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| Southern California Sierra Nevada from the East |
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| Mt Whitney from Rt. 395 on East Side of Sierra |
Out
of the frying pan into the ….snow. Fire
and Ice. We headed west from the heat of
Death Valley and drove toward the snow-capped Sierra Nevada of Southern
California. The Sierra seems to rise
“straight up” out of the ground with many peaks over 14,000 feet (Mt Whitney,
the tallest in the lower 48 stands at 14,491) just a few short miles from the
lowest point in the US (Badwater, Death Valley at 282 feet BELOW sea level). It is a stunning vista from even one hundred
miles away!
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| Our Tiffin Motorcoach Boondocked on flooded Lake Isabella |
Our
first stop was at the southern end of the Sierra - we spontaneously boondocked
on Lake Isabella near Kernville. We
drove to the end of an isolated unpaved road in BLM land at the northern end of
Lake Isabella; we camped with no one else in sight except for a couple of
fishermen for a few hours on day. The
lake was at recent highs and rising but still well below the high water mark;
the large snowpack (170% of normal at Lake Tahoe) and a recent warm spell was
causing a quick melt with high, sometimes flood, river levels throughout the
Sierra. We spent a few days off the grid
enjoying Kernville and the Lake Isabella area, before we headed to our
reservations for Sequoia National Park.
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| Lake Isabella High Water Mark - long way to go |
In
Kernville, the rafting vendors were all happy; they will have rafting water
levels through the entire summer. The Kern River below the Lake Isabella Dam
was flowing even faster. Unbelievably, it appears to us they are not storing
the record snow melt in the lake, which could hold a lot more water (hopefully
they have the remaining meltwater runoff calculated accurately). We wanted to drive the Trail of the 100
Giants (Sequoia Trees) in the nearby Sequoia National Forest, but it was still
closed due to high snow levels. This was
a refrain we were to hear many times over the next few weeks.
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| Our Tiffin Climbing into Sequoia NP, Serra Nevada Mtns |
From
Kernville, we headed to Three Rivers RV Hideaway in Three Rivers CA as we were
not able to get a reservation at the only campground in Sequoia NP that could
accommodate an RV of our size. Most of the park is accessible only on steep
winding roads, and the campgrounds and most roads are limited to vehicles less
than 22 feet in length. Our campground
was only a few miles from the entrance with full service for our week-long
stay.
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| Bob next to Giant Sequoia |
The
Sequoia trees (the biggest trees by volume in North America) are huge. Some are as old as 3500 - 4000 years. The
undisputed king is the General Sherman Tree, is not only the largest living
tree in the world, but also supposed to be the largest living single organism
in the world?? It has a circumference of
103 feet, is 275 feet tall, and is estimated to be 2300 - 2700 years old. The
reason it is the largest is the great growing location. The path toward a protected national park started
when a lumberman counted 3000 rings on huge cut tree and decided that these
special trees needed protection. Thankfully,
he was successful. Even in all the
protected parks, there are only a few groves of these special trees remaining. The largest grove is The Giant Forest in
Sequoia, with hundreds of these giants.
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| Climbing up Morro Rock |
The
Sierra is a giant batholith, a huge intrusion of granite, that has been exposed
by erosion that extends from Lake Tahoe to Bakersfield and from the Central
Valley to Highway 395 on the eastern side of the Sierra. It is the large
granite outcrops, standing out from the trees on the lower slopes and the snow
on the higher slopes, that make them so picturesque. In Sequoia National Park, the most well-known
granite outcrop/dome is called Morro Rock.
You can see it for 20 miles as your drive up the steep and winding Generals
Highway; it is at the same elevation as the Sequoia Trees, 4500 to 5500 feet elevation. We enjoyed climbing Morro Rock….up a long,
crooked, narrow “staircase” of 350 steps, and long narrow steep trails, to the top
of the dome; fabulous vistas in all directions, including a great view of the
snowcapped high Sierra. (Although Mt Whitney was directly east of us here, we
couldn’t see the peak).
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| High Meadow, Mineral King, Sequoia NP |
We
were lucky for the opportunity to drive up Mineral King Road, a narrow, often
one-lane, secondary road to a high meadow in the NP passing through the rustic Silver
City Resort. Most of these high meadows are only available if you take long,
strenuous hikes way into the high Sierra. Luckily, the road had opened just two days
prior; it took over 2 hours to drive up.
At the top, we were in a high meadow (almost 8000 feet elevation), still
mostly snow covered, surrounded by snow cap peaks. The snow melt was flowing
everywhere, causing streams and waterfalls to flood the meadow, now a marsh, and
adding to the roaring Kaweah River below. We had a delicious lunch on the resort
patio at 7,500 feet elevation.
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| Running Water Carving Rock, Crystal Cave, Sequoia NP |
The
one feature of Sequoia NP that was not affected by the snow was Crystal
Cave. It opened for the season while we
were visiting. We booked a tour ticket
and enjoyed the 1 hour tour through the cave.
Unlike most of the other caves we had been in recently, this cave was formed
in marble, not limestone - hence the name Crystal Cave (the walls
glimmer). Because marble dissolves much
more slowly than limestone, there are very few stalactites and stalagmites;
instead the force of rushing water is the main cause of the formation of the
cave. This was a cave with mostly tight,
small spaces, and therefore, an “intimate” caving experience.
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| Kings River and Canyon, Kings NP (Note all the white water) |
Kings
Canyon and Sequoia National Parks are right next to each other, and managed by
the same office. Kings Canyon NP is
mostly wilderness, but one road takes you into and along Kings Canyon, the
parks namesake. It is a beautiful, deep
glacial valley, cut by yet another roaring river, the Kings River. The narrow, winding road hugs the cliffs up
high looking down on the canyon and river, but sometimes skirted the river
itself; some parts of the road were recently flooded. Again the uppermost sections of the park were
still closed due to snow.
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| High Sierra, Eastern Side |
We
had originally planned on visiting Mono and Mammoth Lakes as a day trip from
Yosemite NP. However, when we were in
Sequoia, we realized Highway 120 that crosses the high Sierra in Yosemite was
closed due to snow and not anticipated to open until August! If we wanted to see the eastern side of the
Sierra, we had two options to cross the mountains; either go north to Rt 50 and
Lake Tahoe from Yosemite, or drive south from Sequoia around the southern end
of the mountains near Bakersfield. We chose the faster and shorter trip (still
800 miles round trip) from Sequoia around the southern end of the Sierra, back
past Lake Isabella. We wished we had
realized the snow and road conditions when we were in Lake Isabella, not after
we had driven all the way up to Sequoia/Kings.
However, we decided to make the trip anyway, and not miss the eastern
Sierra Nevada.
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| Mammoth Lakes, CA |
We
left our motorhome parked at Sequoia and drove the car around and spent the
night in Mammoth Lakes in a hotel. We
couldn’t believe it, but Mammoth Lakes was still very much a ski town in June;
the slopes were still covered in deep snow, and it was very COLD. We had wanted to go to Devil’s Postpile and
Rainbow Falls, but the entrance to the road to get there was still under 20
feet of snow! Instead, we just toured
Mammoth Lakes, June Lake, and spent a wonderful half day exploring the tufa pinnacles
of Mono Lake. These are the same type of
tufa formations found in Trona Pinnacles (see last blog), but in Mono Lake they
are still forming in the water. As a
note, there was once an inland sea that covered the entire area east of the
Sierra.
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| Bob and Linda, Tufa Formations, Mono Lake South Shore |
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| Mono Lake South Shore, CA |
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| June Lake, Mammoth Lakes, CA |
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| El Capitan, Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite Valley |
After
we returned to the Sequoia, we headed north to Yosemite. We had been unsuccessful getting a
reservation for a motorhome campground in the park - they book out for each
month in 7 -10 seconds. Instead, we
camped right outside the park in El Portal.
It was only a few miles from the entrance to the park, but it still took
almost 30 minutes, without traffic, to reach Yosemite Valley. We arrived on the very crowded Tuesday after Memorial
Day; on Memorial Day, the park was closed to incoming traffic by midday and it
took 4 hours for cars inside the park to complete the valley loop (usually a 30
minute drive with no photo stops – hard to do!).
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| Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls, Yosemite |
With
the crowds in mind, we planned our day trips to see the Valley and Glacier
Point on weekdays and very early in the day.
We got up at 5am and were driving into the park by 7. We parked the car in the parking lots that
were full by 8am, and took the shuttle bus to the trail heads to finish our
hikes before 11am. After 11am, the
shuttles were so full, they often did not stop at each stop. We have been in several parks with shuttle
systems, and most work well. In
Yosemite, the logistics are broken.
There are too many people, too many cars, too few parking spaces, and
too few shuttles which only come every 30 minutes (in Zion and the Grand
Canyon, they come about every 10 minutes).
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| Lower Yosemite Falls Mist and "Rain" |
Yosemite
is still one of the most beautiful glacial valleys in the country. One of Bob’s favorite parks is Glacier
National Park, because of the glacier carved landscape. Yosemite is even more beautiful in a very,
small compact space, where you can almost see it all at once. From the splendor of the thousand feet tall
granite walls, culminated in El Capitan, Half Dome, and Glacier Point, to the
numerous waterfalls dropping hundreds of feet to the valley floor. Upper and
Lower Yosemite Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, Vernal Falls, and Nevada Falls flow
almost year-round, but this year they were roaring from the huge snowmelt. The mist formed at the bottom made it almost
impossible to get near the foot of the falls without getting soaked and blown
away by the wind from the force of the falling water. There were even numerous seasonal falls, all
adding to the beauty and wonder of the park.
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| Flooded, Raging Merced River with Mist Rainbow |
The
Merced River was flooded, with many areas in the park closed. Although the Merced is flat in Yosemite
Valley and therefore had no whitewater; however, as the Merced River Canyon
leaves the valley, it becomes much steeper, and the river became a flooded, roaring
white water almost the entire length of the canyon. The rafting companies here were also very
happy. We had been to the park many years ago, but
only for a day or two at a time, so we were glad for the six days in the park; in
spite of the maddening crowds, we were really impressed with the park and high
recommend going there, off season if possible.
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Linda's BD, Ahwhanee Lodge, Yosemite
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We
really enjoyed our evening and dinner at the former Ahwhanee Lodge (now called
the Majestic Yosemite Hotel) to celebrate Linda’s birthday. It’s hard to believe we have been “retired”
and traveling since 2005!
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| Vernal Falls, Yosemite |
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| Mirror Lake, Yosemite |
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| Half Dome, Vernal and Nevada Falls, from Glacier Pt, Yosemite |
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| Dbl Rainbow from outflow, Hetch Hetchy |
We
stayed out of the Valley and explored the lesser travelled parts of Yosemite on
the weekend. We drove to Hetch Hetchy,
the reservoir for San Francisco on the Tuolumne River. Again, we were surprised at how much water
was still being let out of the reservoir.
When we lived in Sacramento in 1997, it was also a year of heavy snows
with lots of runoff water. That year they
let too much water out of Lake Folsom, Sacramento’s reservoir, and by the end
of the summer, it was as empty as it was before the big runoff.
It
is unbelievable to us that California has not built a dam or reservoir since
the late 1970s. Instead, they are wasting taxpayer dollars on a “bullet train”
between San Francisco and LA; the initial section is from Merced to
Bakersfield, both in the central valley, and is already 50% over budget and
estimated to cost $100 billion. Much of
the farmland in the Central Valley is fallow because of lack of water (no storage
dams and much spring runoff water is used to save the endangered delta smelt
fish in the San Francisco Bay delta – a worthy cause, we are sure?). We saw signs all over the valley “Dams not Trains”
on blackened farmland, vineyards, and orchards.
Water is the next “train wreck” waiting to happen in California; we are glad we are not living there anymore to
share in the “fun”.
The
crowds and hassle in Yosemite finally got to us; instead of the planned 10
days, we decided to leave early after six days and spend a few unplanned days
on the Pacific coast at Monterey and Carmel before we headed to our next planned
visit to Pinnacles National Park, just east of there.
We continue to feel very Blessed and
Thank God for giving us the time and health to enjoy our retirement to the
fullest.
Feel free to pass the blog link on
to anyone who might be interested.
Best to all,
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