Yosemite: Expectations vs reality

After some clearance worrying and road research we visited Yosemite National Park.

We woke up early at Walmart in Sonora, a little town an hour away from Yosemite National park. The day before we found the planned road to still be closed for the winter so we had to drive many miles north and around the highest passes. Before traveling towards Yosemite, we had to do some more planning just to make sure we did not encounter any low clearance tunnels or roads otherwise not fitting for our high and long RV. We had learned from a tunnel experience in Zion National Park.

Using google street view we found a tunnel with 10′ 2″ clearance which would be problematic for our 13′ 5″ high RV and naturally we got worried. After some phone calls to the park ranger, and more googeling we found that as long as we stayed away from the edges of the tunnel we should be fine – so we started driving towards the park.

As our RV climbed up the narrow roads we entered what we saw as skies down at the Walmart parking lot, at the time we where hoping we would pass the thick fog and get above when entering Yosemite, unfortunately this did not happen. At a vista point called Tunnel View we expected to see something like the image bellow.

 photo by D.H. Parks

But what we got to see was this veiw.

 

As we drove down the valley we came underneath the fog and at least we got to see the valley nature, river and some of the attractions such as Bridalveil Fall. On the way out of the valley we got to see El Capitan behind some fog.

As we drove down the valley we came underneath the fog and at least we got to see the valley nature, river and some of the attractions such as Bridalveil Fall. On the way out of the valley we got to see El Capitan behind some fog.

 

El Capitan behind loads of fog looks like this