Day Three: Yosemite to Bishop

Mono Lake's Tofu

The group at our lookout spot just before lunch

The lake that we had lunch at

Rob setting up camp

Going on our bear hunt - the meadow

The sequoia tree tunnel

Today has been hard out awesome!! After an interesting night sleep - It was flippin freezing!! But I think we all slept more than we felt we had as we havent totally crashed today - we were all up around 6:30am. Honestly though it was so cold, I cant believe that during the California Gold Rush people slept in tents all year round, including winter with the snow. I can definitely understand how people who didnt have the right equipment died aye. After a quick breaky (cereal and bagels with a cup of tea of course) we went on a bear hunt. Anyone know the children’s story? “We’re going on a bear hunt, We’re going to find a big one, I’m not scared...” well that was running around in my head the entire time we were walking. It wasnt quite a bear hunt but there was a meadow about 5 minutes away which apparently is a great spot for bears and they are quite often sighted there. Its funny how all of a sudden every sound could be a bear and you take a double glance at some tree stumps. I dont know which was stronger, my desire to see a bear or my fear that they could be soo close! We didnt see any bears but did see some fresh bear excretion so they were definitely around. America has such beautiful meadows though aye, you walk out of a line of trees into a meadow that has absolutey no trees whatsoever - I so havent seen anything like it before. After stopping for water we piled into the van to head to a Sequoia Grove with heaps of huge Sequoia trees. They are impressively massive!! Like hard out crazily so. The walk around was pretty easy and the views impressive. We were able to actually walk, no crawl, through an old tree before climbing on top of it. Its crazy to think about how old these trees actually are; like the majority of them being over 1000 years old. There was a tunnel carved through one too which we got a group photo in which is awesome. By now it was pretty warm, warm enough for shorts and t-shirts but not burning hot. It was then back into the van to drive through Yosemite National Park on our way to Mono Lake. But before hand we stopped at a great lookout place; looking over a valley carved out by the glacier, then towards Half Dome. It was a 10 minute leg stretch and photo break before jumping back in the van to drive for about 10 mins to our lunch spot. It was such a gorgeous drive as we approached a lake from above and then dropped down to the shores to eat. Lunch was a pretty laxed out affair, had really good sandwhiches before going to the “beach” to take photos and play volleyball or lax out and sun-bathed. The drive down to Mono Lake was amazing, we dropped down from about 10’000 feet to just over 6’000 very quickly and had some beautiful views of lakes on the way down. Mono Lake itself is awesome!! It is fed by springs going down the mountain side bringing down heaps of minerals but as it has no outlet the only way water leaves is by evapouration. Because of this it has a really high mineral content, i think from memory 10%. The water itself feels different aye, i want to say slimy feeling but the general concensus is more of an oily feeling. There is heaps of birdlife around, being an oasis in the desert I guess thats to be expected but it still blew me away a bit. There are also these really awesome structures called Tofu, which are stalegmites, that grow up around the lake, giving it quite an enchanted feeling. We spent around about an hour there before conitnuing on towards Bishop. Its crazy how quickly the landscape changes, like from being in the Sierra Nevada’s to in a desert and then back to green landscape again. About half an hour before we arrived at Bishop we crossed over the San Andrais Fault Line.  After arriving at our campsite we quickly unloaded and then started to set up camp. I think everyone was hungry as Rob offered to put up my tent so I could start cooking dinner (my groups turn tonight). We cooked Chicken Alfredo with Pene pasta - which i was surprised at how good it turned out. Not half bad for just making it up as we went along and buying what looked like it could work at our half hour grocery stop. Dinner took a bit longer to cook than expected so strait afterwards we headed to a hot spring about 15mins away from the campsite. Thanks to Mike and his local knowledge!!! It was amazing!! Well everything but the weed that is. Which was absolutely disgusting!!!! Everyone figured it out pretty quickly that I wasnt a fan of the weed at all, like it kind of freaked me out. So to the guys delight Im pretty sure i offered them free entertainment. But it was awesome floating in warm water on your back, looking up at the Milky Way and occasionally a shooting star or two. Honestly absolutely amazing! Came back and had a shower to wash my hair and be nice and clean for the first time in two days! It cost a dollar for a 7 minute shower but honestly its the best dollar Ive spent since coming here haha. Well at least on the trip :). We’ve now just finished cooking smores and bananas with chocolate and marshmellows. Mike and some of our group have already crashed for the night which is a smart idea as we have a big day tomorrow going through the Death Valley...so im also going to sign off for the night.