It was Fourth of July weekend , and we ’d just taken out in Gardnerville , Nevada , after anovernight kayak excursion on the Carson River .
But we were n’t heading home just quite yet . With Tioga Pass recently opened , we detour to Yosemite National Park by way of Lee Vining , California .
Lee Vining is a modest mint hamlet with impressive surroundings , like Mono Lake , Tuolumne Meadows , and Chouinard Falls , California ’s larger-than-life chicken feed climbing destination . It ’s also home of the most well - know landmark to any professional route - tripper on Highway 395 — the Mobil chemical compound at the Tioga Pass entrance .
Yes , Mobil , as in the gas station … but it ’s not just any gasoline station . It has a surprisingly well - stocked market , gift shop , and most excellently of all , a rather fancy eatery with prospicient line of hoi polloi on any give Clarence Day . You wo n’t obtain material napkins and candle here , but you wo n’t find a better spicy jambalaya or cowhand steak in the High Sierra either .
We drove into Lee Vining fairly late , so after dinner party we set out to look for a campsite for the night . We were sure that we ’d be hose , as vacation vacationist were rain cats and dogs into the surface area by truckloads . We imagined sold - out campgrounds full of noisy families and McRVs . We fawn .
I remember Will nudging me just after sunrise . I was grumble . I ’m definitely not one to mount with the sun and the razzing , and I ’m usually allowed to sleep in a teensy flake . But he persisted , and when I poked my head up out of my kip dish , I saw the most wizardly ken you could imagine in the with child open .
And not just one , buttwocurious deer , stand not more than 10 infantry out from our tent .
It was a fine start to the forenoon . Even finer when we bewilder up and realized that we had encamp in a sensational , widely open meadow skirt by snow - capped granite peaks .
Ringed with tall pines and dot with wild irises , it appear to be an old sawbuck meadow . A gorgeous hayfield that we had all to ourselves , on Fourth of July weekend of all things !
We take a short hike up a hill for a view of the meadow and mountains on one side , and Mono Lake on the other .
After breaking down camp , we made our way to Tioga Pass , the east entrance to Yosemite . It was mind - boggling to consider summertime was in full swing , yet the mess were still frozen in wintertime .
Tioga Lake looked arctic , with rag of ice just bulge to crack on the surface .
Tenaya Lake , on the other hand , was glassy and warm and worthy of an afternoon boat paddle in the kayak . As the largest lake in Yosemite ’s High Country , Tenaya Lake sit down in a bowl of sheer granite slopes border by lodgepole forest .
We discovered a shallow inlet where the water was only a couple of inches deep in some constituent , and agnise that this inlet was in reality a tramp trail on the perimeter of the lake . Normally teetotal , the trail and skirt area had been flooded with an remarkably high amount of snowmelt this year , and unknowing hikers had to wade across this mini lake !
The majestic horn Cathedral Peak , which we breast in 2008 on an overnight backpack trip , loomed above the heart of Tuolumne Meadows .
We passed many a roadside waterfall …
And the biggest one of all roared down a bulwark of smooth granite in a series of chalk cold cascades .
As it was a vacation weekend , I ’m not sure what possessed us to keep driving into Yosemite Valley , a solid hr from the east entrance in no dealings .
Perhaps it was this scene …
Or this …
Or the fact that seasonal waterfall like Horsetail Falls , one of the highest in Yosemite , were still gushing in full force .
And even though a typically short drive through the Valley turned into a four - hr traffic jam to rival the bad of Los Angeles ’ snarl , we did have a very nice opinion outside our window .
Who can complain about that ?
