Yosemite National Park

I woke up in California and made sure that the Sierra mountain pass roads were still open, then headed towards Yosemite. I came in the eastern entrance, which goes over the highest pass in the Sierras, just shy of 10,000ft. I underestimated the length it would take to drive from the entrance to the visitor center, which ended up taking a couple of hours, and put me at mid morning before I could check out the trail maps and decide where I would be going in the afternoon.


I decided to get out of the valley and hike to the summit of Sentinel Dome, a easy day hike that I had plenty of time for, and would take me away from the crowds of the valley trails. To get to the trailhead, I had to drive for several miles of constant up hill where I would turn off onto Glacier Point Rd. to park. Unfortunately, Glacier Point Rd. is currently under construction and shut down to one lane, meaning that I would have to wait for about 20 mins before it was my turn to go. I put the car in park and started changing into my hiking gear and making sure I had plenty of water to take with me. Just a minute or two before we were allowed to go on the road I noticed that some steam was starting to come from the hood of my car. I pulled over and watched as everyone else headed on to their destination and waited for my overheating engine to cool down. After moving the car, I saw a pool of antifreeze beneath where I was waiting and popped the hood to find that I was nearly out of coolant at this point. One of the construction workers was kind enough to donate a jug of water so that I wouldn't have to dip into my drinking water supply, and I coasted back into the valley to by some antifreeze. Once that was taken care of, I decided that it was too late in the day to attempt to start my hike and that I should take the car for a test ride to make sure there were no bigger problems with the engine. I remembered that just south of the park is Sierra National Forest, so I headed that direction into the town of Oakhurst, CA to resupply and plan out where to go from there. Once done there, I made my way back towards the park and found a road to camp on within about 100 yards of the park entrance. Once the sun came back up, I headed into the park to get on the trails while they were still quiet and the hike went off without a hitch this time. This also left me with some time to hike down and see a few giant Sequoias on my way out of the park that afternoon. Once out of the park, I headed to Stockton, CA for some dinner on my up north. I ended up camping that night in Northern CA, near Shasta lake, with Oregon in my sights for the morning.

Lake Tahoe

I got to Tahoe with plans to spend the afternoon riding the Flume Trail neat Incline Village, NV. I took a little time when I first arrived to walk around the beach that belongs to some country club and then went to find some lunch to fuel up for my ride. Once fed, I drove and parked at the end of the trail. Most people opt to shuttle this ride and eliminate that 10 miles of road riding to the start of the trail, but I decided to save my money and ride it out. Once to the end of the road, I went into the state park that leads to the trail head and climbed up to Marlette Lake, which fed the flume that the trail is named after. Years ago, this lake and flume were used to get water down to the lower elevation mining towns in Nevada, but in the 1980's the flume was removed and a trail is left on the side of the mountain in its place. Almost the entire trail is perched on the side of a steep dropoff with great views of the lake at all times from a few hundred feet above.


I originally planned to spend the night somewhere along the Tahoe Rim Trail and spend a little more time at the lake in the morning, but the weather forecast wasn't looking too great, so I started making my way south after dinner in South Tahoe. I made it down into California before stopping for the night in Stanislaus National Forest. Fortunately, the border stop at the NV/CA state line didn't stop me for too long, but I wonder why such a thing is even necessary. Regardless, I made in and was in striking distance of Yosemite for the following day.

Back on the Road

I finally got my car back last Tuesday, 11/3/09, only 6.5 weeks after taking it to the shop. I loaded up on Wednesday morning headed towards the west coast. On the way out of Colorado, I stopped by Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, which was just off of the highway that I was on. I spent around an hour and a half there, driving around to the various overlooks, but not taking the time to do any real hiking.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Once finished there, I got back on the road and made it to Salt Lake City where I stopped for an oil change, per the engine manufacturers recommendations. While there, the mechanics found a defect in one of my front tires and warned me not to go any further with it in that condition. They referred me to a tire shop where I got a new set of front tires and was back to driving. After being without a car for so long, I was actually slightly enjoying being back behind the wheel, and considered driving straight through to Tahoe, although I would only have a couple of hours before sunrise by the time I got there. I pulled over at a coffee shop in Elko, NV to weigh my options. Fortunately they had an exterior outlet and free wifi that I could use since they had long since closed. I spotted a plot of BLM land near Winnemucca and set my sights there for the night. This turned out to be a great spot, since the interstate exited off directly onto the dirt road where I was planning to camp, meaning I never got more than five minutes away from the freeway. The next morning, I packed up camp and was on schedule to be at Tahoe by mid morning.