Christopher Rowe

For a change of pace from the playboys and hustle and bustle of urban civilization that is Vegas, I currently find myself surrounded by nature, sitting on the back decking of our villa, looking out onto the wilderness of Yosemite national park. My cup of brewed tea smouldering with steam in the cold morning. The sun, having just risen, begins waking up the wild life and it’s not long before the trees before me are swarming with squirrels.

Leaving Vegas behind was somewhat bittersweet; Michelle and I had just started to relax and begun to establish our routine – hit the pool in the morning and start the day with a matai, progress on from the pool and begin a series of pub crawls, as the sun sets, get food, do a bit of shopping or a flutter at a casino and then start with another round of pubs and night clubs. However, with no real luck in the casinos, and for our livers sakes, it was time to move on.

Sadly our next leg involved flying from Las Vegas to San Francisco rather than driving, this was due to booking situations many months back when we were initially planning on going to San Diego Comic Con, and was something we could not alter. I usually love flying, but we’ve had so much fun on the roads this last couple of weeks that the idea of going through the check-in process and packing yourself into a flying sardine can didn’t appeal to me at all. The only saving grace is that it was short-lived. The flight was only two hours, and we had a car waiting for us in San Fran to continue our road trip to Sacramento.

We were trading the desert heat and dusty roads for a day of urban Sacramento cityscape before entering Yosemite the following day for a few nights before then heading onto Lake Tahoe for an additional night and then heading back to San Fran for what would be our final week.

Unfortunately this is where things stopped going to plan. With our flight delayed, and a further hour delay picking up our hire car from SFO Hertz (seriously shittiest car hire place ever), we were finally on the open road by 3.30pm (2.5hrs later than anticipated) and ran straight into San Francisco peak hour traffic. After an hour of sitting bumper to bumper going no faster than 20 miles per hour we accepted the fact that if we wanted to make it to Sacramento before sunset we would have to take a more direct approach and forgo stopping through the Napa valley wine region on the way.

It was approaching dusk by the time we arrived at our accommodation in Sacramento. Both Michelle and I were wiped – having just spent (wasted) a whole day flying and driving in traffic. We saw nothing of Napa nor Sacramento and our accommodation in Sacramento was just a little too far out of town for comfortable walking distance.

The following morning as we planned to leave for Yosemite we decided to have a quick drive through Sacramento. Still feeling a little bummed that we didn’t get to spend any time here, we stopped in at a Holiday Inn in the part of town that we would have preferred to stay in to check on future availability. Not wanting this to be our only experience of Sacromento we decided to cancel our night in Lake Tahoe, our stop after Yosemite, thus giving us back the night in Sacramento and still be able to make it to the Napa Valley region before returning into San Francisco. We left Sacramento feeling a little bit happier, knowing at least in a few days’ time we can give it the go it deserves.

The drive to Yosemite was spectacular, very different from Arizona (which was amazing in its own way). Our vehicle was a black Chevrolet Transverse LT – a seven seater – a bit bigger than what I had originally planned for this leg of the trip, however Hertz left us with little alternative. Driving between tall crops of cornfields in a black, heavily tinted SUV, I couldn’t help but reminisce that this felt something a bit like out of the X-Files – I felt like an FBI agent driving towards some sort of alien conspiracy.

In the distance you could see planes swooping in low dusting the fields, other than that there was nothing out here, just a hilly road and lots of corn. That being said, it was an enjoyable ride, and there was a certain appeal to the simplicity of the scenery.

After an hour in, the corn fields thinned out and we hit our first town, a small one street wooden settlement, consisting of a bar and a church – not even a fuel station. It continued like this, passing small isolated pockets of civilisation right up to the entrance of Yosemite. Fortunately the last of the towns we passed through had an IGA shop and a fuel station offering us the last chance to stock up on supplies and fuel for the next two days.

The entrance into Yosemite was a long, tight windy road, wrapping around the mountains, taking us higher into the park. On the left side of the road was a steep cliff face and on the right, a drop straight down to the bottom. The roads narrowed the further up we got, and the corners became sharper. Our Chevy felt like it took up the entire lane. There was nothing between us and the drop, no barriers, no curb. In some cases there wasn’t even any tarmac after the white line indicating the side of the road – just the drop. It was a very long drive to the top.

The narrow roads continued in Yosemite national park, but at least there was no longer severe drops on the side, well not every case at least. We drove through heading for the Yosemite’s village centre, dwarfed by towering pine trees, spectacular lakes and mountain sides – the scenery was incredible.
The village centre was very busy when we arrived, parking lots were full, cars overflowed, parked on the side of the road, people everywhere. I started to think perhaps coming in the height of summer might not have been the best idea. We slowly made out way through the thick of it, and were saved by a small patch of restricted 30 minute parking bays at the village shop. Still feeling a bit disorientated about where we were in the park exactly, and overwhelmed by the immense number of people we picked up a few last minute supplies, consulted a map and made our way to our accommodation.

The drive to our villa was 45 minutes from the village centre, both Michelle and I began to fear this may be Sacramento all over again – our accommodation too far out of town from where all the action was. It turned out we couldn’t be more wrong. The journey to our accommodation took us past giant valleys and past monumental mountain sides. We were located in our very own pocket of Yosemite, away from the mad mass of people that we’d left in the village centre and only 10 minutes’ drive away from one of the best views of El Capitan Yosemite had to offer.

As the sun started to slowly pass behind the mountains we drove back into the centre of Yosemite – the park was now practically empty compared to what it was earlier in the afternoon – the day trippers were on their way out. With the park now a great deal quieter, and cooler, the local inhabitants began to come out of hiding for some last minute grazing before the end of the day. We saw a great number of deer, squirrels and even a bear – really up close. The park was teaming with life.

Yosemite valley is very simply laid out, the lower valley is essentially one giant loop giving you spectacular base views of El Capitan, Yosemite falls and other mountain ridges, as well as access to the valley village and meadow areas where you can find deer, squirrels and the occasional bear. Various walk trails also spur off from this lower loop. Across the top is the Tioga pass that is open only in the summer season. The pass takes you as high as 10,000 feet with spectacular views of various valleys and lakes. Both routes are serviced very efficiently by a number of shuttle busses, some leaving as frequently as every 20 minutes. However you are at the mercy of them, especially in the instance the weather turns or it is peak season. The authorities do prefer people take the public transport option – namely out of respect to the wild life – as the number 1 killer of bears in Yosemite is impact by car. In fact, in the time we spent in Yosemite, 3 bears were killed. That might also explain why we only saw one bear during our stay, and never saw that bear again the second evening :/

Being the petrol head I am, we took our chances and drove!

Our second day was spent exploring the vastness of the Tioga pass. The pass stretched on endlessly for miles, we had a good 2 hour trip ahead of us before turning around and going back. The pass offered every changing scenery with each bend and we found ourselves passing through incredibly varying habitats along route from lush thick forests to barren rocky – almost desert – landscapes through to mammoth mountainside lakes and meadows stretching as far as the horizon. Yosemite by car was definitely the better way to go, allowing us to explore the scenery at our own pace.

The following morning (the same morning I am writing this) we ventured out from camp at the un-holy hour of 5am to catch the sunrise at El Capitan. Although we were the first to arrive, we were not the only ones with the same idea – the Tunnel view carpark filling up with die hards, some like us, sporting the obvious bed hair having just awoke, thrown on a jumper and hit the road and the odd ‘morning person’ that was full of beans and giggling at the sound of their own voice. When the sun eventually rose and cut through the mountain face behind El Capitan silence fell (aside from the shutter clicks of all the cameras), it was beautiful, well worth the early start.

Yosemite was a nice break from the busier side of life, I look forward to returning here, perhaps next time in winter when the snow falls.