Ok Fine, it's Winter in the High Country

We have been surfing the wave of winter, staying just ahead of the cold since we left Whitehorse in August. On the coast it felt like winter would never come, especially since we barely had any rain for the majority of our time in Oregon and California. Even as we headed inland we experienced some of the highest temperatures of the trip. And then it rained, snowing in the mountains just days before we reached Yosemite... We had hoped to ride Tioga Pass through Yosemite to highway 395 on the eastern side of the Sierras, mostly for the experience of self-propelling ourselves from the ocean to 9,945 ft, and after a week of sunny days we were hopeful the snow would have melted and we could still do the ride, even though the road was closed to cars - all the better really. So with more rain and snow in the long range forecast we set off out of Yosemite Valley, upwards. We reached the Tioga Road after 2 hours of inching up from the valley and ventured past the gate and onto the deserted road. We climbed through the trees along a mostly melted road until we had reached 7000 ft, feeling hopeful about the remaining ~100 km to Lee Vining with another 3000 ft of elevation gain. However, with the first major downhill through the trees we discovered that half a foot of unmelted snow and ice still lay on the road, making it virtually unridable. The realization that we might have to push our bikes for large portions of the high elevation ride was a sobering wake up call, so we sadly admitted defeat to winter in the high country. The consolation was almost 6000 ft of downhill from our high point at Tamarack Flats to our campsite on the Merced River at the end of the day.Read more