Sonora/Tioga Pass Ride

[taosports]

The road to Yosemite



I heard that Tioga Pass, an east-west cross Sierra route through northern Yosemite National Park had finally opened this weekend after a long winter closure - just the excuse I needed for a fun day ride. And what a ride it was...422 miles roundtrip from my home in the San Francisco bay area in perfect riding weather.

Rather than an out and back trip on the same road, I decided to ride up Sonora Pass, just north of Tioga Pass and drop down the eastern side of the Sierras to Highway 395. From there, I went south to Mono Lake and then west up Tioga Pass Road into Yosemite.

Weather was perfect for riding in summer gear. The central valley was in the low 90's but even though there was snow on the passes, I never needed to pull out more layers.

Since I was limited by time (this was a day trip), I didn't shoot as many photos as I would have liked, but here are a few I hope you'll enjoy.

Sonora Pass rises to an elevation of 9,524 feet and the road to the top is full of fun twisty curves that many years ago was traveled by wagon trains.


At the summit, the snow was still thick along the road, this tree bent over from the heavy winter snowfall.


I dropped down to the eastern side to mostly flat and straight Highway 395, dodging bugs at 75mph. Splat!


Even tried a self portrait pointing the camera at my mirror.


A view of Mono Lake, just beyond it to the right is the road up Tioga Pass.


Mono Lake covers about 65 square miles and is over 1 million years old -- one of the oldest lakes in North America. The Mono Lake State Reserve was established to preserve the spectacular "tufa towers," calcium-carbonate spires and knobs formed by interaction of freshwater springs and alkaline lake water.


Mono Lake is home to the second largest California Gull rookery in North America (Great Salt Lake is the largest). This California gull was comical to watch, running along the shoreline with beak open catching as many alkali flies as it could.


From Mono Lake, I took a right hand turn and headed for the Sierras again for my return trip up Tioga Pass and through Yosemite.


Snow and ice still cover most of Tenaya Lake, located in Yosemite at 8,150 feet.


View from Olmsted Point - surrounded by dome-shaped granite rock. Through a weathering process called exfoliation, the granite peels away layer by layer like an onion. The granite was formed and compressed beneath an older mountain range of softer stone which gradually eroded, leaving the granite domes. Note : This is upper Yosemite, not the crowded Yosemite Valley that most tourists visit.


Another view from Olmsted Point. Makes you glad you weren’t around when these boulders landed.


This hardy tree, a Jeffery pine I think was able to find enough soil and nutrients in a crack in the granite to survive.


As I was taking a break before leaving the park, I heard voices coming from above me. If you look closely, you can make out three climbers on this granite wall.


Hope you enjoyed the photos!

Michael

[Grissom]

Beautiful Pictures

[z_bassman]

Very nice.

[Eifelrider]

Really nice pics, keep them coming!

[DavidO]

Thanks for the great pics and inspirational commentary. That's a loop I aspire to make one day soon.

[Helmetdance]

Yosemite has to be the beautiful place on Earth and those shots are stunning!

[Fastfar]

Great pics, and what a wonderful ride it is...
I made the opening day of Tioga too! I was riding sweep with a Pashnit Tour and we took the same route from Sonora over Sonora Pass and Tioga Pass and back to Sonora for the nite for us, only around 300 miles with some detours for twisties and Bodie...

[Loki]

That was a nice report of your ride. The photos you took were great. I really liked the one of the seagull

[1FastF4i]

Originally Posted by taosports

[b]

Fantastic photo!

[taosports]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments!

Originally Posted by Fast_Far

Great pics, and what a wonderful ride it is...
I made the opening day of Tioga too! I was riding sweep with a Pashnit Tour and we took the same route from Sonora over Sonora Pass and Tioga Pass and back to Sonora for the nite for us, only around 300 miles with some detours for twisties and Bodie...

John : I was actually looking for you guys as I know Kevin who was on the ride. Think you all were in Bodie when I was in the area so that's how we missed connecting. I see from your other post that Kevin had a little flat