Tioga Road & Mono Lake

Tioga Road opened for the season on May 7th, just a day before our arrival.
Last year it had opened on June 18th. Lucky us — thanks climate change!!

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Though most of the trails we hoped to hike were still buried in deep snowfall, we were
rewarded with some great sights alongside the road during our drive to Mono Lake.

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We found a great spot for lunch.

I scampered up the side of the road for a better view.

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Gretchen snapped a nice shot of me from the car.

The view from a little higher up.

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From up here I got a nice view of our lunch spot back at the lake.

Mono Lake

Mono Lake covers about 65 square miles. It's over 1 million years old — one of the oldest lakes in
North America and has no outlet. The lake is about 2 1/2 times as salty as the ocean and very alkaline.

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The reserve was established to preserve the spectacular "tufa towers," calcium-carbonate
spires and knobs formed by interaction of freshwater springs and alkaline lake water.

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These three were waiting for me back at the parking lot.
They'd found themselves some nice shade, and apparently a cell phone signal too!

Ahwahnee Lodge

This place looked like it must be a pretty nice place to stay.

It'd definitely have been an upgrade from our tents.

There were many awesome chairs here.

Gretchen went ahead and tried out several of them.



We all agreed these leather ones are the best.

There is also a really big fire place.

I spotted Kate and Gretchen trying out even more chairs.

This could probably go on all day.

Campsite

While not quite as nice as the Awahnee, our campsite was near a river and had a nice view of Half Dome.

Roasting S'mores and brats over the campfire.


Oh delicious meats.

Tuolumne Grove of the Giant Sequoias

The base of this sequoia is pretty substantial.

... and looking straight up it is also impressive.

The grove's biggest attraction is the Dead Giant, a sequoia stump that was
tunneled in 1878 so that wagons, and later automobiles could drive through.

I wondered how far in the air Dead Giant might have once stretched.

Decades of visitors have left their mark on the tunnel.

One immense fallen tree in the Tuolumne Grove provides the opportunity to walk alongside a sequoia,
and in doing so, gain a solid appreciation for the massive height and girth of these trees.



You know what the say about big trees don't you?