24 Hours in Tuolumne Meadows
After doing a day hike in Tuolumne Meadows from Yosemite Valley last year, I decided to try to book a campsite in Tuolumne Meadows the following year.
I wish I had been able to book 2 nights here, but after my Iceland trip in April I completely forgot to get up early to book the released sites for August. By the time I realized my dire mistake a day later, only one Sunday night was available to book.
So, for my 24-ish hours in Tuolumne Meadows, I:
Set up camp and explored short hikes around the area and checked out the wilderness lodge, the grill and general store
Grilled hotdogs over a campfire and made popcorn
Had breakfast
Hiked through Yosemite Wilderness to Young Lakes
Bought cheeto fries and root beer for the drive home (as usual)
My thoughts about the campground:
They’re definitely more spacious than the ones at Upper Pines (or at least the site I got)
People are more quiet
You can’t book specific sites online — they assign you a site when you arrive, which is kind of cool not knowing what you’ll get
Mosquitoes galore, but that is to be expected. The Thermacell backpacker mosquito repellent helped though (but more on this in a later post)
Dinner
We just wanted something easy, so we had hot dogs.
We also bought a biodegradable (and reusable) cooler from Igloo for our food and drinks. Looks like a giant egg carton but it definitely held up well over the 2 days. Ice melted more quickly than a regular cooler but it did its job well for 7 bucks.
Getting the fire ready:
After dinner, I fell asleep in front of the fire for a bit and then woke up to do some obligatory night shots before I went to bed.
The next morning, B cooked breakfast while I admired the beauty around our campground:
Hiking to Young Lakes
We did this hike because of B’s coworker’s recommendation. It is about 10 miles round trip, 12 if you include the hike from the parking lot to the trailhead.
The first few miles were pretty brutal. Actually, the whole hike was pretty brutal to me. I typically like steeper portions of hikes if that means there are other parts of the hike with flat areas. This trail was a constant slight incline, with various portions that were more steep.
At least the trail wasn’t crowded — we only ran into a few backpackers on their way down.
It was also pretty picturesque:
At this point in time, I hadn’t gone on a backpacking trip yet this year, so these views were greatly welcomed:
Really love seeing these peaks with trees in the foreground:
6 painstakingly long miles later, we arrive at the lake:
I was too tired to take a dip, so as usual I settled for pictures instead.
Took a short nap at the lake before heading back down. Saw some skinny dippers who I believe didn’t realize we were sitting by the edge of the lake until they waded further out. They went back to shore pretty quickly after seeing us.
After making it back down, we loaded our car back up with all the food we stashed in the food lockers, and rewarded ourselves with a nice cold can of root beer, courtesy of our Igloo cooler :)
It was a long drive back home and I had work the next day, but as usual, all worth it.
Til next time, Tuolumne!
