Day 11: We cooked up a sweet potato with the eggs Donna & Walter gave us for breakfast. Yum! Then we packed up, checked the visitor center about backcountry camping along Hwy 41 within the park boundaries but no luck. We were hoping there would be so we could use the backpackers campground for our last night in Yosemite. John & Nicole said we could follow them to their new campsite if we wanted. That was nice. While we were at the visitor center we checked out the museum & watched a video on the history of Yosemite. Pretty interesting. We biked to John & Nicole’s new site & set up.
After lunch we biked to the trailhead for Mirror Lake & hiked a while. It was nice & quiet; very few people. The dogwood trees were in bloom & very pretty. It was a little rainy & chilly today but not enough to stop us from anything. Back to camp, we gathered a few things, biked to the shower house to clean up, picked up food for the next few days, made a curry dinner, played cards, scoped out our route for the next 2 days, & went to bed early. We purposely had a low-key day to rest our legs before tomorrow’s climb out of Yosemite.
Day 12: Up early, quick oatmeal, packed, stopped by El Capitan & hiked to the base a short distance to marvel at the massive beauty that is home to so many climbers & then we hit the road going south on 41.
It was about a 10ish mile steep climb to a T in the road that splits off to Glacier Point or downhill to Wawona. We felt stronger, but still took plenty of breaks (longer duration between than before; we’re getting better!). It was nice & sunny, not too hot. The Tunnel View turnout on the way up had a beautiful view. Biking through the tunnel was a little scary & so loud!
We made it to the T, had lunch, & ditched our gear behind a retaining wall so we could bike to Glacier Pt with a lighter load. This turned out to be a poor choice. For whatever reason we thought the 16 mile trek to Glacier Pt was going to be a lot easier than we expected. We knew it was still uphill but thought it was flatter than it was. The road was also fairly rough for half of it (bumpy, pot holes) which didn’t help. After climbing the 10 earlier our legs weren’t super excited about 16 more miles of climbing (plus the 16 back & then down to Wawona), but we made it. We were pretty exhausted though.
2/3rds of the way there the weather turned & brought a storm with it. A huge clap of thunder cracked super close to us (seriously huge, loudest of my life) that scared the crap out of me. Well, not literally, but I can only speak for myself… Once we were almost there we had to bike down about a mile & a half of steep turns. Gulp…We have to bike back up that? Plus 30 more miles? In a storm? With tired legs? Uh oh 🙁 The views were undoubtedly beautiful but we didn’t get to enjoy them long since the wind picked up something fierce, it got pretty cold & started to rain & hail. Ben started getting very nervous about the ride back & not being able to make it. He was worried we’d get stuck there, in shitty conditions, without all our gear & kinda freaked out. He felt helpless. I wasn’t too worried since there were a ton of people there if we needed help. I reassured him we’d be fine & laid out our options: 1. Walk the bikes up the steep 1.5 mile turns & then bike from there, 2. Hitchhike with our bikes all the way back to the T where our gear was (this would require a truck), 3. Walk the bikes uphill, bike what we could & hitchhike the rest, 4. If no one was able to fit our bikes in their vehicle, lock them up at Glacier Pt, hitchhike back to our gear, stealth camp for the night there, hitchhike back to our bikes in the morning & bike from there. If we’d had our gear we could’ve stealth camped there & been fine. Lesson learned: don’t ditch the gear.
We thought about our options & went with #2: hitchhike with bikes back to our gear. It was a little tricky at first since most people had cars & the few trucks we did ask said they couldn’t help, but alas, we were in luck! One truck was up to the task. Hooray! Jim & Ken graciously agreed to haul us back. Thank you!!! Jim owns an almond orchard in Manteca, CA & Ken works for Yosemite (at Curry Village, now Half Dome). We stopped by a marshy area on the way back where Ken had recently come to hear a symphony of frogs but no luck today. Also on the way back a tree had fallen in the road during the storm so we stopped & all got out to push it back. Go teamwork!
By the time we got back to the T, the storm had cleared & hadn’t even touched down where our gear was. Sweet! It was dry & not stolen. Win! We thanked them for their generosity, gave Jim a little pocket change & they were on their way. We quick regrouped, changed into dry clothes, ate & zoomed down the hill to Wawona.
The ride down felt like a completely different day – beautiful & sunny. 12 miles all downhill. Awesome! It wasn’t steep like Briceburg but steep enough to not pedal. We gained decent speed, not scary speed. It felt like a movie with the quiet,windy roads, in the trees, sun shining through, warm, perfect. What a turn of events. Jim had offered taking us to Wawona but I’m glad we didn’t. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss that amazing ride down.
We made it to the Wawona campground by 7pm. We thought about continuing on to Oakhurst where we had a Warm Showers host ready whenever we were but it was another 2 hours, some uphill, sun would set during our ride & our lights were dead. A bed, shower, dinner & laundry were tempting but we decided we should make 1 smart choice today & stay. We didn’t want to push our luck. The campground was full but we found another RV to share a site with: Kim & Chris. Yay!
We set up camp, made another curry dinner, chatted with them about their trip, life back home in Washington & our trip. They were nice 🙂 I warmed up a pot of water & took it to the bathroom for a “shower”. It was the most creative shower I’ve ever had but I needed it. I couldn’t stand my own stank & I was cold. I “showered” in a bathroom stall, in the dark, & got the floor a bit wet but wiped it up & actually made it cleaner in the end. It was an interesting experience but when I was done I felt much better! We sat around the fire for a bit & then straight to bed. Early too – 9:30!
I’m not two-tired now but we definitely were after that day! Until next time.
Whitney