Eventually I tore myself away from Tuolumne Meadows and took a $12 campsite near Tioga Pass and was soon sitting in the just warm enough afternoon sun, trying with mixed success to ignore the phenomenal views and read. My perch was an outcrop of Braque-like metamorphics. Lee Vining Creek ran steadily just below me. Any water running downhill in California this time of year always seemed to be flowing from a controlled lake. Not that I'm complaining. I like running water and that seems to be the only way to get it. The dams are usually modest, adding control to natural lakes. Wish it weren't all going to LA, so we could get decent peaches in the Owens Valley, but never mind. This one, though , seemed to be free-flowing from lingering snowpack. The riparian brush was aflame in backlit orange-yellow. Beyond a strip of meadow, a fir-covered southeast-sloping outcrop maintained extensive snow patches despite three days of warm sunny days. About 4:00 PM I set off to witness and photograph the lowering October sun on Ellery Lake and Dana Meadows. Great great great. I love October.
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| Campground Perch |
Back for dinner at dusk. After eating I washed my pot and walked across the campground to throw out my little bit of trash. It was dark now, and I was the only one in the campground. Even the camp host had "gone out", wherever one can "go out" from Tioga Pass. Lee Vining I suppose. Elevation was over 9000', and while some tree clumped here and there, the landscape was mostly open meadow and brush, and the half moon threw enough light for me to walk around without my headlamp. It was a bit spooky but mostly pretty damn cool. My lantern back on my picnic table was the only human light in sight. Mountains loomed on all sides. I expected the temperature to drop into the mid-20s that night, but early evening was just brisk and autumnal. Have I mentioned that I love October?
The night was in fact freezing, in that everything wet froze. I was comfortable though, even eating breakfast in the dark at 6:00AM. The next day I hiked around Gaylor Lakes and came back to the campground to find the campground host had fled for the season, this after promising me he would keep me apprised of the weather forecasts. Now I was the only one here for sure. I went down to Lee Vining for a variety of errands and learned that gas was $4.59, a dollar more than last time I bought it; the temperature would be 12 degrees in two nights; the deli charged $.50 to make my sandwich to go, then simply put it in sandwich wrap; and the Post Office attendant was testy. I suppose the second item was the big ticket. Oh, and the stock market continued its plummet. Suddenly I was despondent.
I wasn’t prepared to camp in 12 degree weather, so obviously my only move was down elevation. The east side didn’t drop low enough and if they closed Tioga Pass I’d be stuck over there. My best option was to retreat to the western foothills, so I did, driving most of the day and ending up near Groveland, 25 miles outside Yosemite's Oak Flats entrance, at Pines Campground. It was a sad little affair, but open, free and 3100' elevation, and I was happy to be there.
I had a pleasant evening despite a camper running its generator until at least 11:00PM. More campers came in at 2:00AM, common behavior in California. Hunters, it appeared, and reasonably quiet, though up early the next morning and one of them is cackling. Why is it that when a group of guys get together one is always a cackler? It got pretty cold even here, frost and all, though I was warm enough. When the sun finally hit the tent at 9:00AM, the frozen condensation on the inside began melting on to my sleeping bag.
Though the day was relatively cold and windy, my site had a lot of sun and I was able to sit and read. When it started clouding up it cooled fast. This sun thing is really critical. I was reading Netherland by Joseph O'Neill, which proved to be one of the best books I'd read the entire trip. Some quotes:
- "We courted in the style preferred by the English: alcoholically."
- "...cooking up myths from scraps and peels of fact"
- "an influx of can-do Polish plumbers"
The cold snap lasted two days, and then I was back on the road, heading back to Yosemite Valley.
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