2. Yosemite to Death Valley

You’ll know that my natural suspicion is that all the bear stuff is to make visitors feel that they’re really in the wilds rather than a tamed down version of it.  However, as we left our camp for the day, dead on 9.00 and about 400 yards from the site, there walking alongside the road were three bears, possibly looking for porridge but probably not.  One full grown mummy bear and two liddle baby bears make an impressive sight just strolling along completely unconcerned.  Unfortunately, much of the wildlife is habituated to humans, making the animals potentially more dangerous because of their lack of fear and this makes them more liable to be killed if they stray over the boundary of what is considered acceptable, such as eating people.  Deer with full sets of antlers wander around with people taking photos no more than 8 or 10 feet away, squirrels run around our feet and some birds are very approachable.  I daresay a startled and antler loaded deer at speed could cause a nasty wound but despite all the notices, people still feed the animals.  Grouch, grouch.

I’ve talked about Yosemite and the valley and realise that I may have given the impression that they are the same thing.  Well they’re not.  The Yosemite valley has the most stunning and magnificent rock formations but is only 7 miles long and a mile or so wide before the ground heads vertical.  Yosemite National Park however is 1190 square miles and has a number of other wild areas contiguous with its borders so it is a huge area.

The area doesn’t have the oddly dressed types than San Fran does but I think you have to be a bit of an oddball to do some of the climbs.  One slip and your life passes in seconds.  Quite a lot of seconds Judging by the heights involved.

The day before we leave we get up early (6.00 ish) aiming to get to Glacier Point, a little over 3000 feet from the valley floor, before the sun is too high and before the people count is also too high.  A 4.8 mile walk up, gaining 3200 feet is not to be sniffed at so we don’t do any sniffing we and drive up instead.  On the way we can see the scorched areas from the fire I wrote about with smoke still drifting into the air from a dozen or more spots.  One area still has occasional spurts of flame as another tree catches fire.  These are conifers and so are baked dry and full of resin, a bit like fireworks waiting to be lit.  As we’re about 3 or 4 miles away the flare of a fire must be quite sizable close up.  On our way back a few hours later we watch helicopters dropping water on the edges of the burnt areas but fire is still visible.  Definitely contained but not out.

The road to Glacier Point is closed from November to May or June by snow but the views from the top are staggeringly beautiful with mountains receding into the far distance and Half Dome dominating the near distance.  Tiny specks can be seen on the top through binoculars and these are the people who have come on the cabled route from the far side.  The cables are set at handrail height, one on each side for the final 400 feet or so after a long slog up gentler slopes (17 miles round trip).  This route is closed if wet because the granite becomes too slick to walk on.  The real climbers who arrive at the top up the vertical face, topped with a big overhang for fun, take 3 days.  They must feel very smug (and smelly) when they meet the cablers on the summit.

Thankfully there’s no smoke to be seen anywhere on the day we leave Yosemite along the Tioga Road a little to the north of the valley and expect miles and miles of conifer lined roads with occasional view glimpses.  There are conifers to begin with and then the bare granite rock pre-dominates and the trees thin out and become dramatically stunted and twisted.

I hope no-one thinks I don’t enjoy all these trips and Heather says that’s how it sometimes sounds.  I have a great time even if it’s not all great times if you see what I mean.  Everything is a thread in the rich tapestry of life or a ladder in the tights of eternity.

The Tioga road takes us to the east of the Sierra Nevada over a pass just spitting distance below 10,000 feet, assuming you can spit 55 feet and it then drops dramatically down to the plains on the eastern side.  In the mountains it has been cool and even though the sun was hot there was always a welcome breeze.  Down here on the flat land it’s not and there isn’t.  It rates in the high eighties on our car thermometer.  

We haven’t really met many people because we’re cocooned in our own metal box rather than using public transport so from that point of view it is a much less rich experience.   We do meet someone at a soda lake that has strange mineral mounds in it that we’ve stopped to look at.  Yes, we know how to enjoy ourselves.   This is a woman who lives full-time in her RV (motorhome to us) and only a35 footer.  She’s one of the famed snowbirds who spend the winter in the southern deserts in what are almost towns of motorhomes.  That’s four months in the desert, four months in Washington State and two months (her words and calculation) travelling between the two seeing the country, stopping where she and her husband feel like.  Yes, I did ask, 8 miles to the gallon.  Now US pints are 16 fluid ounces not 20 like an Imperial pint, with 8 pints to the gallon, just like ours.  So the equivalent with UK gallons would be about 10mpg and fuel is about half our price, so for cost expended the UK equivalent would be about 16mpg.  But the distances are huge.  As a comparison we get 33 mpg out of our van on a run.  Ours has a 2.3 litre engine and from what we can tell it is very difficult to get an RV with less than about a 5 litre engine.  That’s one of the main reasons why we haven’t rented one here.

We are in small town America with a long way between the small towns so we generally pitch up and hope for the best, or anything to be honest.  After a night at an old fashioned but clean motel, Heather saw a TripAdvisior review suggesting that the receptionist was drug dealing in the car park.  This is a town called Bishop with a launderette and a nice cake shop (home of the ‘World Famous’ sheepherder bread – no, me neither).   We’re now off to see something I’ve wanted to since I was a kid.  Yes, I was once a small goat.

It’s the ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, containing the oldest living things in the world where a number of the trees are over 4000 years old.  Amazingly in the information centre they don’t sell cards saying “Happy Birthday Dad, not yet as old as a Bristlecone Pine”.   Many of the trees hardly look alive to be honest, with gnarled and broken branches, missing most of their bark and sometimes with only one or two small leaved branches.  The secret to their success is a environment which is particularly harsh (at 10,000 feet) from both a soil and climate aspect.  This cuts out competition.  They grow very slowly and their growth rings can hardly be seen with the naked eye, consequently the wood is very hard and resinous and therefore resistant to insect attack.  They husband what energy they gather at this height and in a very short growing season by replacing their needle-like leaves only every 40 years unlike about 4 years for most conifers.  Wandering among such ancient living things really is a special experience and it felt quite a privilege to be there.   When they do die, the wood is so hard and resinous that it just doesn’t rot but eventually wears away through being blasted by wind blown grit and ice crystals.  One of the fallen trunks has been dated by its rings to have been 3200 years old when it died in about 1676 and it just looks like a regular dead log, worn yes but not rotted and it’s been dead for about 340 years.  Charles II was on the throne, the Great Fire of London had only just been put out (well, 10 years or so), although I bet the insurance companies were still arguing about the claims (if there were any Insurance Companies) and they were still trying to get planning permission for St. Pauls Cathedral.

We have a long drive ahead of us of about 180 miles and the only town is a tiny place called Lone Pine where apparently a lot of Westerns, especially The Lone Ranger were filmed.   The idea is to cross Death Valley early in the evening when it should be cooler.   As we get out of our car in the bottom of Death Valley the time is 6.00pm and the sun is just about to set.  Cooler, well the temperature hits 100F.