California 29th October, back along the Tioga Road for sunrise.

The campsite in Lee Vining was very comfortable compared to the National Park site we had had in Yosemite valley. The Park sites are normally very basic and all that is provided is drinking water, loos and means of disposal of any waste, so to get up in the morning and go to a room with showers, mirrors and warmth was lovely. We did drag ourselves away very promptly though and drove up the Lee Vining Grade in the dark to get sunrise around the head of the Tioga Pass. I have included a picture of the plaque on the top of the pass for information and so I don't have to type it all out. It was bitterly cold there and there was much stamping of feet and blowing of nails.
We were lucky that some small groves of aspens still had some leaves as the colour stood out so well in the gloaming.










When the light had finally come up we drove back to our picnic site of yesterday by Lembert Dome to get make some breakfast and coffee. As a luxury we had bought ourselves a cafetiére in San Francisco, which when the package was opened was found to have a small crack in it. This meant it leaked so had to be left on the ground to brew, one advantage of camping I suppose. We were reluctant to leave Yosemite and wanted to do one final hike, the Cathedral Lakes Trail which ascends through woodland up to the base of Cathedral Peak where there are 2 tarns lying under the open sky. The book said it was an 8 mile round trip with a 1000ft ascent so we though we should set off - to be continued next time!!





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