Today was our final day in Yosemite, but luckily for us it was also the day that they opened the Tioga Pass. This 56 mile road bisects the park from west to east, running to the north of Yosemite Valley, but the pass itself is closed by snow throughout the winter. This past winter, however, they did not have as much snow as in some years, and so the pass opened today - about three or four weeks earlier than usual. We jumped at the opportunity to drive across the highest road in California - almost 10,000 feet above sea level - and get above the tree line to a strange world of granite and frozen lakes. When you start to descend to the east of the pass you move from the lush green pastures and meadows of Yosemite Valley into the arid brush and rock of the Great Basin Desert. We travelled far enough to glimpse the vast salt water Mono Lake, but we were desperate for a coffee stop and that already meant driving about 40 miles back to the valley, so we baled out and headed west.
Before leaving the valley for the last time, we parked up at a suitable spot to watch the climbers on the sheer face of El Capitan. This vast granite monolith rises 3600 feet straight up from the valley floor and was once thought impossible to climb. In fact it was only conquered as recently as 1958 - five years after Everest. It is now regarded as the world standard for big wall climbing and we managed to see two climbers - probably only three or four hundred feet from the base. As I write this, they are probably huddled in their sleeping bags on a high ledge, hoping to reach the summit tomorrow. Some people apparently take as long as four days to reach the top, but the speed record is just short of three hours!
We finished the day with a picnic on our porch, watching the humming birds hovering around their drinking pots, which are suspended under the porch roof. It's an early start tomorrow. We have to be back at Sacramento airport by nine for our flight to Dallas. Our trip feels as if it is rushing to its close, but there are still four more cities to see.
I thought 'Yosemite' was a greeting between cool Zionist undergrads.
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