Yosemite, Mt Conness, and Death Valley

After spending a day at Cousin Chrissy’s eating, drinking, and doing laundry, we headed off to Yosemite. Our plan to avoid the wild fire smoke had worked. There was only a lingering haze in the air.

We started off by heading to Glacier Point. Along the way, we stopped at Tunnel View for a quick picture.

We stopped at Taft Point trailhead to hike out to the view point. Upon arrival at the view point, we were treated to a couple slack lining.

In my three previous trips to Yosemite, I had never made it to Taft Point. What a fabulous view of El Capitan!

Since Sentinel Dome shared the same trailhead as Taft Point, we decided to pack up a picnic lunch and hike up the dome for a snack.

In my opinion, Sentinel Done offers the best views of the entire Yosemite Valley.

From Sentinel Dome, there is a trail which hikes along the ridge and drops you down to Glacier Point. I sent Brooke and Jim down the trail. I went back to get the car and drove down to Glacier Point to pick them up.

There is no better view of Half Dome than from Glacier View.

We ended up driving through Yosemite Valley just before sunset which produced amazing color on El Capitan.

We spent so much time watching the sunset on El Capitan that we ended up driving over Tiago Pass in the dark. Our plan was to camp at Saddlebag Lake.

When we arrived at Saddlebag Lake, we found all the campgrounds were closed for the season. Out of desperation, we set up the tent on the bridge leading to the campground. At least we had running water for dinner.

The night was bitter cold. When we woke, we loaded up the car and drove the Saddlebag Lake trailhead. It gave us a chance to sit in a warm car.

Today, our plan was to do a loop hike which included summiting Mt Conness. Our loop took us past Conness Lakes. It was my first taste of High Sierra lakes. They were beautiful.

After circling the lakes, we started scrambling the ridge line. This turned out to be a super fun route. Not the most direct route but definitely the funnest.

We had a consent view of Mt Conness’s North Peak.

After 5 hrs, we finally hit the last ridge to the summit and Brooke took off.

From the summit, we could see Mt Whitney. Hard to believe that was Plan A. Waiting for the smoke to clear, worked excellent for us.

The summit was quite gratifying and super cold.

To complete our loop, we took the easy slopes down to a trail off the ridge. Not sure anyone would think it was a trail. It was slow and tricky and we kept loosing it.

In the last minutes of daylight, we found the trail one last time. For some reason, we never lost the trail again. An hour after hiking in the dark, we hit the road. Yeah!

Tonight, we found a better spot to camp in the trees. It was 10 degrees warmer than the night before but still bitter cold.

The next day, we headed back into Yosemite Park to explore Tiago Road. We went as far as Olmstead Point and then turned around.

As we drove around, we discovered Lembert Dome.

From the summit, we had a 360 degree view of the High Sierras.

We all decided this had to be the easiest hike to get the best views. Funny none of us had heard of it before.

After Lembert Dome, we head to Tiago Lake for a picnic lunch.

Then we started the drive to Alabama Hill near Whitney Portal where we planned to camp for the night. Brooke and I had both heard that Alabama Hills had one of the best views of Mt Whitney.

We arrived in the dark so we had no idea of what the view was going to look like in the morning. Boy were we pleasantly surprised!

After sunrise, we went for a morning walk on the Arch Trail. The Mobis Arch had several photographers setting up for the iconic photo of Mt Whitney through the arch.

I see why.

Our drive today would take us through Death Valley. We were all pretty excited to drive to the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere, Badwater Basin.

The salt flats were fascinating.

We also stopped at Zabriskie Point.

Lunch was planned for Dante’s View.

We hiked out as far as you can in 90 degree heat. And took a bunch of pictures.

We were excited to finally get a red sky for sunset.

Our final stop of the day might have been my favorite, the Fairfeild Hotel and pizza. Ohhhh, and most importantly, a shower. I couldn’t even sit in the car with myself. We were all starting to stink.

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