Above Photo: Tunnel View

My first visit to Yosemite National Park occurred in 2021, and it certainly won’t be my last.

What else can be said of an icon of natural beauty that is roughly the size of Rhode Island? Even if you’ve never been, you’ve heard the buzzwords: El Capitan, Half Dome, John Muir, Ansel Adams.

Situated in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, The Yosemite Valley was protected from development in 1864 by Abraham Lincoln (“The Yosemite Grant”), and the surrounding mountains and forests were included by Act of Congress in 1890, paving the way for the National Park System. Yosemite was originally a California State Park, and California’s Park Ranger history originated there. In 1903 President Teddy Roosevelt camped with John Muir near Glacier Point, and in 1906, Roosevelt signed a bill placing Yosemite back in the hands of the federal government.

Having traded my Class A for a travel trailer that I do not tow, I left Hunker Downs at the campground where I volunteer and rented a cabin at the Thousand Trails Yosemite Lakes RV Resort in Groveland, only five miles from the park’s west entrance, and 22 more miles to Yosemite Valley from the gate.

Annmarie flew into Fresno from Seattle.

She stayed in the park itself, near the south entrance, at the historic Wawona Hotel, established in 1856.

The Wawona (formerly Big Trees Lodge) is one of those great Victorian-Era hotels that is short on amenities but long on charm.

 

 

It is 27 miles to the Valley from the Wawona. Needless to say, Annmarie and I did a lot of driving to see each other and the sites of Yosemite.

Down In The Valley

Yosemite Valley makes up only one percent of the park. Over 4 million people visit Yosemite every year. The valley is chock-full of major attractions, so you do the math. Even in September, the Valley was ridiculously packed, and major road projects didn’t help; at random times of the day traffic was stopped for a minimum of one hour before being released by the flaggers. Needless to say, there was a lot of hot tempers and blaring horns.

I am having a love affair with the Great American Lodges in America’s National Parks, so I was thrilled to tour the Awahnee Hotel in Yosemite Valley. I briefly considered staying there, but with rates of $500 and up per night and reservations made at least a year in advance, I reconsidered.

The Awahnee opened in 1927, and it just oozes rustic elegance.  It is not surprisingly on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sadly I did not get to see The Grand Dining Room because of Covid, but the Great Lounge did not disappoint.

Even though September is not the time for waterfalls, there is beauty everywhere you look in Yosemite Valley. I went looking beyond the rivers and streams and found the Ansel Adams Gallery and the Yosemite Cemetery in Yosemite Village.

Sequoias

Sequoias are a big draw in Yosemite, and the most famous stand is the Mariposa Grove (200 trees), which includes the Grizzly Giant, the oldest and largest in the park. Due to road construction, washed out trails and downed trees, it would have required a six-mile hike one-way to see it, so I opted instead for the Tuolumne Grove (25 trees), where a Ranger gave an overview at the trailhead before the dogs and I embarked on a 2.5 mike round-trip hike. (Merced Grove is the third stand of Sequoias in Yosemite.)

Hetch Hetchy

San Francisco needed water, so the O’Shaughnessy Dam was completed in 1938 on the Tuolumne River, creating Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. It is hard to imagine such a project getting the green light today.

I went solo to Hetch Hetchy, the day before Annmarie arrived. Other than my car, the only other vehicle at the dam that morning belonged to a Ranger. At the entrance of a tunnel bored through granite to reach the trail, there were several flyers about a hiker who had been missing for eight days.

About two miles into my hike toward Wapana Fall, it occurred to me that I was entirely alone, and my phone had zero bars.

(I took this photo by resting the phone in the limbs of a tree!) What if I twisted an ankle or encountered an aggressive animal? I made my way back to the parking lot, and the hike was only four miles round-trip instead of five.

(It has now been four months on, but the hiker, 31-year-old Joel Thomazin, an avid outdoorsman and Army Reservist, has not been found. Since the 1970’s, 13 hikers have gone missing in Yosemite.)

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Wildfires were burning near Yosemite, and all national forests in California had been closed due to the potential for fire.

This made for some smoky mornings and hazy sunrises and sunsets.

The Tioga Pass Road

We set aside an entire day to drive the 39-mile Tioga Pass Road, (the continuation of Highway 120 through the park), which traverses Yosemite roughly east to west. It’s a special treat, as it is only open in late May or June through November.

The drive has many scenic viewpoints, including Olmstead Point,

Tuolumne Meadows, and Tenaya Lake,

where Annmarie wanted to put her feet in the water, but I protested; a month before our trip, a family hiking in the Sierra Nevada back country was found dead – husband, wife, one year old child, and their dog. As there were no signs of foul play, at first they thought the culprit was an algae bloom. (As of December, the official opinion was hyperthermia and dehydration.)

Tioga Pass terminates to the East in Lee Vining, where you can see the the ancient saline Mono Lake with its tufa towers – calcium carbonate spires that rise from the water.

Bodie Ghost Town

A bathroom break in Lee Vining led us to Bodie Ghost Town; neither Annmarie nor I had heard of it before. What a find!

The old mining town is now maintained as a California State Park, and volunteers were busy shoring up foundations. The goal is “arrested decay,“ not to restore but to slow down the ravages of time.

Sunset At Glacier Point

We capped off our Yellowstone adventure with cocktails at Glacier Point and views of Yosemite Valley, Half Dome, and the High Sierra. The road to Glacier Point is closed for construction for the entirety of 2022, making the vista accessible only by strenuous hikes. We were grateful to see it when we did.

If you have any Yosemite memories, I would love to hear them!