Daily Didactic
Morning started in the extraordinarily busy Northern Pines Campground. It really is fascinating how many folks the parks service can pack into this valley. The sun was out and so was everyone else who had been hunkered down in the weather. We had initially planned on a laundry/showers/day hike kind of day in the valley. After one last Deg Muffin (and finding out showers were five dollars and laundry was probably a very competitive operation) we instead decided to motor on out of the valley toward our next objective, Devils Postpile out of Mammoth Lakes a little to the southeast. Devils Postpile looks to be a miniature version of Devils Tower that we saw in 2004. Originally, we were going to do an overnight backpack near it, but clearly the snow in the mountains will hold that for another trip.

We stopped at the meadow across from El Capitan to watch a few climbers for a bit, then wound back down to Crane Flats and then East over Tioga Pass. If you haven't driven it, Tioga Pass should go on your to-do list. The 10,000 foot pass is absolutely beautiful and must have prompted a couple dozen, "oh that's pretty"s from both of us. We had originally intended to camp up here instead of in the valley, but campgrounds are still closed on both valley rims. We'll be back later in the summer at some point. The Toulome Meadows area was particularly scenic and we made the quick hike to the top of Lembert Dome for a meadows vista. Eventually we climbed back in the bus to finish the summit climb and then dropped down into the very cute town of Lee Vining and stopped at the Mono Lake visitors center for some learning.

About 30 miles down the road in Mammoth Lakes we found the sign in the last picture below. We laughed out loud, found the perfect "Burgers Restaurant", and finally settled on Mammoth Mountian RV Park for an evening of "accommodations productivity". Not a backpacking trip near a national monument, but it'll do for now...

The bus in the ridiculously busy Northern Pines Campground		Just another beautiful meadow view, they have a ton of them around here
...and a ton of people		The road out of the valley
A short stop in another meadow...		...to watch these folks
El Capitan, there are some folks toward the top but you can't see them		The awesome park road toward Crane Flats
All of the granite here is in layers and, we kid you not, is exfoliating		The amazing view from Olmstead Point and, yep, one last shot of Half Dome
Looking east towards Tioga Pass and Toulome Meadows		Just spectacular
A quick hike to the top of a dome		Artsy tree shot
Brian, not realizing Theresa has stopped		Looking across Toulome Meadows
Theresa, calm as a cucumber		Little rocks on a granite slab
Brian eating		Curvaceous tree
Trees meeting		Snow on the pass
It almost made 10,000 feet, it felt like it did		Looking back up on the road down to Lee Vining
We're learning. Slowly, but we're learning

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