At Tyler’s request we continued deeper into Kings Canyon this morning and checked out the Roaring River Falls, and at Roads End we climbed atop the John Muir rock jutting into the South Fork of the Kings River.
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| View from the Muir rock. |
(Sadly this blog is beginning to feel like a chore. It takes upwards of an hour each day to upload depending on signal strength, assuming we can find or get a signal. It is impossible for me to work on without interruption, compounding that one hour into two or three. Not fun at all. Perhaps I am homesick, as I am not liking California one bit. I am distracted from the natural beauty by the smog, traffic and people. But I digress as the usual interruptions sent me on this tangent)
Our return/escape from Kings Canyon was delayed on the way out as on the way it by construction. The Park Service is dumping stone chips on its only road into/out of the canyon. It took about 35 minutes of waiting before we were directed to follow a pilot car through the construction. Once free of construction we were off to Yosemite, about four hours away. I was really looking forward to this.
We drove out of the park down to below 1000’ where beautiful blue sky gave way to unending grey haze as far west as it would allow you to look. I wonder how far inland one must go before the smog relents, does it hover right on the coast? Our return to blue skies occurred suddenly, the roads demand your full attention and after a bit of climbing I was excited to see blue sky again.
As with most Parks you must drive a substantial distance from the park border to the Visitor Centers. Yosemite was no different in that respect, however as we neared a visitor center we found a confusing maze of signage and 'tourist trap' concessionaires everywhere. In fact you have to find your way through this mess to get to the visitor center. There were cars all over the place too, parked on the shoulder, RV’s obscuring road signs, chaos. We drove on.
The views and vista’s grew increasingly amazing, wish we could have stopped but most of the turn outs were packed with cars. If we saw a space we quickly dropped in, got a picture, with luck devoid of people or cars, and continued to the Central Visitor center.
Traffic grew heavier and heavier, we must be getting closer. We found parking near the Visitor Center, or so we thought. There is a shuttle bus to wait in line to get to the "VC", never mind we’ll walk. An even greater maze of shops and licensed venders separate you from the "VC". And as I suspected, 99% of park camping was full. Just a 45 minute drive to the remaining site with open spots.
We checked out the exhibits and tried to get out of there to find camping, This was not fun, 30 minutes to cross the 70 yards of the parking lot. Bumper to bumper for the next 20 before it thinned out. We made it to the Tamaruck camping to find the campground full. Not another motel tonight, this is getting expensive.
For fun we aimed the GPS north to Volcano, CA. Sounds like a neat place. We’ll see where it leads us.
Yeah! Camping at Lost Claim Campground in the Stanislaus National Forest, only $8 with our access pass. We win!
PS We found a lucky penny this morning, go figure.
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