An Easy Alpine Adventure

In the morning, we awoke and left while our once-loud neighbors slept peacefully; we resisted the urge to clang our pots and pans near their tents immediately after quiet hours ended, packed up, and hit the road. Our destination for today was the Tuolumne Meadows on the extreme eastern end of the park, 40 miles down the Tioga road. The road takes you up to and into the High Sierra, the alpine region of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The scenery changed from a tree tunnel to driving along meadows and mountainsides with breathtaking views of alpine lakes, granite slopes, and some snow still hiding in shady spots. Our first stop was at the wilderness permit station to get our backcountry pass that would allow us to sleep in the Yosemite Wilderness for the night. We waited in a rather long line, it was the 4th of July after all, then headed back down the road a little ways to take a look at the visitor center. The center was small, so we soon found ourselves determining what to do with the holiday. It was very hot once again, so we didn’t want to do too much strenuous activity. On the other hand, we wanted to do some hiking. Our camp for the night was at May Lake, just one mile from the main trailhead, or we could make a longer loop to the lake, but the options weren’t great. We looked at other trails before finally deciding that we were going to take the day slow and easy. We drove to the trailhead, packed up our stuff amidst a horde of mosquitoes, then hiked an easy one mile to the shoreline, found a camping spot, set up our tent, then walked down to the lake to do some reading. The rest of the afternoon and evening was filled with napping and reading as we enjoyed the mountain scenery and had our most relaxing day in quite some time. There weren’t many other people around, in fact, the people in line behind us scoffed at us when they heard we were going to May Lake. “That’s only one mile,” I heard one of them whisper. If I remember correctly, they were going hiking in one of the canyons were it was over 100 degrees. I’m sure that was quite uncomfortable, but I don’t feel bad for them, we made a very satisfactory choice on what to do with our day. As evening came, we cooked a small dinner before throwing our bear can and toiletries in one of the provided bear boxes before falling asleep. Once again, our sleep was interrupted, this time by a child’s screaming from the camping area. They screamed and screamed all night long. Hopefully the kid’s parents make a wiser choice in the future.

The next morning, we got up bright and early so we could tackle Mt. Hoffman, the peak right above May Lake. We worked our way along the shoreline then slowly up some boulder fields and alpine tundra, making pretty decent time to the top. The peak was amazing: it had awesome views of the entire area from the glacier-carved peaks of the High Sierra down into the Central Valley, we could see Half Dome and Sentinel Dome, down into Tuolumne Meadows, and a number of other much higher and bigger peaks. As we took a long look around, I noticed that I had great cellular service, a first for a while. So, we took the opportunity to call our moms from the top of the mountain and see what they were up to. As the sun’s rays gained intensity, we descended back to the mosquitoes around the lake, packed up rapidly, then walked back down to our van. We had had enough of Yosemite for a little while, so we drove towards the Central Valley and Fresno to get some fresh groceries that weren’t crazy expensive. The drive back was long and windy, but otherwise not too bad, the traffic wasn’t terrible… at least the way we were going. As we passed the entrance station and for several miles afterwards, our eyes were greeted with a solid line of cars. I don’t know how long the people at the back of the line waited to get in, but it had to have been several hours. We descended out of the Sierra and into the Central Valley and watched our temperature gauge go from 80s to 90s to 100s and right up to 113. Dang. Our first stop in town, of course, was In-n-Out, where we got some shakes and a burger before heading over to WinCo to get some more groceries and put our van back together after several days of not keeping it tidy. It was very hot and very uncomfortable, so we didn’t want to stay in the valley for long. Our next destinations were back up in the Sierra, so we decided to just head right for them and get out of the heat.

We drove east out of Fresno and started ascending once again, this time into the Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. We drove through part of Giant Sequoia National Monument and entered Kings Canyon NP, found pretty much the only lake in the area, Lake Hume, and took a dip to cool off. The lake was not nearly as pristine as the rivers and lakes in Yosemite, but it sufficed. We found a secluded pull off and passed out. This night was different from the previous in that we got to sleep in the van, and not a single thing bothered us all night long. It was glorious.

Animals Seen

• Squirrels
• Turkey Vultures
• Brook Trout
• Red Tailed Hawk

Stats

• ~250 miles of driving
• 5 miles of hiking
• 1 lake swim
• No bear incidents, thankfully