Tuesday, June 3, 2014

A Drive Along the Sierra Vista Scenic Loop and Visit to Bass Lake

Off to do some fun exploring.  Yesterday, we took a 100 mile 7 hour loop drive through part of the Sierra Nevada National Scenic Byway mountains on the west side of Yosemite National Park.  It was a beautiful day for it!  Out first stop was along the south shore of Bass Lake.  It is a real popular boating and water sport area.  But with the lack of the usual heavy rain this year, the lake was really down.  Still, it is pretty nestled in the mountains. 

2 pan lake shore with Carol PE

Sierra Visata Drive 033 PE redo

Then we stopped at the North Fork Bass Lake Ranger Station for more information and maps.  We noticed that part of the loop drive we were going to take was on unpaved road.  The ranger said, “Oh, it is just fine!”  More about THAT later!!  Wonder when the last time was that he had been over that road!?  We headed up out of North Fork and were immediately disappointed at what we were seeing.  It isn’t the first time we have been fooled by fancy words.  Thank goodness, the scenery got much better as we went higher up along the switchbacks and reached the green forest.  The road was paved and 2 lanes, so not a bad ride.  The worse was yet to come!

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We stopped at just a few overlooks but the overlooks were few and very far between.  With the forest being so tall, and the road seeming to wind forever just through trees, we were on the point of being bored.  We love scenic drives but this was not our best.  There were some great places for overlooks with great views closer to the top, but they weren’t there and no place to pull over either.  So a few pictures were taken just by stopping in the road.  In the picture below, in the lower right corner, you can see the Mammoth Pool Reservoir.  The drought has been so bad this year that it is closed to all boating and fishing.  The white area shows how low the reservoir is. 

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Then we reached the Mile High Vista Point at 5300’.  Wow, spectacular view!  What a spot for our picnic lunch!  We were just amazed that we had the whole scenic drive to ourselves!  This spot is surely a CA well kept secret.  It is just the getting there and out that is the hard part.  We had great views of Mount Ritter at 13, 157 ‘, Mammoth Mountain, and 15 other peaks over 10,000’.   It was just a great view with blue sky and fluffy clouds moving in and nice cool breezes.  Whew, no bears!  We just enjoyed such a peaceful lunch and took our time taking pictures. 

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It was interesting how the landscape changed and we drove through some areas surrounded by granite rock formations.  Pretty in their own way. 

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So far so pleasant.  Well, about 45 miles up the road from the vista overlook is where we started the dirt road we knew we were going to take.  WOW!  11 miles of winding road with dirt, rocks, washboard, or just plain deep potholes, and narrow, meaning only one way.  What a bone jarring ride!  Heaven forbid we meet somebody coming the other way! One section was just plain soft dirt with a sign that said “road work ahead”!  And when were they planning on working on this road!?  If you can call it that! More like a logging road! It was so bouncy, I couldn’t even take pictures.  Boy, the truck is dirty now!!  That ranger that told us the road was “fine” sure pulled a whopper of a white lie on us!  But the interesting part was at 7,000’.  Here is CA with a water shortage and drought, and at the upper elevation, there were many beautiful large meadows with lots of pretty green grass.  It looked so peaceful and serene.  Didn’t see any wildlife though and no places to stop.  We passed several campgrounds way up on the drive but they were all empty except for two motorhomes closer to the end of the dirt road.   I certainly would not take my rig over those roads. 

Sierra Visata Drive 099 Sierra Visata Drive 100

Whew! Glad that was over with! We reached pavement again and drove about another 30 miles to the 7,308’ summit at Cold Springs Summit.  But we were not done yet! We still had time, so we headed down to the Nelder Grove of Giant Sequoias.  ANOTHER 11 miles down ANOTHER narrow dirt, potholed road.  Are we gluttons for punishment!?    What’s that ranger’s badge number!?  We found the turnoff to the grove.  Two more miles of dirt road!  But not as bad as the other two dirt roads we were on.  The Sequoia grove turned out to be a bust.  We saw many Sequoias but not the giants that were advertised.  We reached a campground and information area and discovered we had to hike a mile into the woods to see the giants.  We were not up for the hike that late in the afternoon.  However, the picture of the tree stump indicates that it must have been a HUGE Sequoia.  The strange thing was the small 5th wheel RV Camp Host parked in the campground!  How on earth that thing got up there around the tight curves and around the trees is still a mystery to us!  Hello……nobody was home.  That was enough for us.  We headed back out, reached pavement and drove back to Oakhurst and on back to our RV. 

 

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Yes, we were disappointed that the drive had so few overlooks and took so long.  But you know,  that is why we are out here.  We explore, and no matter what we experience, it is all part of the adventure!   

We have taken many scenic drives that  are far above the drive we took yesterday.  We expected many more awesome views like some of the below that we found so wonderful and these are just a few scenic drives other than our views at the national parks.   Some of our favorites are: The Beartooth Mountains in Montana

beartooth pan 3To Billinings Mt Mountain Drive 071To Billinings Mt Mountain Drive 081

The Snowy Range in Wyoming

pan 2 Libby Lakepan 15 Lewis Lake edge of hikepan 13 Lake Marie 2

Mt. Evans in Denver

1 pan Evans4 pan EvansDenver Mt Evans Drive Buffalo Bill Museum 063

And so on…… I look forward to more great surprise beautiful drives this summer!

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