After a relaxing stay at Katja and Lukas's home, we booked a rental car for eleven days and headed South. Since we had advanced so well in the first three weeks of our biking tour, we decided to take the chance and see the Mojave Desert, Death Valley and Yosemite National Parks.
We started our roadtrip on the very first rainy day of our entire trip so far. We thought, we had mastered this situation quite elegantly... and comfortably spent the day driving southwards in our cosy Hyundai Accent into the Mojave Desert. The next day, weather was sunny again and we visited the airplane graveyard at Mojave airport and the boron mine of the Borax company. Its museum was very well featured and it was impressive to see the sheer size of the mine and what machinery was needed gaining these borates. Continuing our drive towards Death Valley, we passed a few ghost towns with remainings from the mining and gold rush period. Time seemed to have stopped in these small towns and it was apparently today a "gold mine" for aficionados looking for antiquities. However, it faintly made the impression to us that the antiquities sold in these locations looked very similar to what can be found in our grandparents' attics... Anyhow, we reminded ourselves that "historic" has a totally different connotation in the US than it has in Europe!
Before reaching the gates of Death Valley National Park in Panamint Springs, we visited the Pinnacles in Trona, made of tuff. The desert showed its entire beauty with a whole range of sandy colors while simultaneously raining, winding and showing sunshine. The seemingly unlimited vastness of this landscape was striking.
In Death Valley we were lucky to still see many wild flowers in blossom. Being there in spring meant to "only" have temperatures around 30 °C. We concentrated our sight seeing tours to sunrise and sunset time while resting during midday. It also proved to be the right strategy for taking pictures: the light was perfect during these hours. We hiked Zabriskie Point, Grover Gulch and Golden Canyon in the morning, drove to Badwater Point and Devil's Golfe Course at sunset and enjoyed one day hiking to Telescope Peak to see the highest peak of the Sierra Nevada (Mount Whitney at 4421 m) and the lowest point of the lower 48 states (Badwater salt pan at -86 m) at the same time. The contrasts demonstrated by nature in this region left us awestruck: for our hike to Telescope Peak we had left our tent in the morning at sea level (30 °C, sand and stone desert) and had lunch at 3368 m (3 °C) where we saw the last snow patches! We also learnt another lesson: signage about road conditions is to be taken more as a suggestion than enforcement…
On the road towards the second part of our roadtrip - Yosemite National Park - we visited the History Museum in Laws/Bishop, before heading for the region around Mamooth Lake/Mono Lake. Since the passes over the Sierra Nevada were mostly still closed due to snow, we had to make a detour through Nevada (Lake Tahoe region). This resulted in a long day of driving and a freezing cold night in the tent, but we made it to “Camp 4” at Yosemite Valley to get one of the last campsites for the weekend.
What we didn't know before heading for Yosemite: the park celebrated the 100-year jubilee of US state parks with free entries for the weekend! All campgrounds were fully booked and for the walk-in campground “Camp 4” - where no reservations were possible - dozens of college students have been driving here for the weekend (we met people from as far as San Diego who drove the entire night to arrive at 4 a.m. in the morning to queue for a site!). So we counted ourselves among the lucky ones and enjoyed two days in the valley, walking on the beautifully laid trails. Although the park nearly burst of visitors, the trails were deserted because everyone seemed to be driving to the major sights by car. Philipp also hiked up to Glacier Point and took pictures of Half Dome and Co. at sunset.
On our way back to Palo Alto we took the famous Route 49 - the gold miner's route - and profited of some pleasant summer days at different lakes.
After 2'500 km (!!!) of car travel and more than 1 kg of gummy bears eaten, we are looking forward to cycle to San Francisco tomorrow where we will spend the rest of the week.
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Blog Archive
September 2016
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Hours on the bike
Meters cycled uphill
Flat tires
Burgers eaten
Bears sighted
Day by day statisticsFor those interested in our day by day activities and statistics, please download the following document.
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