Norskie's Blog

Day 3: Mendocino Lake to here.

The girls in the tent next door wouldn't stop giggling until 4:30am. Too bad I decided to get up at 5am and make coffee and oatmeal! Hah! I was out of there at 7:30, just as it started to sprinkle. For the first hour I rode in that sprinkle, at about 52F. The terrain was very similar to Napa Valley: Golden hills with stunted little trees. As I left the coast behind the trees got smaller and smaller. Once the sun came out it went away again, only to turn to dark clouds and showers around the bend. Yech.

I5 was better - fast, dry, but with a lot of traffic. I stopped at a rest stop, and there were a lot of elderly folks there. They didn't talk to each other, and there was no bus, so there was no apparent reason why there were so many of them. Weird.

Sacramento is a mess. Thanks to this GPS/PDA I got through it without a single wrong turn, and found myself at an Applebees at 11am. Damn, I wanted pancakes! Oh well ... Lunch will do. I need some roughage in my diet anyway.

The plan was to ride to 385 via Sonara Pass on 108. However, as I was going in that direction, I saw a sign stating that Tioga Pass (120, in Yosemite) was open, so that's the way I took. The sign also stated there was no gas at Toulenne Meadows, whatever the significance of that was. From the 108/120 cutoff the road weaves through the golden foothills with easy sweepers.

With Pink Floyd loaded on my MP3 player I was having a grand old time. However, once it gets into the mountains, the curves are fierce, sharp, and steep. The ascent was amazing - and there appeared to be another road on the opposite side of the valley that looked fun too - Old Priest Road or something. AH, I wish I had more time, and less weight on bike, to explore. As usual, the pavement was smooth and traffic courteously pulled over to let me pass. I'm sorry I don't have any photos of that section there was nowhere to pull off the road.

I entered Yosemite with our National Parks pass and for the first 30 miles or so, it was just like riding through an eastern-Oregon forest. Big deal. The elevation kept climbing, and the temperatures dropped to 45 at 9000 feet. Brrr... But once up in the mountains, some of the vistas were spectacular!

Since I was short on time I skipped the ride into the valley and went right over Tioga Pass. I could see the valley allright - it was more of a chasm! El Capitan was there too ... It was amazing! And that was just going up to the summit.

The elevation remained fairly high for a while, and there was even a section where skiers were hiking up to reach some snow. I did get a photo of a snowy meadow.

Descending from 9000 to 7000 feet was a treat too! The unprotected road hugs 1000-foot cliffs as I crane my neck around to look at the mountainns. Incredible ... Reminds me of leaving Yellowstone last summer, via the Billy The Kidd Reservoir (I think that's what is was called) but one magnitude larger.

Back on 395 I stopped to get gas, $2.46/gallon for regular. Ouch. Premium was almost $3/gallon. I had no qualms about using their restroom.

The remainder of the day was uneventful, unless you consider riding 100 miles on a straight road flanked by mountains on both sides, an 'event'. To the east were typical sandy treeless mountains like we have in eastern Oregon, but to the west I had the Sierra Nevadas in all their glory. Here's me riding along the bottom of a flat valley about 10 miles wide at 4000 feet. To my right is this 100-mile-long wall of granite reaching 10,000 feet into the sky Those are the Sierra Nevada’s. They're amazing. There's no road to cross them. It's like watching the Lord Of The Rings. The Wall Of Morder. Moria. These are incredible.

And here I am, camped at the base of these mountains outside Independence, CA. Looking at the map, those mountains are in Kings Canyon National Park. Too bad there is no road access to them or I'd go there. Bummer.

Tomorrow: Death Valley and, dammit, pancakes!