Thursday 2 August 2018

For the first time since we are at Tuolumne Meadows, the smoke gets worse overnight. By morning we have irritated eyes and throats. We drive down to Lee Vining for cell reception to try to get enough information to decide what to do. The smoke driving down is almost as thick as it was at the grove of big trees a few days ago.

In Lee Vining we eat breakfast and then shower at the RV resort. As we are considering our options we meet several people whose paths we have crossed while out hiking. They are in a quandary as well. I mention that we may head for Tahoe, but one of them has already spoken to a friend there. Tahoe basin is filled with smoke from the Carr fire. I check air quality reports to our south. They are in the red zone. As we study the map of California our choice is suddenly obvious. We will head west, to the coast and Los Padres National Forest. We must get west of the fires to escape the smoke.

I soon realize that a little motel in Hollister which we have booked for one night later in the trip is on the way to Los Padres. I give them a call. There is one room left so I book it. Apparently things near the coast are hopping due to all of us Yosemite refugees. The only road open to get through the Sierra Nevada Mountains is Route 108, over Sonora Pass and through Stanislas National Forest. Tioga Road through Yosemite is now closed at the western end.

We drive back up to Tuolumne Meadows to strike camp. The haze is so thick we have to wear our masks. We work quickly and are soon heading north on 395, then west over the mountains. In a way, we are happy the fires have forced us to come by this route. The drive over the pass is spectacular with granite spires and walls rising high to either side of the road. As we come around one turn we see an ugly plume of grey-white smoke, its underside tinged with the orange of an active fire, rising from the ridge across from us. It is a frightening sight. There are fire trucks on the roadside, their occupants surveying the fire. (We later learn this is a “small” lightning-caused fire that is just being monitored.)

O and I keep driving. We do not want to risk finding ourselves on the wrong side of a road closure. Soon we drive down out of the mountains and the air becomes distinctly clearer and also more moist. We arrive in Hollister around 9 pm and spend the next hour and a half in our motel room trying to determine if there are open campsites anywhere. Just as we decide where to try to book a site, the Recreation.gov website goes down for maintenance. O and I give up and go to sleep.