Yosemite National Park
California
Yosemite National Park was completely booked, so we grabbed a room in Lee Vining, near the northeast entrance, and entered through the legendary Tioga Pass—a ribbon of road slicing through alpine granite and sky. We stopped at the Tuolumne Meadows Visitor Center to ask about lodging. The ranger on duty—a tall, kind-eyed guy who could’ve been Luke Grimes’ twin from Yellowstone—told me they had open campsites that night and rooms available at Yosemite Valley Lodge the following day. Perfect.
We drove back to Lee Vining, planning to hop on Wi-Fi and book the Lodge, but just as we pulled in, the motel manager broke the news: a planned power outage would shut down the entire town at 5 p.m. No lights, no Wi-Fi, no check-ins. Surprise!
Sitting in the van’s glow of phone screens, we booked a Tuolumne Meadows campsite for that night and a Valley Lodge room for the next two. Then we turned Bessie around, climbed back up Tioga Pass, and set up camp in a light, persistent rain. I couldn’t even be mad. The smell of wet pine, the crackle of distant thunder—it was exactly the kind of experience that makes a park stay unforgettable. Sleeping inside the park changes everything: the sounds, the scent, the wildlife, the feeling of belonging to the landscape for a night.
By morning, the rain had cleared. We grabbed breakfast sandwiches and black coffee from the Tuolumne Meadows Grill, right across from the Yosemite Mountaineering School. As I sipped my coffee, my phone pinged—Half Dome lottery results. No luck.
“Well,” Alan said, “some things are still meant to stay out of reach.”
We spent the rest of the day exploring Yosemite’s high country, half shrouded in post-storm mist. We hiked Tuolumne Meadows to the Tunnel Tree, stopped at Tenaya Lake, Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias, Olmsted Point, and finally Bridalveil Fall, before descending into the valley to check in at Yosemite Valley Lodge.
Check-in took a while, but once settled, we picked up a quick bite at the cafeteria and we were walkable to Curry Village the next morning for the Mist Trail hike—a 7-hour trek up to Vernal and Nevada Falls, Alan set up base camp below while I pushed upward, exhilarated and sore all at once.
That night we toasted the climb at the Valley Lounge—margaritas, chili, and chips never tasted so good. By the next morning my legs were toast, so we took it easy, photographing the park’s icons: Glacier Point, Tunnel View, Sentinel Bridge, and the grand old Ahwahnee Lodge. Rain, waterfalls, and granite walls—it all felt elemental. Yosemite had made us work for it, but the payoff was pure magic.
