Camping Yosemite

We left our very nice motel in Fresno, and set off for Yosemite National Park. It was very hot, about 100 F, and we hoped that it would be a bit cooler in Yosemite for our camping.  On the way, we made a stop at Walmart Wonder World to shop for food and supplies for our camping. We got a couple of air mattresses for me and H (after all, we are not teenagers anymore) – I was too stingy to get a pump, though, and these things can be easily inflated by mouth. 

It was quite a long drive to our campground in Yosemite, and we stopped to marvel at the view at “Tunnel view”, where you can see both El Capitan and Half dome on each side of the the Yosemite valley.

Tunnel View

We entered Yosemite valley, and had a look at the steep mountainside of El Capitan and the impressive waterfalls ejecting from the mountains high above the valley and turning into a mist on the way down to the valley floor. We then drove on to the Crane Flat campground, which turned out to be located about half an hours drive from Yosemite valley, and at a significantly higher altitude. The air temperature was in the pleasant 70s but the sun was very intense.

We went down on an evening tour to see the last sunshine of the day in the Valley

Setting up camp, we got a nasty surprise: The poles for one of the tents were missing in the bag! WTF? We immediately thought about using the car for sleeping - maybe our dear sons could sleep there if we folded the seats down? On the other hand, maybe we could build sort of a shelter using the canvas of the tent with the missing poles. I ended up using our suitcases in one end and a pole from our second tent in the other, to support the tent canvas. Lo and behold: we had a shelter! I was pretty proud of my invention. But M didn’t like it – he named it “The Abomination”. But with promises of letting him and Philip have a movie night in it, he agreed to sleep in it.

P and M in front of "The Abomination"

The second nasty surprise we got, was that the camping was “dry camping”, i.e. no showers. Estimating that we could only endure camping without bathing for two nights (keeping in mind also, that we only had one and a half tent), we decided to cancel the third night at the campground. 

We had fun making a campfire and cooking our food on it, but suddenly it got pitch black and even using flash lights and mobile phones, all practical things, like tidying up after the meal, became very cumbersome. The bear rules were very strict: you are not allowed to leave any food our anything scented (such as toiletries) in the car or in the tent. All items of that nature were to be stored in the bear safe boxes provided at each campsite.

First night. Setting up camp, cooking on the campfire and enjoying a good beer (very bitter though, as the name may suggest). These blasted air mattresses were not so easy to inflate by mouth, after all...

The good thing about camping is that you go to bed early and you get up early. And so we did.

Tent One and The Abomination in magical morning light

Very tall pine trees on the campground

Perfect breakfast

Next morning, I went to the booth at the entrance of the camp to cancel our third night. And what did I see? There in front of the booth somebody had left a small tent, neatly packed, in addition to other camping gear! It appeared to be Divine Intervention – it was exactly what we needed to replace our pole-less tent, a.k.a. The Abomination. I found the camp attendant doing his round on the campground and confirmed that indeed somebody had just left the stuff behind and it was up for grabs. I went back and scored not only the tent but also a pump for the air mattresses (phew) and a gas stove with gas and all. Very convenient. 

View of the Merced river on the way down from our campground "Crane Flat" to the Valley 

The Divine Intervention - the tent sent by providence

One of the spectacular waterfalls in Yosemite Valley