Yosemite

where we camped for the second time, overheated the car and realised the vastness of an American National Park

Getting to Yosemite was an afternoon’s work. After the clamour of San Francisco we were looking forward to getting back to the quieter life of camping that we first got a taste of in the Redwoods. We navigated our way out of the city, again with no small thanks to Google Maps, and had just under a four hour drive ahead of us. We called in on a Whole Food’s shop on the way to stock up on camping supplies and a Premier Outlet to stock up on discount clothes.

As with last time, we had no site booked in advance. All the reservable sites where full for months according to the website but we were hopeful of grabbing a walk up spot just like we did in the Redwoods. Despite our trouble with San Fran accommodation we had no plan b for the night ahead as we headed for Yosemite. Foolhardy maybe but we had no option on this and decided to be as optimistic as we could about it. What we did have though was a place booked in Los Angeles for the following night which meant that we had no worries about that night, but also that we’d only be spending one night in Yosemite.

After a few hours of driving along some semi-unremarkable highways and through some burnt looking scenery, Google took us on an interesting short-cut.

Later on we found that this short-cut was well known by people heading to Yosemite but at the time it seemed like just another inconspicuous, little road through the hills. When the road started to turn uphill we didn’t think much of it but then the hill kept on going up and up and on and on. This road is called Old Priest Grade and has a 14% over 2.7km. This translates into a road that is very, very steep. Combine that with an outside temperature approaching 40 degrees celsius and you can see where problems may occur.

The car began to struggle about halfway up. It’s an automatic so no more should be needed than to put it in drive, press down on the accelerator pedal and steer it in the right direction. The changing noise of the engine to a slow drone was one sign that something was up. The speedo and rev counter both dropping was another and the real give away was the growing line of cars in the rear view mirror. With only very miserable opportunities to pull in on this narrow windy road we had to grit our teeth and keep on pushing up the hill, hoping that the top wasn’t far away. After what seemed like an age we finally reached the point where our narrow road rejoined the main road and leveled out for a short stretch. We pulled in out of the way of the other cars and let them pass by.

This is where things took a worse turn. As we sat watching the cars pass by, the engine coolant temperature gauge on the car dash shot up from its usual 90 degrees to 130 degrees celsius. Not good thing to see. With a groan we realised the air conditioning, though on low, had been turned on during the climb which while not the cause of the trouble certainly wouldn’t have helped. Seeing the temperature gauge shoot up, the engine was shut off immediately and we hopped out to lift the bonnet (hood in Americano) as steam began to rise from the engine. Things were not looking good but at least with the bonnet up some extra air was getting in to help cool things down and with the engine off things weren’t getting any higher. Then a thin streak of fluid was spotted running from the car down along the hot tarmac and stopping about 4 metres away. Uugghhh… not something you want to see from a newly purchased car.

Letting the engine cool seemed like the only sensible thing to do. Adding insult to injury we watched a handful of cars come up the same hill we had just come up with apparent ease, some far more loaded than ours. Was our car a dud or was our European-rated radiator just not able for the searing American temperatures.

While the panic built up, a phone call was made back to our mechanic/parent in Ireland to confer. An invaluable contact to have on your phone, especially for moments like this. Slowly but surely over the course of a (expensive) ten minute conversation it was decided that not all was lost. On inspection, it seemed the fluid had come from the expansion bottle rather than through a fried seal or gasket. Good news. Turning on the ignition without starting the engine showed the gauge still heading for 130 degrees celsius. Not good news. Over the phone, it was decided that an engine start up, which would run the water pump and radiator fans, might help dissipate the heat that was built up in the system.

Turning on the ignition, the temperature gauge shot up from zero to 130 degrees momentarily and then after an agonising moment settled back to it’s good position. Relief. With a slight incline still insight ahead of us and no clue of what followed after that we drove on tentatively. Thankfully all seemed good. (Googling this later showed up that it was not unusual for cars to over heat on Old Priest Grade, that air con was not our friend on steep hills and that we were probably very lucky not to have damaged the engine). It’s moments like this that make you realise just how dependent you are on a car and how much it’s taken for granted.

With the car driving fine we were certainly grateful for it just at that moment (and just as grateful to be able to call someone for good advice when the trouble hits in) After some more serious hills (but less serious than Priest Grade) we reached the highway 120 entrance to Yosemite at Big Oak Flats just after 4:30pm.

Arriving here we were hit with two things. One that there was a $30 entrance fee per car into the park (good for seven days) and secondly that many of the sites were already full up. The entrance fee we expected but the campsite availability had us worried. We paid the entrance fee. We also considered the option of getting the annual pass for $80 but decided against it because it didn’t suit our day-by-day planning. There’s a really good app-based guide to Yosemite that provides all the information needed for planning a trip there, including information on entrance fees.

Anyway, the ranger at the gate was helpful and gave us directions to the campsite that we were hoping to stay at, Hodgdon Meadow. She also told us that it was best to drive straight to our preferred campground and ask the host ranger on duty whether there were any free sites left. It seemed all very simple and though we were tired after the long day we drove on from the booth glad to be nearing our destination for the night.

Luckily Hodgdon Meadow is less than a five minute drive inside the gate so we drove on past the Information Centre and headed straight for the campground. Here we came across another booth and another ranger. We stopped, said our hellos and asked about the free sites. Surprisingly he responded to say that he didn’t know and that we should go back to the Information Centre and ask the ranger there. A little confused and a small bit irked we told him what the ranger at the park gate had told us. He shook his head and dismissed what she had said to us.

Sensing that we weren’t going to get much joy from this gentleman and under time pressure we just thanked him and turned the car around. Back at the Information Centre and we found that the had just closed up for the night. It was just gone 5. In the few minutes we had been running between rangers we’d missed our chance to speak to the one ranger that we needed to. Things weren’t looking good for our night of camping.

Over at another building, we spotted a volunteer ranger who was quite literally lowering the flag for the night. Map in hand we went over and asked if he knew what sites might still be available. He pointed out a few and then directed us over to a notice board showing the ranger’s last update before they’d clocked out.Hodgdon Meadow, which we’d just visited, was showing as being full so we picked one of the closer campgrounds that still showed availability and seemed like it could easily be driven to, Tamarack Flat. We were taking a chance that there would be space but that was our best option just then. As we had been speaking to the volunteer ranger another couple stood behind us, map in hand, waiting to ask the same things as us it seemed. Competition for sites seemed tough just then and we didn’t stand around to chat for long.

Miles and miles up a good road and then miles and miles down a single lane road through tree-filled hills was our route to Tamarack Flat. So empty of human activity was the scenery that we’d almost given hope on seeing a campground at all, never mind one with free space, and the further we got from civilisation the more concerned we grew that the car might pack it in. Also, our phone coverage had quit just about the same time we entered the park so the cavalry was not just a phone call away if something did happen. But then, that is the beauty of camping in the semi-wilderness (for maximum dramatic effect, try not to picture the perfectly smooth tarmac road we were driving on at the time…it was all very remote, apart from that).

Slowly the road started to level off (all looking good, the campsite was Tamarack FLAT after all and here we were coming to a flat-ish area) and then a little further along the way the trees began to open into a clearing and we spotted the first cars we’d seen for a while. Tamarack Flat was completely at odds with our first camp ground (apart from the tents, the cars, the campfires, the campers…you get the picture). To begin with, there was no booth with a waiting a host ranger waiting to receive us and our money. In fact there was no host anywhere by the looks of it. The paved road quit just outside the campground. The campsites were organised in no particular order, massively spread out and seemed to have little organised foliage in between. Within moments of driving into the campground it became clear that our experience in Redwood had been a less intense version of camping than what this night had in store for us and while this wasn’t exactly back country camping either it was a step in the right direction.

Not being overly familiar with the system of how to pay in such a campground, we found a few campers willing to give us a quick overview. This is how we as camping novices learnt how to use the envelope system. However, if there are no helpful campers on hand to explain such things, have no fear. Instead, read the very clear and obvious signs at the campground entrance. We realised this later… anyway, it’s nice to speak to people and they explained it well.

Around about this time, the other couple who we’d seen at the Information Centre drove in. They looked just about as thankful to find the place as we had felt when we drove in. They pulled up beside us and we explained how the envelope system worked. Our best guess was that they were French but their English was so perfect that their accents weren’t giving everything away. French-Canadian was another possibility, we hadn’t yet learnt to distinguish. After a chat, we rambled off to find the best spot we could. As it turned out, at least half of the sites in the campground seemed empty. After a little deliberation we picked a spot where we were a nice distance from the occupied sites, close enough to the toilet block and far enough away from the camp boundary to avoid any pesky bears. It cost $12 dollars to camp there and we stuck our cash in the envelop, filled in our details and threw the envelope it into the box.

Putting up the tent was easier the second time round and the mosquitoes were only at middling attack level. We covered ourselves in far too much Deet than would be considered healthy and pressed on with setting up. We still had some firewood left over from the last night of camping and we improved our stock even more by gathering some leftover firewood from the fire rigs at the vacant campsites around us. Tamarack Flat was where we finally saw what vaulted toilets were.

After a few decent attempts to find coverage to update those at home on the car situation we gave up and embraced the lack of connectivity. The fire was lit and the dinner put on. What a beautiful place to camp. It felt like we were completely cut off from civilisation with just our camp fire and the din of the other campers in the back ground for company. Darkness set in before we finished eating and bed came early at 10:30. With the other campers already turned in, the darkness of the night in Tamarack Flat was awesome. We’d read that there was a healthy population of bears and even some mountain lions around but we tried not to think about that as we headed for bed.

We woke up the next morning and after a quick check of our limbs we decided that no bears had visited during the night or if they had then we hadn’t smelled appealing. Either way, it was a win. (To be fair, instances of bears attacking people in their tents are extremely rare but we were new to all this). We started into the still not too familiar tasks of having coffee from water boiled on the Primus and packing up the camping gear. Before leaving, the car was pulled into a flat spot and the coolant was checked to see if all was good from the drama of the day before. The fluid was low but not dangerously so and the outside air temperature was at least that bit lower since early in the morning. We hit the road at 9.30 hoping to pick up some top-up coolant fluid along the way.

We drove up out of the flat that our campground was in and then eventually found ourselves driving back down into Yosemite valley, through a few short tunnels and then out in stunning scenery surrounding us the rest of the way. The roads around here are restricted to a certain speed but very few people seemed to be observing it and the roads were very busy.

Arriving in the Yosemite Valley itself is breathtaking. The roads are cleverly laid out in a one way loop system which cuts out some of the potential chaos you get when so many tourists and their digital cameras converge on one particular spot. When you drive down into the valley from the west you can see the imposing El Capitan to your left, most probably over the heads of the many tourists lining the side of the road. And just up ahead from that, off in the distance, is the unmistakeable form of Half Dome. We stopped at the pull ins along the way and took in as much as our heads would allow.

Though somewhat short on fuel and with no filling station showing on the park map, the thought did strike us that maybe we should give the valley loop a miss and head for the park exit. Luckily we saw this for the madness it was and headed further into the valley. How often would we get this chance.

Right down in the heart of the valley at Yosemite Valley Visitor Centre we found a garage that advertised coolant changes. Such luck. Here we were with a car in need of coolant and we’d found a garage that offered just that. After a quick chat with the guy at the service desk, a reluctant looking overall clad guy (reluctant to say mechanic here) was brought out to the car. After explaining the predicament of our slight boil out the day before and our current low level of fluid, the guy helpfully suggested that there was an underlying problem causing the problem. Hard to disagree with that and yet not what we needed just then. As it turned out they had no pink coolant in the shop. Never had been and they weren’t likely to get any. Pink coolant is what all European cars of a certain age have running through their cooling systems so to say that they didn’t have it stock was an indication that either they didn’t welcome non-American cars at the only garage in the village or this guy was not interested in helping. Either way, it was a discussion not worth having. As a poor alternative to the coolant we bought a bottle of distilled water in the shop just in case and determined to stop at the first parts place outside the park. Then we went back to site seeing.

The beautiful thing about Yosemite is that once you’re down in the valley, the amazing scenery is all around you and even all above you. Everywhere you look is like a picture perfect scene. If a pull-in stop is too full with tourists, move onto the next one, it’s likely to be just as nice. You really are spoilt in Yosemite. We would have happily spent days there and were already missing our campsite in Tamarack Flats as we drove around the valley. But, we had our night booked in LA and with no phone coverage we had no way of pushing it back a day. We soaked up what we could and then reminded ourselves that we were going to LA, which wasn’t all that bad of a situation after all.

Outside the park we stopped off in Oakhurst and went to O’Reilly Autoparts. The stock they carried was really impressive and the knowledge of their staff was too. We bought some pink coolant and some extra engine oil just in case and found room somehow in the back of the car to fit it all in around our camping gear and bags. The car had been tested hard in Yosemite and was driving fine. With the fluids topped up and everything feeling and sounding good we felt comfortable that the car had made it through the overheat without any serious side effects.

With Yosemite still on our minds, we drove out of Oakhurst and towards the bright lights of LA to shake off the dust and see what all the fuss was about in Tinseltown.

our next destination: Los Angeles ⇒