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.