Benton, CA to Yosemite National Park – 73 miles
I woke up at around 6 for an early start. Walt made some blueberry pancakes, bacon, and eggs for breakfast. The pancakes were some of the best I have ever had. Apparently he got the recipe from a Bed and Breakfast that they stopped at on one of their bike tours. I was on the road by 730. It was so rejuvenating to have a couple of home cooked meals and a bed to sleep in. Thanks for the hospitality, Ann and Walt!
The ride started out climbing almost immediately. It was a bit boring at first, but it was nice and cool, so I put on some tunes and podcasts and just slugged through it. After awhile it flattened out to rolling hills and then climbed just a bit more to go over the first of two passes for the day.
After the first pass the route descended into Mono Lake and for the first time in something like a week a started to see trees. Big trees. It was awesome to finally be in a forest again. You really forget how great trees are until you’ve spent a few days in the desert.
Just a couple of miles past Mono Lake was the town of Lee Vining. It’s a touristy town at the base of the climb up Tioga Pass to Yosemite. I restocked at the grocery store in town and then headed to the gas station at the turn off to go up the pass. I relaxed there for a bit and drank loads of coffee to prepare for the monstrous climb ahead.
Started riding again at around 3 or 4 and met another self-contained touring cyclist, Meric, near the bottom. Meric is a graduate student at a university in Florida studying math. This was like his 3rd or 4th tour. Always good to run into another self-propelled, two-wheeled enthusiast!
It was a slow going climb. It had to be around 3000 feet of straight up. At about 9000 ft I saw a forest road that Ann and Walt had mentioned had a closed forest service camp ground up it. I hiked up a short way to explore and see if I might camp there. It was surprisingly nice with fire rings and some picnic tables remaining, but ultimately I decided not to stay since there weren’t any bear proof food containers and there was a camp already set up near by.
As I approached the top of the climb the views looking back over the canyon were amazing.
I still had a few miles of climbing and the sun was going down, so as I continued up in elevation it kept getting colder. The last few miles were littered with these lakes that were created when a hydroelectric dam was installed at the top of the canyon in the previous photo.
When I got to the entrance of Yosemite National Park Meric was already up there. It was nice to celebrate the top of the climb with someone and we each snapped a couple photos for each other. This was the last large pass of my trip to the coast. I’m sure there will be a few more hill stop climb, but nothing even close to this magnitude.
After the entrance to the park it was downhill all the way to Tuolumne Meadows. Every campground we had passed so far was full, so I didn’t have high hopes for this one, but it was getting dark and we were running out of options.
The landscape was so incredibly picturesque and it’s a great example of how much it can change in just a day of riding. I had been in desert pretty much exclusively for at least 5 days and now here I was in a forest with lakes and green lush meadows.
When we got to the Tuolumne Meadows campground and it was full of course, but luckily they had a hiker camping area that the campground host let us camp in. It was perfect. When we got up there we saw another touring cyclist. I can’t recall his name now, but he was from the Netherlands and this was his first time in the states. He had a fire going, so I warmed up by it because my hands were dead numb from the freezing ride down from the pass. We swapped stories for awhile about our journeys and then called it a night.
