TUOLUMNE MEADOWS. NEMY, NICOLA, HYLA AND PAUL. CYCLING THE SIERRA NEVADA

September 2, 2016
Day 11

Bicycling to Tuolumne Meadows,

Yosemite National Park.

We seemed to all have been looking forward to reaching historic Tuolumne Meadows.

Along with a large drive in campground, here we come across the hiker crowd and culture and counter culture.

By nightfall this campground will be overflowing with hikers. Some we have met have been on the trail for weeks, if not months.

Here the famous Pacific Crest Trail traverses the campground.

If you are carrying your current world on your back, this can be your home for awhile.

"Chopped"

camp edition

With the Meadows and its post office being at the crossroads of not just the notable Pacific Crest Trail,

here what might be in their world, life saving or at least energising re-supply parcels are waiting for their owners.

  

Certainly not making it easier, hiking all or if not part of the Pacific Crest Trail has gained an increasingly larger crowd (this is the touchy word "crowd") after the recent movie

"Wild"

Tomorrow we are onward to the highest mountain pass of our trip. Seen any bike sherpas?

NEMY, NICOLA, HYLA, PAUL. YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK.

Day Eleven

September Three, Two Thousand and Sixteen

One of first real cold mornings has us peaking out of the tent and pegging where we can literally catch some rays 

and warm our ways.

Our ride today will take us from White Wolf Campground to Tuolumne Meadows.

Still all in Yosemite National Park.

Like the pine trees lining the winding road
I've got a name
I've got a name
Like the singing bird and the croaking toad
I've got a name
I've got a name

Moving me down the highway
Rolling me down the highway
Moving ahead so life won't pass me by

j croce

Like this section, which appears to be a demoralising endless climb, our winding road is virtually all up.

If it appears in this photo that we've pretty much have given up, not so.

Just a break for a little stretching and a lot of eating.

We have made a virtual seventy kilometre U turn and can see the back side of El Capitan and parts of the Yosemite Valley from here.

We exchanged some pleasant conversation with this couple from Holland. I milked it for as long as possible as these people coming from a land (FLAT) where there are more bicycles than people, they appreciated and were in awe of all the pain and suffering we have brought upon ourselves. 

In many cases and in many ways, we are told both how inspirational (and in mumbled breath) how stupid we are.

I later with my google translator now know in Dutch,

"what do you have, shit for brains"

With Labour day weekend almost upon us, people are starting to hang out most everywhere. 

Good thing we've made it to the Meadows as soon as we did because even here at that walk-in hike and bike campground, sites are filling fast.

Coming next: Good thing that we are:

Rolling us down the highway

Moving us down the highway

because if you wanted to go hiking the interior, you would have to stand in line for a couple of hours, even then no guaranties, to get a permit. 

What would John Muir think?

WHITE WOLF CAMPGROUND, YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA

Day Ten
September 2, 2016

Yosemite Valley to White Wolf Campground.

Nicola and I purposely told Hyla to go right, knowing she would go left and to San Fransisco.

Two hundred miles later.....

San Fransisco is nice but now that I think about too hilly for my bike.

From the valley floor to Tioga Pass, over the next two days we will climb over 6,000ft.

If you have ever heard,

"Hard work never killed anyone"

Sure it has. Its killed a lot of people.

Life is game of chances and I'm glad that we've taken a few just to get here.

But then I turn my back for a minute and 

WHAT THE @#$%.

Here in the middle of beautiful nowhere, Nicola, with her sister's help, decides to see if that severe reaction she had to mangoes not long ago was just some random fluke.

But ya dad, those were Diamond Dawson City mangoes,

these are from Yosemite.

I try to teach myself to embrace fear.

But Mangoes?

I'll be down the road.

Is that a truck coming?

 Defying all the mangoes fears.
Camp White Wolf.
"home of the brave"

The cowards never start.
The weak die along the way.
That just leaves us.

Fuelling the furnace.

The extreme heat is behind us.

The extreme coolness is ahead tonight.