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Mono Basin/Yosemite, California June 30 - July 2 The Story Photo Gallery

After a trek across the Mojave Desert and an overnight stay in the town of Lone Pine, we made the 3-hour drive to Mono Basin and our next campsite, Mono Vista RV Park in the town of Lee Vining. Our site gave us a nice view of the desert mountains to the west and Mono Lake to the north and east. After setting up and relaxing for a while, we got back into the van and drove to the southern end of Mono Lake.

Mono Lake was formerly a volcanic crater that filled with water from mountain streams. Like the Great Salt Lake in Utah, the water is saturated with alkaline salts, so swimmers can float in the lake with little effort. The water level has dropped over the years (mostly because some of the mountain streams have been diverted), leaving behind stone structures called tufa. The tufa forms when calcium-bearing freshwater springs well up through carbonate-rich alkaline lake water. The calcium and carbonate combine, forming limestone. Over many years, a tower of limestone forms around the mouth of the spring. The formation of tufa happens only in the lake; as the lake level drops and exposes the towers, they stop growing.

We parked at the South Tufa trailhead and walked to the shoreline, passing several tufa along the way. There were a number of tufa structures just offshore that stood out against the blue lake water. Making sure neither Carrie nor Tyler could bend down to taste the water, I was able to dip my hand into the lake. As advertised, it had a soapy greasiness to it, despite looking perfectly clear. After chatting with a family about the hounds, we headed back the way we came, got in the van and drove to another scenic point along the shore, Navy Beach, where the shoreline was dotted with shorter tufa structures topped off with sand. Their shape and and texture reminded me of stalagmites.

On the way back out to the highway, we stopped at Punam Crater. The pathway up the side of the crater was steep with foot-sucking sand (the kind that makes it hard to walk), so Deanna and the hounds stayed with the van while I climbed up the trail up to the rim of the crater. It turned out to be fairly unimpressive, so I returned to the van fairly quickly.

We returned to our campsite, ate dinner, then walked down and across the street to Mono Cone for some ice cream. Sadly, they were already closed. Thwarted in our quest for dessert, we returned to the campsite and called it a day.

Just south of the town limits of Lee Vining is the eastern end of California Route 120, which goes over Tioga Pass into Yosemite National Park. We had downloaded all of the pictures from our cameras the night before in preparation for taking lots of pictures of Yosemite Falls, El Capitan, and other sights within Yosemite Valley.

As we climbed up through the Pass, we soon discovered that there was a lot of beauty to behold along the way. We made several stops on the roadside, including a stop just beyond the Tioga Pass Yosemite Park entrance (elevation 9,945 feet), where we briefly walked the hounds on a mound of packed mountain snow. We wanted to see if the experience of snow in summer would excite them in any way: it didn`t.

We eventually arrived in Yosemite Valley (a two-hour trip over about sixty mountainous miles) around 10am. Surprisingly, we had no trouble getting a parking spot in the first day-use lot we encountered. We unloaded the hounds, and after confirming with a park ranger that pets were only allowed on the paved trails, we walked to the trailhead to Yosemite Falls. It was quite warm in the valley (mid to upper 80`s) and the sun was shining brightly. Those factors and the subsequent hot pavement proved to be too much for Frazzle, who started to become wobbly as we reached the trailhead. We found some shade and rested a while, and let the hounds have some water. Once Frazzle seemed to be ready to continue, we started on the trail, keeping an eye on him for any signs he needed to rest again.

We slowly made our way to the base of the falls, stopping occasionally as people came up to pet the hounds. Near the base of Lower Yosemite Falls is a bridge that crosses the river, where the force of the falls creates strong wind gusts. We took several pictures there before crossing over to the other side, where you could clamber over rocks and boulders to get even closer to the bottom of the falls. I left the hounds with Deanna and made my way up the rocks with my camera. I was able to take a few pictures before the wind and the spray from the falls forced me back down.

We continued along the shaded trail until it looped back to our starting point. We rested and considered our options. It was past lunchtime so we considered continuing down the path along the roadway towards the food court and towards El Capitan. But since we weren't sure Frazzle could handle that trek, we decided to head back to the parking lot and pick up some food from the park deli we had passed on the way. It turned out we were right to be worried about Frazzle's stamina: we didn't get too far before his legs gave out on him again. Deanna carried him to a patch of shade and had him lay down on his fold-up dog mat. After we gave him and the hounds more water, I went on ahead to the deli, bought us some sandwiches and sweets, and we had lunch while Frazzle rested and recovered.

After lunch, we made our way back to the van as best we could, hurrying the hounds from one shaded spot to another to minimize Frazzle's time in the sun and on the hot pavement. He did well until the very end, where Deanna had to carry him the final stretch to the van. Finally we all got into the van and turned on the AC for the hounds.

Obviously, Frazzle was in no condition to do any more walking, so we decided to drive through the valley and find a spot where we could stop briefly and get a picture of El Capitan. We ended up circling back into the park, where we found the turnoff for the trailhead to Bridal Veil Falls. The trail was only 1000 feet long, so I stayed in the van with the hounds while Deanna went and took some pictures. Back on the road, we traveled another quarter mile or so before we found an area where we could see El Capitan. We parked for a few minutes and took some pictures: Deanna observed and took pictures of some climbers making their ascent. We got back on the road and headed back to the road for Tioga Pass, stopping just once more to take pictures of a river meadow with the mountains in the background.

Our trip out of the park was similar to our trip into the park: a long picturesque drive with several stops along the way. Eventually we reached our campsite, where we put up our feet and relaxed for the rest of the day.

On our final day in Mono Basin, we headed south on US 395 to Mammoth Lakes to visit the Devil`s Postpile National Monument. We drove through town and into the Red Meadows ski resort area. The slopes still had some snow on them, despite the fact that we were comfortably warm in shorts and t-shirts, so we had to find parking amongst the many skiers and snow boarders.

The road down to Devil`s Postpile was closed to car traffic except in the early and late hours of the day, so we hopped on one of the shuttle buses that took visitors down during the day. Our bus driver was delighted to meet the hounds, and we made our way to the back of the bus where there was room for the hounds in the empty storage area behind the last row of seats. We knew Carrie wasn`t going to enjoy the ride from her previous experience on the subway during our 2004 visit to Boston. Deanna managed to coax her up onto the seat in front of her, where she lay down and clung tightly to the school bus-style seat cushion. Frazzle didn`t seem too phased by the experience, but he had a hard time keeping his balance whenever the bus stopped or made a sharp turn on the road down into the valley, so eventually Deanna got him on a seat as well. Tyler and Wren managed to keep their balance until we reached the bottom of the valley and we all disembarked.

After a brief rest, we hiked the gentle though sunny trail to the Devil's Postpile. Devil`s Postpile is a large formation of hexagonal basalt columns created by volcanic action. Early explorers of the region thought the columns resembled the wooden posts of a tall fence and that only the Devil could have built such a thing, hence its name. After taking a few pictures from beneath the monument, I left the hounds with Deanna and headed up the steep trail to the top of the structure. The eerie regularity of the formation was even more apparent at the top: it looked like someone had laid down hexagonal slate tiles along the forest floor. I then rejoined Deanna and the hounds and we headed back to the bus stop at the start of the trailhead.

We ate lunch at one of the picnic tables while we waited for a bus that would take us back to Red Meadows and discussed what else we should see. I suggested we visit Hot Springs Creek, mentioned in the visitor`s guide we had picked up earlier as a place where geothermal pools of water intersected a cool mountain stream.

Eventually a bus back to Red Meadows arrived. This time, the storage area in the back was already occupied with a number of bikes, so we ended up in the first row of seats behind the driver. It was difficult to keep the dogs out of the way of the other passengers boarding the bus, but eventually everyone got on board and we started on our way. Carrie once again got up on a seat--Deanna`s seat this time. Deanna managed to sit on the front edge of the seat and Frazzle leaned against her. Wren and Tyler stood next to my seat and right behind the driver.

As we ascended, Tyler and Wren kept moving around. Wren kept trying to move down the aisle, which I tried to prevent because the folks behind us were obviously not comfortable with dogs. At first we thought that the jerky nature of the ascent was causing them to lose their balance and forcing them to shift around. That was part of it, but then the bus driver explained that the transmission was right underneath that part of the floor, making it very hot. I put my hand on the floor: it was indeed hot to the touch, like pizza just out of the oven. And sure enough, Tyler was actually lifting his feet one at a time off the floor to avoid the hot surface. The floor even started to bother Frazzle. It was a bad situation, but there was nothing we could do about it except get off the bus as quickly as possible once we reached the resort. I don`t think the hounds have ever been so happy to have grass under their feet again! After that experience, we decided not to subject them to the long stretch of hot pavement between the resort and our parking space, so Deanna retrieved the van and picked us up.

We drove back into town and stopped briefly at the visitor center there to find out if it would be a long or short walk to the springs at Hot Creek Springs. They said it was a short distance, so off we went.

When we arrived, we found a shady place to park and I checked it out. The parking lot overlooked the thermal springs, which were a bright aqua blue. I descended down the paved trail to the edge of the creek to take pictures of the aqua pools on the other side. Normally, swimming was allowed in the creek, but the area was fenced off with wire fencing and warning signs stating that swimming was no longer permitted due to increased geothermal activity.

Hearing some excited discussion to my left, I turned and saw a group of folks along the shoreline. They were looking at a part of the creek, and as I followed their gaze I saw a bubble and a splash in that part of the creek. Apparently there was a small geyser underneath the surface. I waited for several minutes to try and get a picture of the geyser in action. While I did get a few shots, none were particularly impressive or distinctive. One of the members of the group I had overheard, an older gentleman, told me he`d been here many times and had never seen the area so active before. I made my way back to the van, briefed Deanna on what I`d seen, and then she went down with her camera. While I waited with the hounds in the van, I watched a number of young people in swimsuits being told by the park ranger that swimming was now off-limits. The visitor`s guide had said even under normal circumstances, swimming in the creek carried some risk as the water temperature could spike at any time.

When Deanna was done taking pictures, we headed back to camp. I did some laundry at the camp laundromat while Deanna downloaded pictures from both cameras, then we all had dinner. After dinner, we headed over to Mono Cone. It was Frazzle`s 12th birthday, so we ordered soft vanilla ice cream cups for each of the hounds. Sadly, Frazzle did not like his birthday dessert, and Carrie did not feel like having ice cream either, so Wren and Tyler ended up with double-helpings, which they eagerly accepted. Deanna and I then bought some ice cream for ourselves and we walked back to our site.

The next day we broke camp and headed for our next destination, Lake Tahoe.