California - Day 14 - to Yosemite via Fresno

Upper Pines Campground, Yosemite National Park

Monday, 14 March 2022

today's route

I learned online yesterday that the road situation in Yosemite National Park was similar to that in Sequoia - most roads were still closed due to snow and ice.  Luckily for me, the 2 that were still open were the 2 I wanted to take - one of them going into the park and the other going out the next day.

Going into the park I planned to take Wawona Road, which would lead me through the Wawona Tunnel to the famed Tunnel View just past it.  You may be thinking it's not so famous because you don't know what it is, but I'll bet you recognize my photo farther on.

While I was researching this route, I learned that the Wawona Tunnel is a 2-way road, and that going into Yosemite the clearance at the edge of the tunnel is only 10' 2".  My RV's clearance is 11'.  I worried about that for quite a while and finally called the park's office.  The nice person there told me problems had come up because people tend to hug the curb when they're driving through the tunnel with oncoming traffic, so their high vehicles get scraped.  She said with my 11' clearance, if I just stay in the middle of my lane I'll be fine.

Of course, I worried about that too, unsure if I really could force myself to keep my wide vehicle in the middle of the lane if other cars were sharing the tunnel with me, but the alternative was a very long roundabout drive to get to another road.  So I figured I'd assume this lady knew what she was talking about, and I'd be really careful.  All this was yesterday.

Today we drove through more farming country, including Selma, pop. 25,156, which claims to be Raisin Capital of the World: they produce 90% of all US raisins within 8 miles of here.

Built in 1894, it's on the
National Register of
Historic Places.

I must have come into Fresno by a back route, because not only was there no sign (I had to look up that it had 542,107 residents at the 2020 census), but also the first part of town I saw was somewhat run down, though it looked like there was renovation work going on.  Farther into town, though, I saw a nice-looking town, befitting its status as CA's 5th largest city.  One building that nobody can miss while driving through town was the Old Fresno Water Tower (internet photo at left).  It hasn't been used as a water tower since the '60s and is now the city's visitor center - which I guess explains the openings in the walls, which are surely not useful for a water tower.

I passed through a town named Coarsegold (the name used to be 2 words, referring to the gold nuggets that were found in a nearby creek during the CA Gold Rush).  It had 1,840 residents at the 2010 census and grew to 4,144 by the 2020 census - more than doubling its size.  I couldn't find any reason for this staggering growth other than the fact that this is the headquarters for the Picayune Rancheria tribe of Chukchansi Indians.  Perhaps the tribe is doing something that's resulting in population growth?

I passed several signs along the way that urged me to Come Ride The Logger Historic Steam Train.  Apparently, in season, folks can ride the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad aboard a historic steam locomotive.  The company has 2 engines, one built in 1913 and the other in 1928.  Tickets are a little on the spendy side - price for anyone over age 12 is $28 - but that buys a 1-hour, 4-mile ride through some beautiful countryside.  Sounds like fun.

I saw a sign warning me of s-curves for the next 17 miles.  So much to look forward to.

By the time I got to the town of Fish Camp, elev. 4,990', I was finding lots of snow still here and hoped the snow wouldn't show up as icy patches on the road.

I got to the park's entrance gate almost 3 hours after I'd left the campground, and I'd climbed from Visalia's 331' up to the visitor center's 4,012', with more climbing to come.

After entering the park I saw signs that said I was Entering Burned Area - Watch For Hazards On Road.  I spent a little time speculating about what kind of hazards they might mean.

The Wawona Tunnel comes way after the town labeled Wawona on the road map - it's not until after the road's made its final turn sort of eastward.  This tunnel, built in 1933, sits at 6,039' (a long way up from 331').  It's .8 of a mile long, making it California's longest tunnel.  

I'd stayed worried about scraping on this tunnel and asked at the entrance gate if the ranger thought I needed to worry, and she said no, my RV wouldn't have a problem at all.  I was reassured, though it didn't stop me from worrying.  So when I got to the actual tunnel at long last, I got really lucky.  No other traffic came into the tunnel from the other direction while I was driving through.  Naturally, I drove partly in the other lane, since it was available after all.  And that took care of the worrying.  But I was relieved to get out on the other side.

Immediately through the tunnel was a pull-out area, and I was lucky there too by finding a parking place we could fit into.  And it's here that people stop to take their own version of the famous view.

This is what I saw.

And this is the edited version that's the picture everyone's seen advertising Yosemite.
The stuff that looks like smoke in the valley is, in fact, smoke. 
The park service was conducting a controlled burn in that area.

That incredible rock on the left is what's called Half Dome.  If you see it from another angle, you can see that it looks like a smooth rounded dome that's been abruptly chopped in half.

The park service had a display titled "Yosemite Valley Geology" at this viewing point that showed how that view above was shaped by ancient glaciers.

details enlarged below

From there, it still took me an hour to get to the campground.  I found the signs pointing visitors to this or that attraction or campground were either very confusing or nonexistent, and nothing much matched what Google had said I'd see.  But I found it in the end.  I was lucky to get a camping spot as most of Yosemite's campgrounds were still closed.  The one I was in had 5 loops, and only 3 of them were open.  So I counted myself lucky.

And luck came along in another way: bears.  I didn't see any, but the park service was insistent that all campers take extreme precautions.  Anyone not in a hard-sided camper, they said, needed to put into the bear safes (large, heavy metal containers) at each campsite anything that had an odor.  Including toothpaste - not just regular food.  That was great for me because for the first time in ages I didn't have to worry about Dexter finding something to eat when we went for walks.  I could watch him sniff to his heart's content, secure in the knowledge that he wouldn't find anything he'd consider edible.  No discarded candy wrappers or tossed-aside yogurt cups.  It was incredible how much more relaxed I felt when I figured that out.

The park didn't have hookups of any kind, though they did allow us to use generators for specific hours.  I'd made plans ahead of time so didn't need mine much.  It was really peaceful here.