We left the motel and headed to Lake Tahoe in search of potential mountain biking oportunities. We came in from the north of the lake past several huge houses, but it was the blue of the lake that was the most eye-catching thing - good job I wasn't driving otherwise Dan probably would have started moaning again... is it really that important you keep an off-road vehicle on the road?! ;-)
We popped into tourist information and got some details on the trails. There was the Flume, the most famous in the area, unfortuantly though, it's a 23 mile trail one way and not recommended if your scared of heights. With my tendancy to freeze when faced with large drops we decided this wasn't an overly good plan and didn't really want to spend the whole day in one area anyway. So we thought we'd try a few others. It was tricky finding somewhere to park, they seem to like to make it difficult unless you're staying on a hotel etc. but as we found somewhere we headed out onto the powerline trail. This was running close to the top of the mountains on the lake and was a pretty sandy trail amoungst the woods, I was a bit nervous considering my last liaison with sand and the problems I had walking for a few days afterwards, but after 10 minutes was getting my confidence back no problem. We cycled a few miles but found the views (or lack of) a bit disappointing, for some reason, it was also very hard work consistent ups with short boring downs, not really greatly technical. We finally figured out cycling at 8,000ft was probably something to do with the lack of breath and struggling so as we weren't really enjoying it we headed back to Charlie and decided to find a campsite for the night.
We were late that night, but managed to find some BLM Land with a few tracks leading down to a valley bottom, this proved to be a peaceful campsite for us, the moon was even low enough for us to see some stars - beautiful! (oh, and it was free - cool).
The next day we got up early and headed south on the 395 to Bodie - the best preseved 'Ghost Town' in California. Over $1bn in gold had been extracted over the years, but the last residents left in the 50's, the majority going when the mine closed in the 30's (IIRC). It was certainly preserved, the state park has done nothing to clean the town up, just prop up a few vehicles and replace some roofs if necessary. There were still cans on the street, plates in the sinks and bottles on the tables - people really did just leave! I'm not really suprised though, Bodie has some of the coldest recorded temperatures in the US at -40F without wind chill and winds of up to 100mph. When combined with the 20ft of snow it was quite a forboding place. It was also known to be the most lawless with a gun fight most nights, one diary of a young girl stated: 'I am leaving you God, for I am being taken to Bodie', you really did expect a stage coach to come trundling around the corner at any minute.
Our next stop was Mono Lake, an alkaline and hypersaline lake south of Bodie, it's one of the most important areas of birds and other animals in the area but probably best known for it's tufa: rock like Calcium Carbonate deposit. Again, a beautiful area:
Finally we headed down to Yosmite, or should I say 'up' as we reached 9,945ft before decending into Yosmite Park down towards the valley. Charlie coped well, we only had to stop once to let him cool down on the way up, which wasn't a problem as the views were worth stopping several times for anyway. The drive down was very promising, about an hour and a half of twisty roads with stunning views of the half dome. We saw several coyotes in the meadows, but we were the wrong time of year to see teh famous wild flowers.
We got down into the valley about 6pm and started to look for a campsite, well, I say started, we spent most the time trying to negotiate the one way system. Paul, if you fancy setting up a consultation service out here I swear we could make a fortune! For a park meaning to preserve nature and prevent pollution there is a serious amount of visitor miles being wasted around there. When we'd found the reservation area we realised the park was full. Mid-week and well out of season. The only option was to head an hour out the valley again, we didn't really fancy that so took the 140 out the park and found a campsite about 15 mintues away, it was dirty and by the side of the road, but it did for a one night stop. The next morning we made a plan so we could attempt to cut down the wasted miles, first stop was the visitors centre. You park 1/2 a mile from the centre and catch the bus in, but we didn't want to waste the time so got the bikes off the back. The ranger was grumpy and unhelpful but we got a list of trails and decided to head down to the waterfalls. We knew they'd probably be dry, but wanted the walk anyway, it was worth it as we saw some deer and beautiful trees.
As the cycle route was also one-way and very limited we put the bikes on the back and drove down to El Capitan, this was a bit of a pilgrimage for Dan as he likes his climbing and he wanted to get to the base. The Rangers and the Climbers have an 'interesting' realationship and as such, there are no trails to even the most famous and popular climbs, so we hiked through the woods and did about an hour of scrambling to get to the bottom - which, to be honest, was far more fun anyway! (until I looked down!) Dan posed for a pic and we climbed back down. El Cap certainly deserves it's reputation, you need to be fit and know what you're doing as that's one big rock!
The last thing on the list for Yosmite was Glacier point, there was a 5 mile hike up there and 5 miles back again, estimated at 8hours - sadly we didn't have 8 hours. This was another problem, all the hikes were either full days or about an hour, nothing in between so unless you had alot of days or were really lazy it didn't really suit. It seemed like alot more could have been made of oportunities there without damaging the park which was a bit frustrating. So, we took the lazy option and drove up to the top to take the little walk. It was a beautiful view though so I'm glad we went for it.
Later that day were headed for Groveland and the oldest bar in California, swing doors and everything - excellent atmosphere.
The next day we headed for Napa Valley, but that's a whole other story and will have to wait for tomorrow night :-)
1 comment:
Yo people, El Cap, remember the little bugger well!!!You two certainly look well. Phyllis has reminded me to tell you that we have the video and the tee shirt of Yosemite, so there, that bar looks like it could do with a little clean up, all those things stuck on the ceiling!!! and who is that scruffy looking git in the picture.
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