Yosemite - East Side

 Hello Friends,

Tuesday, July 13th, we left early to drive 30 miles to the Eastern entrance of Yosemite National Park near Lee Vining, CA. There is a twelve-mile entry road that is both steep and windy, that goes up to Tioga Peak (11,526 ft) before one gets to the park entrance at Tioga Pass from the east side of the mountains. 

The first feature we saw inside the park was Lembert Dome. We stopped there at the Visitors Center so Dad could get his National Parks Passport book stamped.

 

Again, this National Park restricts dogs to only a few areas (mostly parking lots). Even cute puppies like me, are not allowed on most of the hiking trails. So Mom and Dad have to either leave me behind wherever we are staying, or they can't do much hiking in the park. I don't think that is fair to them or to me!

After Lambert Dome, we went to Tuolumne Meadow, a nice alpine meadow, but I'm not allowed out of the parking lot, so we could only take pictures.

 

The next feature we explored inside the park was Tenaya Lake.

From the lake, we could see another granite dome, Medicott Dome. The park is filled was exposed Granite domes, the most famous are of which Half Dome and El Capitan

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A short distance down the road we ran across this beautiful tree. Our first glimpse of a Sequoia tree.

We reached Olmsted Point, about halfway through the park on the Tioga Pass road, named after the famous architect Frederick Laws Olmstead who designed Central Park in New York City among others.

A nice lady who liked me asked if we would like to have our picture taken? I said YES.

Here we got our first sighting of the famous Half Dome from the Eastside.

Dad and Mom took turns hiking out onto a granite dome in front of Olmstead point to take pictures while the other one stayed with me in the parking lot. I enjoyed meeting new people and making new friends and listening to Dad and Mom talking to the ranger that was stationed there to answer visitor's questions. We found out she was from Poughkeepsie, NY and she was excited to learn we were from Rochester.

Out there they found this glacial erratic boulder balanced precariously on the slope of the dome.

By the way, that boulder is as big as an SUV.

Both Mom and Dad took some great pictures of Half Dome and the edge of Yosemite valley for your enjoyment.

Mom captured a great close-up of Half Dome. You can almost see the climbers that were scaling the granite cliffs.

Most of the Visitor's Centers are still closed. The big one in Yosemite Valley is under construction and only has a kiosk out front of the parking area. Speaking of construction, there were several delays due to highway repairs and construction in the park that we encountered.

When we left the park we learned that the wildfire we have been monitoring has spread from 600 acres to over 1,000 acres and they have called in addition help to try and contain it from spreading further. We can easily see the smoke now from Route 395 as we head back to our condo for the night.

Tomorrow we are going to explore Devils Postpile National Monument and Rainbow Falls, near Mammoth Lakes where we are staying😈.