Out West Adventure: Part 2--A Day of rest and an afternoon at south Yosemite

Sun. May 26: Today was a day of lazy rest and relaxation. Marv let me sleep in a bit and got up and read outside in the warming sun. We spent a lot of the morning and into the early afternoon reading and people watching as some groups packed up and left and others moved into the campsites left empty. We found out that the problem with the industrial-type unisex bathrooms that have a shower in each individual toilet area is that one can’t get to a toilet when that’s all that’s needed because there was a long line of people waiting for showers. Mid-afternoon we drove back to the little town of Woodlake to walk in their Botanical Garden which we had driven by on our way to Kings Canyon. First we climbed up the steep dike to get a look at the lake and found a nearly dried up, very shallow reservoir. Things must be getting desperate if the lake is that low at the beginning of the summer! We then walked through the long Botanical Garden that stretches along the bottom of the dike, wrapping along the lake. One end is almost entirely roses of every shade and size, many in full bloom with others fading away. There were other flowers, including lots of hollyhocks and sunflowers, and an entire hedge of fragrant rosemary. When we walked the other way we found many kinds of fruit trees and different grapes. There was no breeze getting down there and it was blazing sun and in the eighties so we didn’t make it to the end of the trees before we turned back. On our way back to the campsite we stopped at a small fruit stand and bought a 5 pound bag of oranges for $2. Further on we stopped at a larger stand where we were able to taste local cheeses, olives, olive oils, and flavored balsamic vinegars that weren’t local. We bought some items for gifts and returned to the campsite where we tried to take showers in the late afternoon but even then had to wait for one to open up for each of us. I ended up in the handicapped room, where the shower is in one corner, open to the sink and toilet, with no place to hang a towel or robe or to put toiletries down. The shower consisted of a tiny button which gave a one second spurt of water. There was no way I could wash my hair in that so I contented myself with just washing my body. Marv faired a bit better, getting 30 seconds or so with each push so he managed to wash his hair. We pretty much idled away the rest of the day and managed to identify a northern goshawk in flight by using Marv’s IPod bird identifying app.   We ate some yummy chicken brats for dinner before packing up as much as we could for a quick getaway in the morning.

Datura close-up (note the bit of lavender along the edges)

Datura at the campsite

Hedge of rosemary

Mon. May 27: HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY! We got away before 9:00 and drove to nearby Visalia for breakfast and WiFi at McDonalds to try and get information on camping in Yosemite, and groceries and gas. Then we drove north on Highway 99 towards Yosemite National Park. We again passed miles and miles of orchards and vineyards, with a median full of blooming azaleas. Even though it was getting on towards noon we decided to take a chance on there being camping at the South Entrance to Yosemite, thinking that the streams of cars and campers going past us the other way meant that most people were heading home from the weekend. We drove up over 5000ft. to the entrance only to find out that all campgrounds were full. So we turned around and went to a Sierra National Forest campground just a few miles from the entrance that we had noticed. There were only two sites there without reservation notes on the posts and one was clearly too small for us. Marv tried and tried to back into the other and finally admitted defeat. As we left the park the curmudgeon host told us that the site was reserved anyway and he thought we were the ones who had reserved it. Why it didn’t have a tag on the post we’ll never know. But he did tell us of another National Park campground to try, thirteen miles back down Highway 41.  We drove down to Bass Lake and checked into a site for just one night, in the Cedar Grove-Lupine campground, which is just one of many day use and campgrounds around the large lake. After setting up quickly on site #82 and chatting with the nice couple right next to us on the otherwise empty loop (they told us the entire place had been jam packed full over the weekend), we drove back up to Yosemite to spend some time in the late afternoon and evening there. We found out that there would be no campsite available for the next two nights so camping in Yosemite National Park was out for us. After we got our first Passport stamp for Yosemite, a nice volunteer at the Wawona Visitors Center showed us two of her favorite hikes nearby that we would have time to enjoy. The first was a one-mile hike to a narrow swinging bridge across a rushing, tumbling mountain stream. It was a pretty easy walk with some moderate elevation change and lots of beautiful wild flowers in bloom, including purple lupine and some sort of short purple iris. We crossed paths with a family and exchanged taking pictures on the bridge. 

Ground cover EVERYWHERE throughout the woods

The second hike was also about a mile but it was steeply uphill along Chilnualna Creek to the final cascade of Chilnualna Falls. An 8.2 mile hike would have taken us to the top of the falls but we didn’t have the time or the stamina to do that trek. Instead we drove back to the entrance and took the drive to Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. Shuttle buses had stopped running so we could drive the two miles to the Grove and then we hiked 1.2 miles roundtrip to see trees in the Lower Grove. The Lower Grove has a modest number of Sequoias but nothing to compare to Sequoia National Park. The Upper Grove has more trees, including the iconic Wawona Tunnel Tree which, until it fell down in 1969, people delighted in driving through, thanks to the tunnel cut into it in the late 1800s. The Upper Grove is most easily reached by a narrated Tram Ride but it stopped running at 4:30 and it was nearing 7:00 when we got there. So instead we hiked up to see The Grizzly Giant, The Bachelor and the Three Graces, and the California Tunnel Tree. This tunnel was cut at about the same time as the Wawona but is still standing, though one can only walk through it now, not drive. There was a bit of light drizzle as we walked, attesting to the damp cold front which will be our weather for our time in Yosemite. It was getting dark by the time we got back to Bass Lake. We attempted to get me a shower at Miller Resort at the end of the lake, only to find that the store where one buys shower tokens was closed. Instead we wearily returned to the still mostly deserted campground to make dinner and get to bed.