The next morning, we headed toward the park. Instead of going directly there, we stopped at the Mono Lake Tufas.
Dave has driven by these for decades as well but had never stopped. This lake is big as it covers about 65 square miles. It is unusual because it has all these wild tufas sticking up out of the water. They form when fresh water springs flow into the lake from below. The tufas are made of calcium-carbonate.
From the official website for the Tufa Reserve is a description:
"It is an ancient lake, over 1 million years old -- one of the oldest lakes in North America. It has no outlet. Throughout its long existence, salts and minerals have washed into the lake from Eastern Sierra streams. Freshwater evaporating from the lake each year has left the salts and minerals behind so that the lake is now about 2 1/2 times as salty and 80 times as alkaline as the ocean.”
Pretty cool. One thing that was wild was the flies. There were zillions of them. I’d look down and see a black strip on the sand only to find they were flies. One step and they’d fly away making a loud sound. Happily they didn’t bother people – they were interested in feeding on the ground.
Our next stop was the Regular Route on Fairview Dome in Tuolumne Meadows. The Regular Route is composed of around 1,000 feet of classic thin cracks and corners on a beautiful granite dome.
The top of this route sits at about 10,000 feet in elevation. The climb was quite fun though the whipping wind made for some *real* hair raising moments.
We topped out on the dome to find an oddly attractive group of cairns. Very pretty for sure. We took some summit shots. Inspired to look like a cairn, we struck some poses. The wind was blasting so hard it was actually difficult to keep our balance in these poses.
We hiked off the top of the dome, hopped in the car and drove into the Valley to our final destination - Yellow Pines.
Our purpose for going to Yosemite on this trip was to participate in the annual Yosemite Facelift. During this event, climbers (and others) come from all over the world to pick up trash in the park. While the park doesn’t appear dirty, there is trash everywhere. Fields of toilet paper flowers abound. (Contrary to popular belief, toilet paper doesn’t disintegrate when it rains). See that bank in the road up there? Just off that turn are many poopy diapers that have been hucked from cars. And for some reason, many smokers don’t think their cigarette butts are trash. They are! Nasty. Aside from this “normal” trash lots of other unusual trash can be found. Last year, I found a 32” television, someone else found a car. Yes, a car. There is concrete, metal, thermos, beer bottles, rebar, wire, magnets, wallets, beer cans, backpacks, etc. Last year, the load of trash collected off of Half Dome was so immense that a helicopter had to be used to remove it.
This would be Dave’s first time and my second time at the Facelift. For some photos and verbiage about my trip last year, see my trip report on supertopo:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=458965
For those volunteering at the facelift, free camping in the Valley is provided. This is no small treat since it would have cost us about 200$ to get similar camping in the Valley. Yellow Pines campground may be the most ideally located campground there. One can walk to many climbs as well as easily hop on the shuttle bus and get to any Valley destination. Dave was psyched that the campground was as nice as it was. We were the first to arrive so we got to enjoy amazing quietness there. The quietness would not last.
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