to the park.

I drove into the park and proceeded to the Mariposa Grove. Mariposa Grove is an area of the park with a ton of giant Sequoia trees. I took a trail up about a mile to a group of them. Of course, it was a mile uphill! (not a big hill, though) The trees were pretty cool. There was one you could walk through. There were quite a few people on the trail. After hanging out at the trees a bit, I was anxious to get to the other parts of the park so I hiked back down to my car.

I drove out of Mariposa Grove to Glacier Point Road. Glacier Point Road is a long, windy mountain road up to Glacier Point (imagine that) which has fabulous views of the whole park. This is where the Subaru Outback really started to come in handy. It had a 5 speed shift on the fly, which was great for the mountain roads. It made it pretty easy to get up and down without being on the brakes too much. It was fun to drive, too! (Although in the mountains, I don’t think I ever got out of 3rd gear). I stopped along the road at a nice meadow with wildflowers and took some pictures and to check the map to make sure I hadn’t passed the parking lot yet for the trails I wanted to hike.

I continued driving up the road to the Sentinel Dome parking lot. There were two short hikes from here I wanted to do. The first took you to Taft Point and the Fissures. From the parking lot, it was a little over a mile to Taft Point. Of course, this being the mountains, much was uphill. Just before Taft Point, you get to the Fissures which are just really deep cracks in the rock. They were pretty neat. Taft Point was just ahead, which was a point that reached out with a great view of Yosemite Valley. There is a guard rail so you don’t fall off! After resting a bit and taking some pictures I headed back to the parking area. From there I rested a bit and refilled my water bottle and had a snack. Now, I need to mention it was pretty hot. You’re up at around 9000 feet and it’s still 85 degrees!

After my rest I took the other trail to Sentinel Dome. This hike was quite a climb, and at the end you climb up a big, steep trail of rock. I was pretty excited to do this, but as I kept on, I got to the base and by that time I was just too hot and exhausted, so I didn’t make it to the top, but I was ok with that. I took pictures, rested and headed back to the car.

From the parking lot, I continued to drive up the road to Glacier Point. At Glacier Point they have facilities, a cafeteria, gift shop, etc. I got a little ice cream, rested, and took pictures of Yosemite Valley below. After resting (gee, you think I was tired?) I drove back down Glacier Point Road to Yosemite Valley to check into my accommodations.

Along the way, there is a spot called “Tunnel View” that you can pull off the road and take in the amazing view. (it’s called tunnel view because it’s what you see when you come out of a tunnel, as if you couldn’t figure that out on your own). I asked a guy to take my picture for me there since it’s pretty much the shots you see on all the postcards.

From there it was on to Curry Village to check in to my tent cabin for the next few nights. Curry Village has hundreds of tent cabins and cabins along with other services such as pizza parlor, groceries, cafeteria, gift shops, bike rentals…I had reserved a tent cabin, which I had heard mixed comments about. For those of you in the know, they’re an awful lot like the tents at Singing Hills Girl Scout camp but with a bed and an overhead light. There’s a centralized bathroom and another building with showers. At check-in it started to rain a bit. I had also been told that it never rains in the summer at Yosemite, and if it does it’s a brief shower. Well, it ended up raining both nights. It wasn’t brief either.

Because of the bear population at Yosemite, you can’t keep anything in your tent or car that even remotely smells or looks like food. Everything must be stored in bear proof lockers. Each tent has a locker by the baths for your toiletries, and there are larger storage lockers for food, etc. So even though I didn’t need everything out of my car, I took everything in ‘cause I didn’t want a bear breaking in to my rental car! (And they will, for so much as a candy wrapper left in there!) Also, it’s a pretty long walk from the parking to the tent so my exhausted self had to drag all my stuff to the tent in the rain. And then haul the smelly stuff to the locker.

After settling in I walked down and got some pizza. I went back to my tent because it started to rain again and went to bed early because there isn’t much to do there in the rain.