Activity Summary
Thursday 6th April - Day 217
Drive to Death Valley
Dante’s View
Badwater Basin
Artist’s Palette
Stay in Bakersfield
Friday 7th April - Day 218
Drive to Mariposa (Yosemite National Park)
Mariposa town stroll
Saturday 8th April - Day 219
Yosemite National Park:
Yosemite Falls viewpoint
Visitors centre
Valley loop trail to Mirror Lakes
Yosemite Falls trailhead (partial) to Columbia Rock, Luke to Yosemite falls viewpoint
Lower Yosemite Falls
Happy Burger Diner
Sunday 9th April - Day 220
Yosemite National Park
Bridalveil Falls (trail closed)
John Muir trail (partial)
Happy Isles
El Capitan meadow / the Base of the Nose
Tunnel view
Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias - Grizzly Giant
Monday 10th April - Day 221
Drive to Placerville (Tahoe)
Columbia State Historic Park
Tuesday 11th April - Day 222
Lake Tahoe
Inspiration Point
Wednesday 12th April - Day 223
Drive to San Fran
Muir Woods
Thursday 13th April - Day 224
Waste day
Fly to Mexico (Mexico City)
Summary
Death Valley
Such an interesting place. The sheer vast emptiness of the place, salt flats and colourful rock faces is pretty cool and the viewpoints / drives we did were all accessible (no gravel thankfully) and pretty epic. Dante’s View in particular was a gem.
Bakersfield
Pretty horrible place and a required stop post Death Valley. May be better in other parts of town but at least we weren’t there for long.
Mariposa
Nice small town with plenty of places to eat and chill in.
Yosemite National Park
An incredible place and is somewhere Luke would like to come back to for the mass of hiking all around the huge space that is the National park. He loves a tall granite mountain but was unable to get his hardcore hike on this time around.
As with all the US NPs, can see this place getting difficult in summer but likely that busy activity would be limited to the central touristy Yosemite area. Talk of ticketing the National Park seems like a sensible activity.
Lake Tahoe
Huge ass lake, towering mountains / hillsides all around it with what appears to be some decent hiking. Doing this in late winter / early spring, not a chance of success with the massive snow build up. Beautiful to look at all around however, if not quite a quick exercise.
Mill Valley / San Fran
Nice little suburb of San Fran that seemed to have none of the issues that plagued the city. Enjoyed the relaxing time outside in this peaceful area that included Muir Woods not too far away.
Accommodation
Bakersfield - Motel 6
Number of nights - 1
Price per night per person - £27
Pretty horrible place. Hostel area seemed like part crack den, part normal motel. The bed was wonky AF and we were pretty happy to only be there for a short time. Wouldn’t recommend.
Mariposa / Yosemite - Yosemite Miners Inn Motel
Number of nights - 3
Price per night per person - £59
We had initially booked a cheaper hostel (although it was still not cheap) initially for Yosemite but decided to cancel that due to expected snow on the back roads. Overall we were both very happy to do this and get a private motel room, despite it being insanely expensive for what it was.
The motel was pretty standard and as comfortable as we had come to know in the US with a microwave, a fridge and the luxury coming in two king size beds. Nicola didn’t like the waffle breakfast but Luke is less fussy.
Placerville / Tahoe - Motel 6
Number of nights - 2
Price per night per person - £40
Our glory two king size bed days were now behind us, us having to settle for a King plus our usual amenities. Actually was quite nice to share a bed again.
Mill Valley / San Fran - Travelodge by Wyndham
Number of nights - 1
Price per night per person - £38
When they offered us a ¾ bed Nicola was a woman on a mission and got us that upgrade to a queen. It was needed but still didn’t stop her from leaving trailing limbs on Luke’s side.
Sadly we also didn’t have a fridge or microwave and this made for some difficulty in us trying to eat our leftovers down but it was only one night and the accommodation is a lot more affordable than San Fran has to offer.
Diary
Despite Luke’s arms feeling like they were falling off (it’s been a while) we powered on with the morning gym session before checking out. Nicola was absolutely shattered however and bowed out a bit earlier.
We checked out and left vegas closer to 11am which turned out to be a bit of a silly idea. Neither of us had really checked how far it was to the Death Valley national park and then onwards to our motel in the first available town/city in Bakersfield but all in all it would mean about 8 hours of driving for Luke. He was wholly unprepared for such a long day.
On leaving Vegas we fuelled up, got some lunch / shopping and hit the road to Death Valley. Luke was feeling pretty tired already, likely from his gym session, and for all the niceness of the Vegas hotel it did not have a kettle or microwave so he was lacking a standard coffee for his drive. Fortunately Mcds does an incredibly cheap large Americano for just over a dollar and he was able to turn that frown upside down.
We first stopped off at a viewpoint called Dante’s View. It was a bit out off the main road and added a fair amount of time into the journey but it was well worth it. The views of the dehydrated salt flats of Death Valley were incredible with many an alluvial fan stretching up from the base of the mountains. Very impressive stuff.
We had some lunch on a bench at the viewpoint here before carrying on. At this point we had kind of realised we were running out of time so Zabriskie Point, the Devils golf course and the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes would have to be sacrificed.
We drove over to Badwater Basin where the amazing salt flats were located and the first thing we noticed was the dramatic change in temperature. It was a balmy and super dry heat of 27 degrees and having come from highs of 15 it was a lot to deal with, especially Luke in his black jeans. At 85m below sea level it was one of the lowest land masses in the world.
We didn’t get all that far down the salt flats before deciding it was a long way to walk, citing the time and turned back to the car.
The last thing we opted to see was the Artist’s Palette. There was an initial viewpoint of the variable colour rock features a lot of people had stopped at so we also parked up for a walk and a view.
We continued around the one way road until we eventually got to the Artist's Palate, had a quick stopover and then carried on around the road. It was actually a really cool part of the drive, the road winding around towering rock channels with nice views over the flats in the distance.
Then began the very long slog to Bakersfield and our motel. There was very little to see once out of Death Valley apart from what appeared to be an absolute barren and run down salt mining town on the other side of the National park. It was a completely different world from the places we had seen in America so far and really put into perspective the diversity. Of course there were Trump support items all over the shop.
With the power of Obama’s autobiography, which we barely made a dent in, we arrived at Motel 6 in Bakersfield at about 8.30pm. Again driving in the dark was not a whole load of fun with lorries pulling all sorts of shit. The place appeared to be housing a whole host of weird crackheads which made for some uncomfortable waiting at the check in desk for Nicola. The fact the office is locked and the check in desk shielded by a whole load of separation plastic, it clearly wasn’t the nicest place at night.
Fortunately we were only there for the night so we brought all our stuff in from the car and didn’t leave the room.
It wasn’t a completely terrible nights sleep despite probably having one of the most uncomfortable beds; only a king size (our privilege will be reined back in from Mexico we are sure) and seemingly having an odd slant from likely overuse. Luke however was shattered from driving so he would have settled for anything, Nicola less so.
We didn’t linger much in the room and were quickly on our way to our accommodation for the Yosemite National park in Mariposa, just over an hour outside of Yosemite but it was the cheapest of the very expensive options available and Luke didn’t mind the drive.
The 3 hour drive was largely uneventful and we were able to check in an hour early for the first time in the States. We did very little with the rest of the day bar Nicola discovering the local grocer sold very delicious brownies, after we both decided we needed a sugar hit, and then had a nice evening stroll around Mariposa town.
From this stroll we had settled on our diner ‘treat’ for the next evening. But for now we resisted the urge of bringing this forward and it was a tiny chicken alfredo microwave meal for dinner which thankfully was enough after stuffing our fat hobbit selves with the stereotypical American sized portions of brownie.
To avoid the challenges we faced in Zion with parking and volume of people as well as having a long drive to the National park, we decided we needed to get up as early as possible to avoid any stress. Breakfast at our hotel started at 7am so we were there and finished shortly past opening time, although Nicola was less enthused by the (once again) stodgy DIY waffle offering only made more palatable by our Nutella and banana extras. Luke was more than happy and also managed to fill his driving coffee fix requirement.
The drive from Mariposa to Yosemite is quite a beautiful one. For the most part it’s along a single lane winding road through a valley along the river and with the sunshine beaming, fortunately for us, it was all very pretty. Our National park pass got us in to Yosemite with no problems and we kind of rushed through the initial drive in order to get parked fearing competition.
Luke however on seeing the Yosemite Falls in action with towering granite cliffs and what appeared to be a snowfall rather than waterfall couldn’t help but pull over to appreciate it. Absolutely incredible view.
It was about 8.30am by the time we arrived and not knowing how large the visitors centre parking was or how many people were already there, we decided to park in the Camp Curry car park on the East edge of the main Yosemite road network as a safe bet. There was space but not masses so we do not regret our early rise at all, as painful as this is to do on a Gap Yah.
The shuttle bus network was running for the park so we were easily able to get a lift to the visitors centre, although in Nicola forgetting her trusty steed Basil Fawlty we would have to return to the car for any extended walking.
The visitor centre only opened at 9am so we were effectively the 3rd people through the door to speak to the park rangers. We asked what walks were open and sensible without any form of snow specialist equipment in tow (we continued to shun the idea of renting spikes simply because we felt there was still plenty to do without big hikes) and he kindly gave us a map with an assortment of highlighted routes which was a great help.
From the visitors centre we opted for the easiest of the walks first, walking the Valley loop trail to the Mirror Lakes.
The first part was a combination of pavement and slightly off road walking but it gave great views of the towering granite rock.
The mirror lake trail went a little bit more off piste and the snow and slush started building up slightly. It wasn’t anything particularly tricky but slowed our pace right down and Nicola lacked her all important rod companion. We were alone a fair amount of this trail and it wasn’t long before the talk of bears and prevention methods came up. Apparently stand tall, make lots of noise and don’t make eye contact.
The Mirror Lakes themselves were not overly impressive (nothing on the reflective qualities of the one in the Fiordlands) but we had great views of surrounding mountains and it was pretty quiet still so early in the morning, although that was short lived.
We took the easier road route back to the car in order to get Basil and the bus back to the Yosemite Falls. From the Camp Curry car park we’re our first views of the megatron that is Half Dome. Luke did really want to do the hike up there, a fairly reasonable 25 km & 1,600m elevation walk on a good day with steep chains at the end of it but the snow, ice and lack of equipment and willing walking companion meant he thought better of it. Added to the list of desirable brutal hikes he wants to do, this one probably topping the USA list so far.
Once at the start of the falls trailhead we had a short lunch stop on a bench before setting off up the steeper walk of the day.
The zig zagging route wasn’t too bad but there were a lot of people and we’re not overly educated in the art of hiking etiquette. We both stuck together although Nicola was in a fair amount of discomfort and was lacking energy for most of the uphill. The views however of the valley were definitely worth it.
Once at Columbia Rock we had a stop and appreciated the great views of the valley and in particular Half Dome in the distance.
At this point we parted ways, Nicola making her way down and completing the lower Yosemite Falls short walk while Luke continued along the trail to the upper Yosemite Falls viewpoint. The walk got a little trickier with snow and ice navigation, as well as a narrowing of the route containing morons in trainers. One particularly icy part had many a person bum sliding down.
The trail reached a natural conclusion for Luke when the track became a rather narrow snow path that didn’t appear to get any better going forward, confirmed by the people coming back saying they’d turned around. However the views of the Yosemite Fall were great.
Luke effectively ran down to the base of the trail as he had become accustomed to doing in NZ, this time having more difficulty from the mass of people. He doesn’t think many appreciated his bullish behaviour but no one seemed to be aware of people behind them and therefore give way so out of boredom he started being a prick.
As Nicola had done a little earlier, Luke went by the lower Yosemite Falls which was absolute carnage. There were tons of people sprawled out over the rocks closer to the falls for the perfect picture while others just blocked all space, especially on the bridge through the route. Not the one.
We met up again around the visitors centre and decided to call it quits for the day. The shuttle bus just didn’t seem to be coming so we sacked that off and walked back to the car, a decent 20km total walking day.
Once back in Mariposa we were pretty quick to head out for our first experience of an American diner called the Happy Burger Diner. It was a properly glorious slob out experience in a place that looked run down and dishevelled and the clientele to support the vibe, just how we wanted it. We were both well behaved in not getting a double and it was a great call. The burgers were huge and Nicola’s craving for an onion rings side more or less made her pop.
It was a true waddle home, but we had eaten early deliberately to not fall asleep still pregnant.
We probably could have gotten away with a later start to our Yosemite day 2 but again we didn’t want to risk it as the weather was forecast to be the better of the two days. Luke this time had some lonely heart waffles as Nicola shunned the option.
On arrival at the National Park we had a short stop at the Bridalveil Falls as the walking track was closed for repair.
The last of the walks suggested by the park ranger was the John Muir trail, as far as we could go before the snow and ice stopped us. It was quite a nice walk through the forest (and also serves as the start of the half dome hike) and made it as far as the Vernal falls bridge before the mist route closure and snow stopped us.
On our way back we had a slow meander around the Happy Isles before returning to the car.
The last stop off in the main area of the Yosemite village area was to fully appreciate the beast that is El Capitan. We stopped at the El Capitan meadow / the Base of the Nose and Jesus it’s a beast - how people free solo that is absolutely nuts.
We were lucky to have the Wawona Road open and not requiring snow chains which allowed us to go to Mariposa Grove that contained a number of Giant Sequoias, although not as large or old as Sequoia National park but beggars can’t be choosers. A short way along the road is a cracking viewpoint (Tunnel View) looking down at the Yosemite valley we had just spent the last day and half, showcasing El Cap up close and Half Dome in the background.
The drive to the grove was pretty interesting. The road was long, narrow, winding and with steep drop offs most of the way so Luke had quite a task concentrating while driving. This left Nicola to appreciate the effects of previous forest fires that had ransacked large swathes of the forest, leaving vast arrays of burnt trees and stubs that all seemed more unusual as they had been swallowed by 6 ft of snow in parts.
Once at the Mariposa Grove car park we had no choice but to walk the pretty long, steep and rather boring road to the actual points of interest as the shuttles were not running. Made for decent exercise at least.
The grove is a pretty big expanse of walking routes that connect the various iconic large sequoias but this proved to be incredibly difficult. In places the snow was 4 ft deep and in crossing bridges we found ourselves walking at the railing height with some pretty savage postholing risk of injury.
We managed to walk one leg of the Mariposa Grove trail past a number of large sequoias, which were so cool in the snow, but once we reached the Grizzly Giant it was the road back for us.
By the time we got back to the car we were shattered, again clocking close to 20km in the day. We did not have any craving for another round of heart attack on a plate once back at the motel.
Not having anything planned for the day we had a bit of a lie in, Luke only got up to get in some more free waffles before the 9am cut off time. Nicola spent some time talking to Tilly and then we were on our way towards Lake Tahoe way as our replacement location for the closure of Sequoia.
We had a short stop over at a small old mining town called Columbia State Historic Park for a short walk around and chow down on our perceived less than impressive packed lunch based on the smells wafting out of the number of restaurants. Not a whole lot to do here but there were a number of younger kids part of various tours from locals dressed in historic (lol 150 years ain’t history right?) garb that included panning for gold.
We stopped over in Jackson to do some washing and buy some groceries. The laundromat did not live up to the glory of the previous one sadly. We had a rather odd experience with an old guy who didn’t appear in the best of nick wishing us both good day, of which we did not respond to as we flustered with what we were doing, to then have him repeat himself in a sterner manner while staring us down and Luke say ‘you too’ in a slightly bewildered manner. Thankfully the guy didn’t linger as Luke left Nicola alone to deal with the washing while he shopped.
Once in our motel in Placerville we settled down for the rest of the evening.
Not having much of a plan for the day meant we had a lie in and were slow to get out and about. We researched some Lake Tahoe activities the night before and it turned out to be another risky biscuit as the place was covered in more snow than we had seen anywhere so far. But we were committed and not overly fussed if we had to turn around in the end.
The drive to Lake Tahoe was over an hour from our motel and once we were nearby the impact of the substantial snowfall hit home.
The first thing we tried to visit was Inspiration Point but there was no parking on Luke’s first drive by and as he carried on through an avalanche risk zone, with warnings of no stopping, we just had to continue. At this point his heart was in his mouth somewhat as the pretty sheer hillsides were covered in snow, rocks and trees while the curbside that had been ploughed stood over 6ft high in snow. All he could think about was if that snow fell, our car would be fudged.
The avalanche risk zone wasn’t too long however and on the other side we pulled into a lay by where a load of other cars had parked. We got out and managed a relatively easy short walk through the snow (that had largely been compacted by others) to get a view of Lake Tahoe and a pretty violent waterfall running down the side of the mountain.
We decided to carry on driving towards Rubicon Point with the possibility of having a decent walk, but there was no hope of getting down any of the side streets / into the forest. We saw a tractor digging out a side road with snow that towered above it and with immense difficulty. At that point we turned around. No bueno.
We managed to pull into Inspiration Point for a quick view over the lake which was pretty cool. It was pretty amusing to be standing on enough snow such that the tourist spot binoculars were at foot level.
We noticed there was a path back towards Placerville that had a cleared out walking track so we pulled over and went for a short stroll. We opted to head away from the cleared path, thinking it’d be more fun than simply walking next to the road, and on Luke losing his leg to knee height we sacked that off and got back in the car.
Luke had his lunch in South Lake Tahoe town on the waterfront by El Dorado beach for a bit of scenery. It looked cold.
Cutting our losses we went back to the motel and spent the rest of the day doing very little but we were fine with that.
Our penultimate day in the USA was a combination of driving towards San Fran and trying to stay out of the main city as we don’t like it all that much. So we decided to go to the Muir Woods redwood forest and stay nearby.
We stopped off at a donation place to get rid of a few items we had been able to travel around within the comfort of the car but as we would soon be back to the big bag on the back ways these were surplus to requirements. Felt quite good to get rid of these things to be honest and get back on the organised possession train rather than spaff all over the car.
We were a little early for the Muir Woods booking so we had a quick stop off at Stinson beach which was not exciting and cold, so we quickly turned around. The drive through the woods down to the beach was quite interesting, the narrow and winding roads requiring a little more concentration simply because Americans in massive 4x4s would just tear it down and not pay any attention to road markings.
We had a short stop at Muir Beach overlook but didn’t stay all that long for fear of people breaking into the car, as all the warning signs around the place indicated. Would have been a right piss take to have happen less than 24 hours before we handed back the car.
At 3.30pm we parked up and went into the Muir Woods. It was all a little expensive at $15pp plus $9 for parking but we had little else to do and we didn’t want to spend our time doing nothing in a motel room again.
The woods were actually pretty nice. There were some decent length walking trails that we knew nothing about until we arrived so we didn’t end up extending our walk but it was very pleasant having a slow saunter around the (mostly) quiet redwoods that towered above us and the sound of the river filling the air. Pretty zen.
We checked into the nearby motel, ended up moving room when realising we would be sleeping on a ¾ bed and Nicola protested. The upgrade to a queen was better but by no means substantial enough. But it did have a decent jacuzzi bathtub.
The lack of microwave meant our sweet potatoes would have to go to waste and Luke ended up buying some emergency bread for a tuna sandwich dinner. The reception lady was also kind enough to house his last remaining Vegas beers for a few hours so he didn't have to drink warm Heineken (trash beer but it was that or bud light).
We had to hand the car back at midday so we could take our time in the morning, pack and organise our big bags again to be lived out of for the next stage of our trip.
The drive to Thrifty in San Fran was a short 30 minute drive and the most exciting bit being the drive over the Golden Gate Bridge, although this did come with a rather expensive toll.
We handed back the car and were out in no time. It appears US car rental companies are far less scrupulous in their assessment of potential damage but we wait with baited breath for any potential future issue being brought up.
Final tally, 3,685 miles covered in 25ish days all completed by Luke on his tod. Not bad going.
Our flight wasn’t until midnight so we had a long day of doing sweet nothing. We found a cafe called Caffe Central, nearby to Powell station and the car drop off point, and then spent the next 7 hours there. The food was decent, coffees alright and the WIFI was pretty good so Nicola could entertain herself while Luke managed to upload copious amounts of photos to the blog.
It got to about 5.30 and Nicola was feeling mighty restless, as she had been all day, (*cough* short tempered *cough*) so we took off to get the BART to the airport. Nicola had a nice little public rage out at us having to spend $3 each to purchase a transport card while we worked out how the overly confusing machine worked.
Once we had our cards it was pretty easy to get to the airport.
As we had arrived 5.5hrs early for our flight, check in was not open so we sat down in Wendy’s and continued much in the same fashion as we had done in the cafe. This time we got to indulge in some Wendy’s burgers - actually not too shabby, Luke would take it over Burger King any day.
Once check in was open, we dropped our bags, went through security very easily and then patiently waited the 3 hours until boarding our flight to Mexico as there is absolutely nada to really explore through Gate A. Happy to have our 13 hour ‘kill time’ marathon ended.
Vamos.
Comments