The night had brought a good amount of snow to the Sierra Nevada peaks.
Before leaving on a vacation, like many others, I like to do some ground work and get an idea of places to visit, must-see attractions and routes and alternatives. There are a couple of alternatives to get from Lake Tahoe to Yosemite National Park. The Tioga Pass or California State Route 120, is closed during winter and opens sometime in the month of May, depending on the amount of snow at that elevation. It is a scenic drive and cuts driving time by a couple of hours. If it is closed, the alternate route is via the towns of Jackson, San Andreas and Groveland which isn't a bad drive, but it takes longer. The overnight snow event that dumped a couple of feet on snow prompted park officials to close the Tioga Pass even if it had opened only three days earlier after the winter closure.
The car beeped when we started, telling us we were driving on a route that had snow on it. There was enough evidence that the area had gotten at least a dusting of snow, even if we saw none on the roads. The sun was shining brightly again!
Crisp blue waters of this lake greeted us as went around a bend on the road.
It was Caples Lake near the Kirkwood Mountain Resort. Snow drifted on the surface and it was chilly out there on the pull out on Carson Pass Highway.
We were soon passing through towns like Jackson and San Andreas. The second name reminded me of the major tectonic fault line that ran along the coast of California. The landscape was very different from the one to Mono Lake the previous day. For one, it was a little warmer, and there were no snow covered peaks in sight.
Google maps directs you to the shortest route and sometimes that takes you off highways and through the countryside. We drove past a nice ranch with an old barn on one such road.
An especially steep and narrow few miles of road called the Old Priest Grade was one such recommended by google to cut down on miles that the New Priest Grade had. This brought us to a nice town of Groveland.
As we drove along the winding roads towards the park, we saw the devastation the forest fire of 2013 had left behind. It will be a long while before the area recovers from that catastrophe that burned down several thousand acres.
Yosemite valley was never directly affected by the fire but the area around suffered significant damage.
And there it was! The sign that we had been waiting for!
As we paid the fee and got inside the park perimeter, there was a pullout and two barns in an open meadow nestled between the conifers.
There was a good deal of traffic but it was nowhere close to the huge crowds the valley sees after Memorial Day weekend. At one vista point, we got an idea of what the valley was like, or so we thought!
On the left in the picture below, you can see one of the many tunnels that we went through to eventually get to Bridal Veil Falls.
There was a light, steady drizzle by the time we got to the valley.
Our first glimpse of the Bridal Veil Falls!
It was very grey, and gloomy by this time. Our phones showed no service at all. Google maps wouldn't work, but it did show where we were on the map. That helped a lot!
On the way to our rental condo unit, this breathtaking Tunnel View lay stretched as long as the eye could see. The enormous granite peaks, pictures can never do justice to their magnitude! They have stood there through millions of years and have witnessed a good deal of what the earth has been through. In comparison, in terms of time, how insignificant is human life!
We managed to get to the condo we had rented and were barely done getting all our stuff from the car into the condo when the freezing rain began. In about half an hour, there was a generous dusting of snow on the ground.
Before leaving on a vacation, like many others, I like to do some ground work and get an idea of places to visit, must-see attractions and routes and alternatives. There are a couple of alternatives to get from Lake Tahoe to Yosemite National Park. The Tioga Pass or California State Route 120, is closed during winter and opens sometime in the month of May, depending on the amount of snow at that elevation. It is a scenic drive and cuts driving time by a couple of hours. If it is closed, the alternate route is via the towns of Jackson, San Andreas and Groveland which isn't a bad drive, but it takes longer. The overnight snow event that dumped a couple of feet on snow prompted park officials to close the Tioga Pass even if it had opened only three days earlier after the winter closure.
The car beeped when we started, telling us we were driving on a route that had snow on it. There was enough evidence that the area had gotten at least a dusting of snow, even if we saw none on the roads. The sun was shining brightly again!
Crisp blue waters of this lake greeted us as went around a bend on the road.
It was Caples Lake near the Kirkwood Mountain Resort. Snow drifted on the surface and it was chilly out there on the pull out on Carson Pass Highway.
We were soon passing through towns like Jackson and San Andreas. The second name reminded me of the major tectonic fault line that ran along the coast of California. The landscape was very different from the one to Mono Lake the previous day. For one, it was a little warmer, and there were no snow covered peaks in sight.
Google maps directs you to the shortest route and sometimes that takes you off highways and through the countryside. We drove past a nice ranch with an old barn on one such road.
An especially steep and narrow few miles of road called the Old Priest Grade was one such recommended by google to cut down on miles that the New Priest Grade had. This brought us to a nice town of Groveland.
As we drove along the winding roads towards the park, we saw the devastation the forest fire of 2013 had left behind. It will be a long while before the area recovers from that catastrophe that burned down several thousand acres.
Yosemite valley was never directly affected by the fire but the area around suffered significant damage.
And there it was! The sign that we had been waiting for!
As we paid the fee and got inside the park perimeter, there was a pullout and two barns in an open meadow nestled between the conifers.
There was a good deal of traffic but it was nowhere close to the huge crowds the valley sees after Memorial Day weekend. At one vista point, we got an idea of what the valley was like, or so we thought!
On the left in the picture below, you can see one of the many tunnels that we went through to eventually get to Bridal Veil Falls.
There was a light, steady drizzle by the time we got to the valley.
Our first glimpse of the Bridal Veil Falls!
It was very grey, and gloomy by this time. Our phones showed no service at all. Google maps wouldn't work, but it did show where we were on the map. That helped a lot!
On the way to our rental condo unit, this breathtaking Tunnel View lay stretched as long as the eye could see. The enormous granite peaks, pictures can never do justice to their magnitude! They have stood there through millions of years and have witnessed a good deal of what the earth has been through. In comparison, in terms of time, how insignificant is human life!
We managed to get to the condo we had rented and were barely done getting all our stuff from the car into the condo when the freezing rain began. In about half an hour, there was a generous dusting of snow on the ground.
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