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Friday Night ALL THE WAY to Lee Vining
Jun. 18th, 2022 01:32 amThis evening we left town on a long weekend vacation. Hawk has Monday off for Juneteenth, and I took a day of PTO so we could make a three-day weekend trip in the warm summer weather (cough, cough, surprisingly cold today).
We often begin these trips with Friday Night Halfway, a technique of driving for a few hours Friday evening and another few Saturday morning to make the travel more comfortable, but tonight we've gone All The Way. We're bedding down in Lee Vining, California, at the eastern foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, 230 miles from home. It's 1:30am Saturday already.
Here are a few notes about the trip this evening:
6:25pm, Leaving home: Woohoo, the trip is afoot! ...Actually it's not a foot, it's a car trip. 🤣 Though the point of it is to get some time on foot in the Eastern Sierra the next three days. We wanted to leave a smidge earlier but we had to pack after work, having not had the time/energy to do it last night. We've both had a lot of long workdays this week.
7:50pm, Tracy: Tracy is a shitty little town/ex-urb on the edge of the Central Valley. 1980s pop stars who failed to manage their riches well live here. We're not here to hit up M.C. Hammer for an autograph, though; we're stopping for dinner.
8:50pm, Manteca: We've stopped for gas at this small town in the middle of the Central Valley. Yes, the name means lard in Spanish. Guess what they do here. It costs $110 to fill the tank on our SUV. ...And that's with the cheapest gas in the area, at Costco, $5.899/gal.
9:30pm, Oakdale: Another small town in the Central Valley. We think of it fondly as we've made many Friday Night Halfway stops here on the way to Yosemite. Tonight, though, we're going all the way... and this isn't even the halfway point. We stop in Oakdale for ice cream at Coldstone.
East of Oakdale is a decision point. We can turn one way to cross the mountains via the Tioga Pass; or another to cross the Sonora Pass. All afternoon and evening both Google Maps and Apple Maps have been routing us over the Sonora Pass instead of the Tioga Pass. It's a longer route.
While waiting in line for ice cream we check our maps again.We try forcing them to give us a driving time via Tioga; they won't. We figure they've got to be marking some kind of closure or obstacle in Yosemite. Indeed, as we zoom in, we see they're marking a closure in Tuolumne Meadow. There's a bridge out, apparently. Except we don't believe it. Yosemite's web page says nothing about a road closure. The state highway status page shows no closure. We even call Yosemite's recorded-info hotline; no closure. Electronic road signs on Highway 120 displaying traveler information about Yosemite say nothing about a road closure. Basically everyone but Google and Apple says Highway 120 is clear. We decide to take our chances.
11pm, Yosemite: Yes, Yosemite National Park. We're driving through Yosemite National Park. At night.
11:12pm, Crane Flat: Not long after entering the park we reach Crane Flat, elev. 6,192'. This is the highest I've been on land in 9 months. And there's still over 3,000 more to go!
11:50pm, Olmstead Point: During the daytime this is the place where amazing views open up on the Tioga Pass road driving east. To the west you can see the famous Half Dome in the distance and Cloud's Rest at nearly 10,000'. To the east is beautiful Tenaya Lake. We pull over in the empty parking lot and hop out to see what we can see. We can't see anything. Well, we can see the stars in the sky; that's it. The moon's not up over the Sierra Crest to light the landscape below. And it's cold out here.
Midnight, Tenaya Lake: "PAVEMENT ENDS" a sign states. LOLWUT? Apparently the park and/or the state have decided this summer is a great time to grind up 8 miles of HIghway 120 in Yosemite's high country. The road is compacted dirt and gravel for the next several miles. It'll take more than that to slow our roll, though. We're in a capable 4x4. As we climb the next hill toward Tioga Pass I see a gray wolf dart across the dirt road.
12:20am, Tioga Pass: We top out the Tioga Pass at 9,945'. This is the highest I've been on land in nearly 4 years. From here it's all downhill. Literally downhill. We're at nearly 10,000', and from here it's an epic drive down the steep Eastern face of the Sierra Sevada mountains. But we won't see it this trip since it's night.
12:40am, Lee Vining: Wow, the drive down from the Tioga Pass was faster than we expected. I guess that's the benefit of doing it in the dark; there's no temptation to go slow or stop to see things, because you can't see things. 🤣 We check into a hotel for the night. "Check in" is a rather grand term, though, as all we did was reach in the mailbox and grab the envelope with our name on it and keys inside. The family that runs this small hotel went to bed hours ago. For us, though, we'll be up for at least another hour.
We often begin these trips with Friday Night Halfway, a technique of driving for a few hours Friday evening and another few Saturday morning to make the travel more comfortable, but tonight we've gone All The Way. We're bedding down in Lee Vining, California, at the eastern foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, 230 miles from home. It's 1:30am Saturday already.
Here are a few notes about the trip this evening:
6:25pm, Leaving home: Woohoo, the trip is afoot! ...Actually it's not a foot, it's a car trip. 🤣 Though the point of it is to get some time on foot in the Eastern Sierra the next three days. We wanted to leave a smidge earlier but we had to pack after work, having not had the time/energy to do it last night. We've both had a lot of long workdays this week.
7:50pm, Tracy: Tracy is a shitty little town/ex-urb on the edge of the Central Valley. 1980s pop stars who failed to manage their riches well live here. We're not here to hit up M.C. Hammer for an autograph, though; we're stopping for dinner.
8:50pm, Manteca: We've stopped for gas at this small town in the middle of the Central Valley. Yes, the name means lard in Spanish. Guess what they do here. It costs $110 to fill the tank on our SUV. ...And that's with the cheapest gas in the area, at Costco, $5.899/gal.
9:30pm, Oakdale: Another small town in the Central Valley. We think of it fondly as we've made many Friday Night Halfway stops here on the way to Yosemite. Tonight, though, we're going all the way... and this isn't even the halfway point. We stop in Oakdale for ice cream at Coldstone.
East of Oakdale is a decision point. We can turn one way to cross the mountains via the Tioga Pass; or another to cross the Sonora Pass. All afternoon and evening both Google Maps and Apple Maps have been routing us over the Sonora Pass instead of the Tioga Pass. It's a longer route.
While waiting in line for ice cream we check our maps again.We try forcing them to give us a driving time via Tioga; they won't. We figure they've got to be marking some kind of closure or obstacle in Yosemite. Indeed, as we zoom in, we see they're marking a closure in Tuolumne Meadow. There's a bridge out, apparently. Except we don't believe it. Yosemite's web page says nothing about a road closure. The state highway status page shows no closure. We even call Yosemite's recorded-info hotline; no closure. Electronic road signs on Highway 120 displaying traveler information about Yosemite say nothing about a road closure. Basically everyone but Google and Apple says Highway 120 is clear. We decide to take our chances.
11pm, Yosemite: Yes, Yosemite National Park. We're driving through Yosemite National Park. At night.
11:12pm, Crane Flat: Not long after entering the park we reach Crane Flat, elev. 6,192'. This is the highest I've been on land in 9 months. And there's still over 3,000 more to go!
11:50pm, Olmstead Point: During the daytime this is the place where amazing views open up on the Tioga Pass road driving east. To the west you can see the famous Half Dome in the distance and Cloud's Rest at nearly 10,000'. To the east is beautiful Tenaya Lake. We pull over in the empty parking lot and hop out to see what we can see. We can't see anything. Well, we can see the stars in the sky; that's it. The moon's not up over the Sierra Crest to light the landscape below. And it's cold out here.
Midnight, Tenaya Lake: "PAVEMENT ENDS" a sign states. LOLWUT? Apparently the park and/or the state have decided this summer is a great time to grind up 8 miles of HIghway 120 in Yosemite's high country. The road is compacted dirt and gravel for the next several miles. It'll take more than that to slow our roll, though. We're in a capable 4x4. As we climb the next hill toward Tioga Pass I see a gray wolf dart across the dirt road.
12:20am, Tioga Pass: We top out the Tioga Pass at 9,945'. This is the highest I've been on land in nearly 4 years. From here it's all downhill. Literally downhill. We're at nearly 10,000', and from here it's an epic drive down the steep Eastern face of the Sierra Sevada mountains. But we won't see it this trip since it's night.
12:40am, Lee Vining: Wow, the drive down from the Tioga Pass was faster than we expected. I guess that's the benefit of doing it in the dark; there's no temptation to go slow or stop to see things, because you can't see things. 🤣 We check into a hotel for the night. "Check in" is a rather grand term, though, as all we did was reach in the mailbox and grab the envelope with our name on it and keys inside. The family that runs this small hotel went to bed hours ago. For us, though, we'll be up for at least another hour.
