Yosemite: Wawona and Mariposa Grove

On Monday, 10-13-08, Glacier Pass Road re-opened and we went up to the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias You really have to be there to get the actual size of these trees. Photos really do not show how big they are actually. There were Wood Peckers and Blue Jays in the trees and squirrels running on the ground. And lots of big pine cones just waiting to add a big dent to you car.

After the Redwoods, we stopped at the Wawona Hotel. It is very cute and has a variety of rooms, from ones with a shared bath for just a bit more than a cabin in Curry Village to private rooms with bathrooms. For the first time on the trip, we all took off our winter coats and could just wear t-shirts! We had cheese and crackers there, sorry about the Danish Blue Cheese in your cooler Leon.

We stopped next door at the Pioneer Center. I had never been there before, it was very interesting with buildings from the old homestead days moved to this location. There is even a horse drawn wagon for guest rides. We took the drive up Glacier Point road and looked down 4000 feet to our campground below, we also put our jackets back on! The air was thin and we were tired, we headed back to Tunnel View to watch the Moon Rise. It was a nice end to a great trip with a bunch of great people!

Now, where to next......

"The best-laid plans of mice and men..."

When your planning a trip almost a year in advance, you have to go by what the weather and in this case fall colors have usually been. We fully expected COLD in the Eastern Sierra's and had planned on it, well at least Leon had his fleece britches along. We had a back up plan in case it was windy, but it was windy more than we had back up plans for.



We were looking forward to thawing out in Yosemite, after all other than Saturday, the weather report called for mid 80's in the day and mid 40's at night.



On Friday 10-10-08, we got up to drive over Hwy 120 Tioga Pass, the wind was howling and windshield wiper fluid was frozen in my car. But it was fairly clear and we were happy to be crossing this pass before the rain/snow.



The pass was pretty, but we really should have stopped on the way over on Tuesday 10-7-08 when it was warm and still. Instead was COLD and windy, there was even ice on the still part of the Tuolumne River. We did not have the road work delays that we had on Tuesday, so it was a quicker drive.



We stopped at the Tunnel View to take in Yosemite in its grandeur and then headed to our hotels and campgrounds to get settled in for the day.

Kim and family had just stopped by, their reservations in Curry Village had been cancelled because of a rock slide, we had just finished checking details with Curry and were walking back to the campground when...SNOW. Small flakes started flying, JoJo really enjoyed them and they melted right away. It was a treat to see, but not what we had expected. We are lucky to have crossed Tioga Pass early in the day, the road ended up being closed for the next few days!


Kim got some fun shots of the surprise snow fall and JoJo. We had another fall flurry the next day as well.


My worries about us over heating in Yosemite were gone, instead we were more worried about how we were going to stay warm. I think if we added up 2 days of temps, we might have equalled what the weather forecast suggested.


We had a great time exploring Yosemite National Park's Valley Floor including Half Dome, Tunnel and Valley View, Fern Spring, the Valley Village, Ansel Adams Gallery, Museums and the Ahwahnee Hotel.


Next post: Wawona and the Mariposa Grove Links go to more photos at my photosite www.carolsimages.com

The Eastern Sierra's

On Tuesday October 7th a few of us met in Lee Vining, CA for a photo tour of the area. We were hoping to find autumn colors, warm days and no breeze. Instead we found that the area can have some extreme weather.

On Wednesday, 10-8-08, the day started out calm and cool. We visited Mono Lake for "sunrise", I was a bit late, but that was okay because the Nikonian's had pretty well found all the best tripod holes. They came well prepared with muck boots, trash bags for their tripod legs and 3 large vans full of photographers.

After Mono Lake, we drove back to the June Lake Loop campground, Oh! Ridge, for some of Leon's fine Bishop Bakery Cinnamon rolls and hot coffee. We spent the rest of the morning in the June Lake area. There was little color other than green and the wind started to pick up. But we kept ourselves occupied with what we found.

We went only as far south as Mammoth Mountain and the Devil's Postpile National Monument We had expected to see some of the media there covering the Steve Fossett plane crash discovery in that area, but found the park was pretty empty.

That night the winds really picked up, we had planned to spend the next day exploring Bodie State Historical Park so the wind was more of an inconvenience than a stopper to a day of photography. The park was full of photographers too.

We stopped at Lundy Canyon on the way back to Lee Vining to look for more autumn colors, we were lucky and found some, but with the wind it made them better to enjoy in person than photograph.

By Friday 10-10-08, the winds at Oh! Ridge had me wondering how anything stood up and the cold had the windshield wiper fluid frozen solid in my car. We left and took Tioga Pass just before the weather got really bad.

Photos of the trip are here: Eastern Sierra Fall Color, Mono Lake, Devil's Postpile and Bodie.

Next, the road to Yosemite