Yosemite

After an almost completely sleepless night, 8am saw me saying goodbye to Sue who had looked after me so well for the last three days. It’s funny but just like with Jim & Caroline, although our time together has been brief, I feel as though I’ve known Sue forever, I guess it’s because she is a person who welcomes you into her life with her whole being rather than keeping her distance. It was just the same when we originally met in the State park up in North Dakota. But it was time to move on, I have many miles to cover over the next few weeks and my first waypoint was to be Yosemite National Park and the Tioga Pass. It wasn’t going to be a huge day which was just as well with about 3 hours sleep. The Sat Nav was saying 180 miles and Sue had told me that the first 80 or so miles over to Oakdale would be on Interstates and she was bang on the money.

 I can’t say that first 80 miles was terribly exciting, but it did get me out of the urban areas fairly quick as I covered it in just on 1 ½ hours at a nice steady pace; no peg scrapping heroics today (or for the foreseeable future for that matter). There was one moment of “excitement” as I spotted a car accessory place and needed some more oil stabiliser and nearly side-swiped a car that was cutting up the inside of me as I turned !!! I’ll have to watch those life-savers from now on. I though I had got used to the idiotic way they overtake on both sides but obviously not well enough. Anyway, all was OK; and I got the stabiliser. It certainly seems to have slowed the amount of oil I’m burning. As long as I keep the pace sensible than all should be well.

It’s quite a long run into Yosemite, but the whole route is incredibly scenic and it just keeps getting better and better as you get closer to the centre. Every corner hides another stunning picture. I could spend a month just ambling through, stopping every 100 yds or so, and even then there would be more to see! At one of the photo stops there was one of the ubiquitous Harleys parked up, and surprise, surprise, I got into conversation the couple riding it. Mark and Monica lived just outside the park and were out taking Mark’s brand new bike for a spin. Looking at my bike Monica confided that her step brother had also been killed in Afghanistan about 5 years ago, almost at the same time as Sam, and also by an IED, amazingly his surname was Robinson; Josh Robinson. I didn't get his age, but from the look of Monica I would guess he was certainly no older than our Sam!

Mark and Monica

They rode on whilst I stayed and took a few more pictures before I too headed on down to Yosemite Village with many, many more stops on the way. In fact the “village” really doesn’t appear to be a village at all, just a gift shop, restaurant, visitor centre and such like. A bit disappointing as I was expecting some quaint old buildings to photograph.  I stopped for an ice cream and a drink as well as the obligatory Yosemite sticker for my panniers before heading back more or less the way I had come as the Tioga Pass turning was right at the top of the hill, just before I met Mark & Monica. Strangely, my Sat Nav wouldn’t recognise the turning and was trying to send me straight on, indication 230 miles, when in fact the distance was closer to 50! Even once I had made the turn and was on the correct road it was telling me to do a U turn… Just as well I don’t follow it too slavishly or I might never get home.

The road up to the Tioga Pass climbs steeply, all the way up to nearly 10,000ft and the scenery if to die for, although different from Yosemite itself, even though still in the park. Huge, almost white, rock walls and buttresses line the road looking as though they are covered on snow, some have a sparse covering of trees. In fact “covering” is really to strong a word for it. It’s almost as though a few seeds were scattered long, long ago, and just the od one or two, here and there, germinated and survived. Some of the walls are so sheer and smooth, you can’t imagine anyone scaling them, but I’m sure they do. Other are fronted by boulder fields that look as though they are delicately poised, and one false move or careless footstep will bring the whole lot crashing down in an avalanche. Then of course there is the water; lakes, rivers, streams and creeks abound; large and small, fast and slow, deep and shallow. More than once I was caught out by a particularly lovely scene just around a bend and had to do a quick U turn and go back to capture the moment. If I haven’t got a few “stunners” out  of that lot, I think I’ll give up and drop the camera in the bin! I was also spoilt for choice with camp ground as well. Sue was getting a little worried for me yesterday as she couldn’t pull down a list of the camps for me, bless her. She needn’t have worried there must be at least a dozen that I have passed. The only issue I had was that the ones before Tioga Pass came along too early, although I had decided that I would camp a little earlier than usual as I was starting to feel the effect of last nights lack of sleep: Then once it came to a sensible time to stop I was at around 10,000ft and that was going to be way too cold once the sun went down. Eventually I found the location where I now sit which resides at around 6500ft. Quite high enough for me to need to put the fly sheet on the tent me thinks! Oh, and talking of tents, I had a near disaster as I set up camp. I had just got the tent all nicely up and pegged out when I slipped and fell right onto one corner, bending on of the poles quite badly and ripping the inner tent with about a 3 inch tear. I’ve done a rough sewing job which will, I’m sure, hold until I get home, when my young Polish seamstress up in Lampeter will be able to do it properly. Knowing her it will be as good, if not better, than new.

So tomorrow, if I survive the cold and the bears, I head onwards and into the valley of death! Yes, Death Valley beckons, and is tomorrows destination or to be more precise, Furnace Creek, which is in Death Valley. I have no idea how that one will pan out as I should really be a lot closer to get an early morning run through before the sun really gets her hat off. With the distance I still have to do I’m like to be one of those “mad dogs and English men, out in the midday sun” . According to Sue’s weather forecast this morning it’s unlikely to be over 100F… It will be like home from home… well like the Sahara anyway.