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Yosemite Valley - June 2010


IdratherbeclimbingM9

24-Jun-2010
9:37:12 AM

On 24/06/2010 Wendy wrote:
>Hey Peter, We'll be flying into LA late afternoon and thinking of camping
>somewhere on the way to the valley that night - have you any suggestions?
>Thanks!

Last post he wrote;
>There is some free camping just outside the park entrances (both West side and East side) that I use pretty regularly (trying to book campsites in the Valley or the Meadows is a huge pita):

Hardin Flat Rd
Tioga Pass

... but I agree 'somewhere on the way' includes a lot of mileage.
;-)

24-Jun-2010
10:30:35 AM

Rod, neither Hardin Rd (good spot - but feels VERY beary when there alone with no food locker) nor Tioga Pass (possibly the worst spot I've ever camped) is on the way from LA to the Valley.

Wendy, unless forced to, I wouldn't want to have to camp anywhere south of Fresno (the I5 sux). Once you're on the 41 around Oakhurst and beyond, I recall plenty of scope for free camping. You may need daylight to find your spot, but might not want to set up until dark ... if you get my drift.


IdratherbeclimbingM9

24-Jun-2010
10:53:41 AM

>on the way from LA to the Valley.

"Nuff, nuff", sed thee faeries...
☺

Wendy

24-Jun-2010
1:58:21 PM

I had looked up those spots Rod and they are on the opposite side to where we'd come from.

Thanks Will. Oakhurst is still a fair way out of LA s I guess we'll have no problems not setting up after dark! We don't land until 6pm.


nmonteith

24-Jun-2010
2:34:57 PM

I've had a few scary nights free camping in random woods in the States. There seems to be a lot more 'permanents' in the woods over there (homeless people?). One night in a pine forest near Boulder was memorable. Women screaming all night from random directions and the next morning we woke to find a large knife embedded in a tree next to our tent. I didn't feel that welcome. The whole place had hidden caravans, buses and vans (most without wheels) tucked away behind trees and in gullys. Scary.

egosan

24-Jun-2010
3:07:26 PM

Wendy,

maps.google.com tells me that taking 395 North through the Owens Valley as opposed to I-5 North through the Sacramento Valley will only add a hundred miles to your trip and depending on traffic less than an hour. The humidity of the central valley is brutal, much better to be on the lee side of the mountains in the dry air. The temperatures will be about the same. All you get to see on the California side are commercial agra-business farms and rampant over-development. Stuff that just leaves me ill.

I cut my teeth running up and down all those desert roads as a kid. The trip up 395 is beautiful and camping will be no drama. Once you are out in the desert you just pick a likely dirt road and drive up it a mile (the range of a .22 rifle) and unroll your bags under the stars.

Cheers,

Sol


ajfclark

24-Jun-2010
3:08:48 PM

Shouldn't that be "a little further than a mile"?

egosan

24-Jun-2010
3:23:11 PM

On 24/06/2010 ajfclark wrote:
>Shouldn't that be "a little further than a mile"?

And you though climbing forums were bad?

http://yarchive.net/gun/maximum_range.html

dalai

24-Jun-2010
5:33:04 PM

On 24/06/2010 nmonteith wrote:
>I've had a few scary nights free camping in random woods in the States.

I had the opposite experience. Many nights camping on the road including in roadside rest stops on the ground next to the car. Usually I was just one of many transient people doing the same.

Once in a more secluded spot near Cave rock I was woken in the middle of the night by the local police and asked to show my papers. He was fine with it all an let me get back to sleep.


IdratherbeclimbingM9

24-Jun-2010
6:16:31 PM

On 24/06/2010 ajfclark wrote:
>Shouldn't that be "a little further than a mile"?

From the egosan link;
>an initial velocity of 1500 fps. I found that at 1000 yards the velocity had fallen to 300 or so fps.

... I am old enough to remember my initial schooling math; ~> 1760 yards in a mile...

By my reckoning if a 40 gn bullet was down to 300 fps from 1500 fps, at 1000 yds, then it would be flat chat trying to be lethal at 1760 yds...

~> Jumps up on table and shakes clenched fist in the air while yelling - "pedants of the world unite!"

Heh^{x 3}

Wendy

24-Jun-2010
6:36:10 PM

On 24/06/2010 egosan wrote:
>Wendy,
>
>maps.google.com tells me that taking 395 North through the Owens Valley
>as opposed to I-5 North through the Sacramento Valley will only add a hundred
>miles to your trip and depending on traffic less than an hour.

We were planning on heading through that way later on - from Tuolumne to bishop and the scenic route through death valley to or from red rocks. Given that it will be dark and we won't see much there's probably not a lot of point going up there on the way to the Valley.

I noticed the red rocks guide suggests avoiding camping along the 160 anywhere near Las Vegas - were you around there Neil?

24-Jun-2010
8:41:02 PM

if you're going to tuolumne the 395 is an ok option from LA. we did LA to tuolumne via both I5 and 395 and even to tuolumne the 395 was noticeably longer/slower/more painful - but ok to mix things up a bit (did i mention the I5 sux?). OTOH theres no way I'd even consider taking the 395 to the Valley from LA. Those extra hundred miles are serious mountain roads, absolutely non-stop bends (great for car-sick types), cliffs to drive off / into, shitloads of deer, possible ice on the high bits .... forget it.

PS egosan the central valley is hardly humid ... its almost as much a desert as the east side of the sierras.

egosan

24-Jun-2010
11:06:33 PM

On 24/06/2010 WM wrote:

>PS egosan the central valley is hardly humid ... its almost as much a
>desert as the east side of the sierras.

Keep in mind, I spent every summer from my first birth day till my eighteenth bumming around the deserts of California and Nevada. My preference and bias is clear. My memories of I-5 mostly consist of driving all day in a beat up old Bronco with no A/C. The sticky heat of the central valley was my bane. Mostly I suspect because of the irrigation used create one of the most productive agricultural areas in the States. In areas where high rates of evapotranspiration are present the humidity gradient will be very steep. You won't have to get far above the valley floor before the humidity drops again. Yet all that heat and water is not lost. When it gets warm in the valley the afternoon thunderstorms become regular in the mountains.

PS Stockton and Fresno get twice the rain of Bakersfield and Bishop.


MrsM10iswhereitsat.

24-Jun-2010
11:42:35 PM

Now this is a real trip report Mr gfdonc, and despite the funny things that the Americans and others do over there, it looks like you and Ms Jen had a lovely time.

I hope your skyhook turns up dearie, and Derek my M10 love tells me that the sandbag they tried on you of telling you they are doing a one day ascent to pass, would only work over here if the fellow telling you this has the name Mr HB.

JohnK

25-Jun-2010
11:41:23 AM

Terrific trip report Steve, one of the best one I have seen on Chockstone, and it did sound at times like a Himalayan epic!

Thanks for sharing and catch up at the gym soon mate.

John K.


pmonks

26-Jun-2010
8:03:31 AM

On 24/06/2010 egosan wrote:
>PS Stockton and Fresno get twice the rain of Bakersfield and Bishop.

Well Bakersfield is in the central valley (albeit the southern end), so I think you just reinforced WM's point.

Seriously though, nowhere in CA is as humid as the east coast of Australia - I feel like I'm breathing a swamp now when I'm in Sydney or (heaven forbid) Brisvegas. Hard to believe that even in the thick fog of SF the air is less sticky and humid than the air on a clear sunny day in Sydney, but there you go...


pmonks

26-Jun-2010
8:05:20 AM

On 24/06/2010 Wendy wrote:
>Hey Peter, We'll be flying into LA late afternoon and thinking of camping
>somewhere on the way to the valley that night - have you any suggestions?

I wish I had some suggestions, but I'm rarely in LA (except if I'm flying somewhere else). WM lived here for a while though and did quite a few trips up that way, so his advice is pretty reliable.

lukeg74

17-Jul-2010
2:46:04 PM

We spent about six weeks in the park a few years back in Aug/Sep without once camping at an approved site. Between walls and high country camping we just free camped in the woods, sans tent. You just need to get yourself a bear box in the car park to dump your gear and you're set.


pmonks

17-Jul-2010
4:36:29 PM

On 17/07/2010 lukeg74 wrote:
>We spent about six weeks in the park a few years back in Aug/Sep without
>once camping at an approved site. Between walls and high country camping
>we just free camped in the woods, sans tent. You just need to get yourself
>a bear box in the car park to dump your gear and you're set.

In the valley itself the rangers patrol at night with IR equipment, so if you're going to do this you need to get well away from the roads and trails to minimise the chances they'll find you.

Also, some of the previously popular bandit camping spots in the valley (including the boulder field up behind the Awahnee) get patrolled pretty regularly as well since the rangers know where most of those spots are.

To be honest I've only bandit camped in the valley once, and I was so paranoid the entire night that I barely got any sleep. That and discovering in the morning that we'd picked a recent burn-off area to bed down in, so ended up seriously filthy and gummed up from all the ash. :-\

lukeg74

17-Jul-2010
6:15:51 PM

Yeah, we heard similar stories about ranger inspections but it's a big valley... We saw more coyotes and mountain lions than we did rangers.

Anyway, this was back in '01 so maybe times have changed.

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