Bears, Beans and Beer - Day 14 of the Chill

This is part 4 of the Yosemite story.  After finishing up at Bodie, grabbing some caches on the way south, we took a road north of Mono Lake and drove into Nevada, mainly to say that we did and grab a cache in another county in Nevada.  By the time we were done, it was getting late enough that we knew that we needed to find a campsite to spend the night, so we drove to Lee Vining to find a place to eat.

Ate dinner, might have had a beer with dinner, but I doubt it at that point, it was probably closer to Dr. Pepper or Tea, just to give us a caffeine rush to make it to the campsite, but I do know we both had chili, so we did get some beans that evening.  I think we tried three campsites along the Tioga road leading into Yosemite from the east side before we found a place that had open sites.  Interestingly, all three places we camped at on this trip had just opened the day we go there, so we got incredibly lucky.

The following morning, we broke camp and headed into Yosemite National Park, hoping to get there earlier enough to get Craig his hike through on the first day of his trip.  Caching along the road netted us half a dozen or so caches just outside the park and then we hit the Tioga Pass entrance station and then drove down to the ranger station at Tuolumne Meadows.  As we were passing the Tuolumne Meadows campground, I mentioned to Craig that it appeared as if the campground had sites, so we pulled in and inquired about camping.  The campground had just opened up and we were about the 6th group to grab a site.

For the most part, everything seemed to go really well for us that day.   Craig got his exemption and his permit for his hike and then we spent most of the rest of the day grabbing virtual geocaches along the road into Yosemite Valley.  We also documented some benchmarks.  Benchmarks are basically survey disks that you can also log at Geocaching.com. We found one at the entrance to the Wawona tunnel and another one in the back patio area of the Ahwahnee Hotel.  Yosemite has some interesting benchmarks and I was eager to find one that I knew about up on Sentinel Dome, but that would have to wait until the next day.

Driving back to the campground, we spotted a bear, but didn't get very close to it and it had taken off by the time we could find a place to park and get closer to it.  That was kind of disappointing, as Craig had seen it, but I had been driving and hadn't.  At camp, we met a woman camping next to us from Fresno and we shared a campfire.  Company was good and we slept well that night, which really worked out nicely for Craig as he had a big day the next day. Camping in Tuolumne Meadows was a bonus because we were camping at altitude, so he wouldn't have to adjust as much the next night.

The following day, we drove down to the valley and caught the shuttle bus back to Happy Isles where Craig would begin his 211 mile hike to the top of Mt. Whitney.  I hiked with him up to the Vernal Fall bridge, then bid him farewell and watched him walk away.  Part of me would have liked to have gone, but most of me knew that I was in no kind of shape to make that kind of hike.  Perhaps in a couple of years down the road.  I know I in much better shape already.

After that, I enjoyed the view of the waterfall, then started my hike down the trail and back into the valley.  I came around a bend of a trail and there was a crowd of people standing at the side of the trail looking down to the Merced River.  Figuring it was probably a deer down by the water, I started to make my way by, but something stopped me and told me to look.  Yep.  A mother and cub just hanging out down by the water side.  Interestingly, Craig was required to carry all of his food in a "bear proof" canister and never saw a bear on his entire trek.  Five minutes after I'd left him, I saw not one, but two bears.  This was also the first time I'd seen a bear in Yosemite since 1969.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

To be continued...