Autumn Marathon

Day 3 - July 10, 2008 

Trip Meter - 409.1 miles

California has had the earliest wildfire season in recent memory.   Usually, inhabitants are in the position of disabusing distant relatives of their impressions that the state is entirely burning up.  So far, though, this trip has brought us close to the Big Sur wildfires spreading smoke and ash over the usually pure Monterrey Bay area and, yesterday, a surprise fire on the road.  Crossing the Pacheco pass on the way from Carmel to Yosemite, a fire was burning on the hill next to the freeway.   Fire trucks had to block one of the two eastbound lanes, helicopters carrying water flew overhead and we felt the heat and smelled the smoke as we drove by.   California burning indeed.

Other impressions from our first full day on the road:

- we started our day in 50-degree temperatures in Carmel and watched the car thermometer rise as we headed east.  By the time we passed the Pacheco pass fire, we were recording triple digits and that’s where the mercury stayed through the Central Valley and into Yosemite, including the valley.   Only when we exceeded 6000 feet at Glacier Point and on the Tioga Road did we see the 80s again.  Finally, as we walked on Tuolumne Meadow at sunset, the temps started to dip into the 70s.   By dawn, we were in the mid-40s.

- Yosemite Valley is beautiful, particularly when viewed from afar as from Glacier Point, but the experience is diminished by the crowds and the infrastructure built to accommodate them.  The Yosemite high country off the Tioga Pass road is equally spectacular and people are fewer and more outdoorsy.  If you are driving through quickly, as we were, the Olmstead Overview provides a spectacular vista - you can even see Half Dome from an unaccustomed, fresh perspective.  A short hike at sunset in Tuolumne meadows with the grassy foreground framed by rocky peaks (some snow still visible even in July) will refresh even the most tired driver.

- Wildlife: the rangers at the Tuolumne Meadows Campground promised us two yearling bears who had been foraging every night - they warned us to be extra careful about locking not only food, but any scented toiletries in the bear locker.  We were diligent about this, but slept well and woke up to an undisturbed campsite.   We saw a guidebook full of western birds from raptors to hummingbirds; and all manner of smaller beasts lower on the food chain - chipmunks, gophers, deer, fish.

- Traveling with teenager highlight: watched most of Harold and Kumar Go to the White Castle on an iPod sitting in front of the campfire.