Day 7 – Tioga Pass
Posted on 23. Jun, 2010 by Brad Cansler in He-Said-She-Said
We just couldn’t do it. We could not force ourselves to get up early again after going to bed after mid-night – again. We slept in. By the time we woke up, took showers and packed up, breakfast was over. Wawona was such an interesting hotel. I wish we had actually done more there than just sleep. The 130 year old victorian-style lodge was very quaint with a gracious charm.
We walked over to the National Park Visitor Center and Sydney got a Wawona cancellation stamp. We talked with the ranger about Tioga Pass and how long the drive was to Tuolumne Meadows and places to hike. The last two times Brad and I were here, the road was closed from winter snows. There was a little store right around the corner so I picked up some bananas, OJ and chocolate milk to eat with our trail mix for breakfast. We were all satisfied and ready for the days adventures
The first meadow we came to as we turned on Tioga Road we saw a brown bear. That makes three so far for the trip. We stopped many more times along the way to take photographs. If there were rocks to climb on or a waterfall to climb to, Sydney found them. It was amazing, each time we stopped, we didn’t know whether it was time for a jacket or short sleeves. There were micro climates everywhere; although the farther we went, the cooler it became. We spent a while at Olmsted Point and Brad said this was where he wanted to be for sunset. So we looked at the clock when we left and decided how long we could drive before we had to turn around and start back to make it by sunset.
The visitor center was not open for the summer yet but we went to the park entrance at Tioga Pass. There was a beautiful lake that was covered in ice; it was broken up so it looked like little icebergs. It was really cool because you could see where the ice was larger under the water than on top. It has such an amazing look with the blue color of the ice under the water. We had come to the point in our journey where we had to turn back.
We got back to Olmsted Point just in time for sunset. We went different directions so we had different images. Sunset happens pretty quickly so you don’t have a lot of time to move from one place to another. Then while Brad did some more photographs of the after glow, Sydney stacked rocks to create a cairn trail marker. (Hers is the smaller stack.) Kids and rocks – it’s like PB&J.
Sydney took this last photograph of the after glow, considering that she hand held it I was amazed that it was sharp. We made it back to Yosemite View Lodge to grab pizza ten minutes before they closed, whew!. Back to the room, Sydney was asleep when her head hit the pillow. Brad copied off photographs while I got tomorrows clothes out and prepared us for a 4:30 am wakeup call. We are in bed after mid-night again. No big surprise here. Is this vacation or work, Oh well it sure is fun.
Comments are closed