The Journey Home From Yosemite
Snow alongside Tioga Road. Photo Credit: Ethan Wick.
It was well after dark when we returned to camp after our Half Dome adventure, sore and fatigued from the miles we had covered, and we basically fell into the blankets to be pulled down into the world of deep sleep. When the alarm rang in the morning I slowly crawled out of bed and began to prepare a hearty breakfast with what was leftover from our supplies on the camp stove while my partner started tearing down camp. We took our time enjoying our meal and loading the car to allow our muscles to rest and watch the sun creep over the mountain tops around the campground before beginning the long journey home.
The view from the rest area where we played in the snow. Photo Credit: Ethan Wick
By 8:00 A.M. we had our camp packed up and loaded back into the car, so we set off one more time in the direction of Yosemite with the intention of taking a route home different from the one we had traveled on the way north. As luck would have it, Tioga road was opening during very limited time windows to accommodate through traffic, so we decided to go ahead and take the opportunity to make the scenic drive and leave through the east exit of the park. When the road opened we began our trip into the higher reaches of the mountains, and as we climbed, we began to see thick snow still clinging to life along the sides of the road. The twists and turns of the high mountain pass took us past breathtaking views of the Sierra Nevadas that I had not glimpsed since I was a child, and I was a little disappointed that stopping was prohibited at that time. Over the course of an hour, the drive took us past the meadows and lakes only just beginning to awaken, and we reached a stop just outside the east entrance where we could finally stretch our legs and play in the snow. Once the rest stop began to fill with other travelers we decided to venture on down the road in the direction of Mono Lake, and the next stop on our adventure before the eventual return to reality.
Mono Lake. Photo credit: Ethan Wick.
The road took us back down the mountain out of the snow line and back into the hills still clinging to spring color in defiance of the summer that had been delayed by the harsh winter of the previous year. When we arrived at the Mono Lake Visitor Center, the air was still crisp and the sun was shining through just a few wispy clouds hanging in the sky. The exhibits in the visitor center were exactly as I remembered them, and I was grateful to get the chance to share such a happy memory with my partner as he explored the unique ecology of the saline lake for the first time. After we completed our walk through the natural history wing of the center we walked down the nature trail and gazed out at the lake and the distant tufa towers, but we wanted to walk along the shore. We made a short drive down to one of the shore access points and walked on the beach disturbing the tiny alkali flies with each step. I felt giddy watching the little black clouds rise, travel a few feet, and once again rest at the edge of the water, running through them a couple of times like I did the first time I visited the lake. This time though, I experienced the unique ecosystem as a student of ecology and my partner had to remind me of the time to pull me away from a place that could easily occupy me for endless hours.
The entrance to Bodie State Historic Park. Photo credit: Ethan Wick.
As interesting as my partner found Mono lake, I knew that science is not exactly his forte and I wanted to take him to a place that would fascinate him as much as the museums had in Yosemite. I knew the perfect place, and it was only an hour round trip out of our way, Bodie State Park. Like Mono Lake, I had visited Bodie when I was a child on a camping trip with my father, and nothing had changed. The abandoned mining town was exactly as I remembered, an eery snapshot of life from a time long past slowly crumbling as the years slip by in near silence. We walked among the decaying buildings and leftover equipment from the forgotten mines and imagined what life could have been like back in Bodie’s glory days. The indoor museum was filled with photographs of past citizens (many that would never be identified) and mementos that had been found among the rubble then preserved and cataloged in an effort to remember the history of the town tucked away in the mountains.
A view we got of Bodie while walking exploring the historic park.
After a walk through the cemetery, we left Bodie and began the journey back to the modern era in search of lunch. We stopped in the town of Mono at a rustic diner where we ate warm sandwiches and fresh soup to reenergize ourselves for the long drive through the hills and high desert that would lead us back home. The rest of our journey was fairly uneventful, but the time passed quickly while we chatted about the hikes we had conquered and our plans for our next big adventure into the wilderness. The sun had long set by the time we reached home, but we still rewarded ourselves with hot showers before tucking away into a real bed for the first time in ten days and dream about journeys that the future may have in store.
