Road Trip Chronicles - Day 3 Part I
Hope Valley, CA ➡️ Wishon, CA (Approx. 5.5 hours of driving)
Destination: Yosemite National Park
Unceded land of: The Miwuk
Stayed: Lupine Cedar Bluff Campground
This day started incredibly early for me, around 1:00AM to be exact. The full moon that night was shining so brightly, I swear, I thought it was the sun rising. Not to mention, it was significantly cold at the elevation I was at in the Scotts Lake dispersed camping area. It was the coldest experience I had my whole trip, which entailed being able to see my breath and my feet going numb.
So, I laid awake that night huddled with the covers over my head editing my road trip Spotify playlist. Luckily, I had service there to do this and the ability to download the playlist. I recommend doing this with whatever music you want to listen to on road trips because if you’re going into the middle nowhere and lose service, so go your tunes.
This playlist had originally been set before the trip with a mix of hip hop and rock. I found that I was drawn to the rock songs over the hip hop. So, I spent a good while going through my catalogue of a variety of genres of rock (grunge, industrial, psychedelic, progressive, heavy metal, alternative and classic rock with a sprinkle of 80’s new wave and a couple more current tunes). My favorite songs to listen to over and over were: And You and I ; We Have Heaven by Yes and Neal, Jack and Me by King Crimson. So in the end, I guess progressive rock wins the battle of the genres.
Eventually, I was able to fall back asleep for a couple hours around 3:30AM. When I could no longer stand the cold, I packed up in the dark a half hour before sunrise.
Even with the rough night of sleep, that morning's drive ended up being one of my most spectacular rides. I got to see the sun rise over these beautiful cascading mountain views on the road through the Eldorado National Forest. With no one else on the road with me, it felt like I was in my own magical realm.
The route to Yosemite had many winding roads on cliff edges. I must have envisioned myself careening off the edge of a cliff over a dozen times while making the drive up to Yosemite Valley. The video below is from snippets of my drive ending in a view from Cook's Meadow at Yosemite National Park.
This park, being as popular as it is, plus COVID precautions, had a required day pass that I reserved online months before being able to enter the park. There was still over a half hour wait to get through the gate.
I did not have a plan for what hikes to go on. I knew I would get pamphlets and they'd have an information desk for me to ask tips for one day visits to the park.
I started with Lower Yosemite Fall Trail (1 mile roundtrip). This hike was, as expected, overwhelmed with people. I felt anxious about being in such close proximity to people. As I approached the would be waterfall, there was nothing but a trickle of water coming down from the cliff's edge. I naively forgot that it was August in CA and that it was likely all the snow had melted leaving no spectacle of cascading water coming down. Not gonna lie, it was a bit of let down and not worth navigating that trail with such a high volume of people.
So, I set out on another hike to get the most out of my one day at Yosemite. Given my pull to bodies of water, I decided to do the hike to Mirror Lake. It was a fun hike with virtually no people on it. I was able to admire the many large rock formations, climb some, and generally bask in how small I felt (one of my favorite feelings).
This was a very hot day, I did not anticipate how much water I would need to climb all these rocky paths. I started to panic about how long this hike was taking. There were no markers letting hikers know how many more miles were left to get Mirror lake.
About halfway through the trail, in passing, a couple let me know that there was a bear just up the way trying to ransack the restrooms between the bike and hiking trails on the way to the hike. They tried to reassure me by saying "it's safe, because it's a black bear not a brown one". (I should note, I know nothing of bears except to be terrified of them and had no idea why this would be a safer situation or if it was even vaguely true). Info on bear safety.
At this point, it felt like I was unprepared for the hike and scared about the bear situation. I lost all steam and turned around, never making it to Mirror lake. I was disappointed, but on my way back I shifted my focus to the beauty of my surroundings. I was lucky enough to come upon a couple California Sister butterflies that allowed me to get pretty close to observe them flapping their painted wings.
In the parking area at Yosemite Valley and in Yosemite Village there are all these squirrels and crows fiercely scavenging for food. The squirrels were the most rotund squirrels I had ever seen, to be honest, they looked unwell. There were signs everywhere saying 'Don't Feed'. (Effects of feeding wildlife). Even if everyone abided by that, the trash cans at the visitor center were overfilling to the point where waste was spilling onto the ground, making it easy to gorge themselves.
The crows were next level with their scavenging, going right into the backs of people's trucks rummaging through what bags they had there, tearing them apart and pulling it to the ground. They were aggressive.
While I ate my lunch, something like 8 crows crouched nearby inching slowly closer to me to get a morsel of my food. It was a unique lunch experience.
After eating, I headed out and came upon an overlook of Yosemite Valley called 'Tunnel View' that was simply jaw dropping. To behold the majesty of the world in person is simply the best feeling. (Yosemite's Viewpoints)
Then I continued on my way to, yet again, see if the dispersed camping site coordinates I had was a real place and viable for me to stay (See Day 3: Part II).
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