Yosemite Still.. whoopee

The Next Day…

Went to an evening around a camp fire with a park Ranger (Karen) giving a talk (with guitar and songs) about .. well all sorts of stuff.. had us all up doing “follow me” type singalongs.. hilarious.. learnt that over the winter, the marmot during hibernation breaths something like once every few minutes and its heartbeat is the same!!! They can take a week or more to wake up and can sleep for almost 7 months in a hard winter!!!.. we also learnt about bears, and their faecal plug!!!! Crikey! Apparently she even found an example of a “plug” once.. she said “you know what it is when you see it!!!” So all in all a very informative and fun evening. She knew all about NZ, having cycled from Cape Reinga to Bluff in 2001 with her husband and their two small children, one still in cloth “diapers” they made the front page of the Nelson Mail as well.... small world!

Left Ali in bed this morning.. (with a cuppatea and banana…) and went out to spot birds with the Ranger.. Karen again.. about half a dozen people.. beautiful morning.. hardly a breath of wind, and blue sky.. crisscrossed with contrails.. spotted lots of little sparrow type birds, one Falcon. And a couple of Red Tailed Hawks... the names mostly escape me.. except for the colloquial name of one.. Butter Bum.. you can guess why.. One of the highlights was a rabbit I spotted! Go figure! Anyway.. they are rare up here, and native.. oddly, compared to the bunny’s in NZ it was about half size. But Karen the Ranger, assured us it was fully grown.. interesting too, in that it didn’t run away and scamper down a burrow.. it just hunkered down in the shadow of a tree and let us all take photos of it! Wouldn’t have lasted 10 seconds in NZ!

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the granite slopes that have some of the smoothest, glacier polished surfaces I’ve ever seen.. in places it looks like a diamond tipped floor polisher has been in action. Juniper trees are abundant here, and quie a surprise, as some of them are 1000's of years old.. they are a tough looking tree, I guess not surprising, being where they grow.. mostly on what looks like barren rock.

Saw a number of lizards, mostly skinks, I think.. got some lovely photos.. and found a tiny wee frog, no more than 15 to 20 mm long way up on a granite knoll called Lomberts .. or something like that.. had to wonder what it was doing up there! Excellent photo of it.. will have to try and get a ranger to identify it. We were talking about this need to “label” everything.. makes no difference to the object/animal/insect etc, but for some reason we all feel better once its done! Sure the frog won’t mind if it is just left to “be”.

Hamburgers have been the meal of the day.. except for breakfast, which for me was a bread roll with ham lettuce and tomatoe.. camp made.. and Ali.. a couple of bananas. Coffee is 65 cents, if you have your own cup, nice! And free tomorrow morning around the camp fire with a ranger.. cool!! I had a Mammoth Brewing company IPA (???? Not sure what that means) beer for $1.40 plus tax! Anyway, the day is not quite over, as we are off to “Camp Fire” to hear the legendary “Margaret” (a local ranger identity) give a presentation on Mono Lake.. from all accounts its meant to be very good.. We’ve done a bit of walking today, and being that you start everything at 8500ft, I feel like it too.. of course, I’ve gone and got sunburnt a bit.. bugger!..

Lake Tahoe.. having left Yosemite.

The Campfire event last night was really great.. The Ranger .. Margaret … gave us a wonderful recital of the history of Mono Lake, using the character of the Old Man Coyote who told us all about the geology, birds , the Piute people (hopefully I spelt that right!!!) and how the whole area has changed, developed, for better and worse.. the whole story was wonderfully presented.. something to experience.

Had the folks at the campsite, beside us leave, and stock up our firewood supply (actually that was zero) so we had a lovely campfire ourselves.. a really lovely spot.. Tuolumne Valley, is a place I would love to come back to. This morning we had “coffee with the Ranger” and we figured out what the frog was.. a Pacific Tree Frog.. and felt a lot better for know ing!!

The drive out was a scenic stunner! Had to stop for a number of photos.. the Tioga Pass was a high point at around 9600ft.. view was good too! We took some local advice and stopped at the Mobil station at Lee Vinning, and had a “Fish Taco” meal.. early lunch.. good advice.. excellent.. Mono Lake is quite a spot.. a salt water lake, no rivers draining it, so all the inflow with the minerals from the mountains just stays and now it even has stalagmite type columns that have grown under the water and are now exposed as the lake level has dropped.