Let me first say the lodge is an awesome place it stay. It is maybe five minutes from the parks western entrance. The room was huge with two queen beds, a small kitchenette with microwave, two burners, and a small fridge. There was a small balcony looking out at the mountains where we could hear the river if not quite see it through the trees. The bathroom was huge. It's a great place to stay. That being said, the restaurant blows buckets. Not much to eat, over priced, and total "crap I got in high school at the dodgy cafeteria" quality. We ate there the night we arrived and that was out of shear desperation. We never went back. The lodge store is okay in a spot but they don't have much. As for other food options you can either 1) drive an hour down the mountain to a cute little town whose name I don't recall. There was a main street with several cute restaurants and a great looking coffee place that had live music playing when we passed by Saturday night. or 2) eat inside the park - which again has very limited options… I'll come back to that.
My life is generally an adventure. I like loose plans and the rest is just sorting it out as I go along. I drive a Prius (thankfully) so we arrived in El Portal on a single tank of gas but in need of filling up before venturing too far in any direction. Our first morning we left the lodge thinking we could grab breakfast and gas on the way into the park not realizing that the lodge was the last stop before entering the park. We did look at a map before hand and it looked like there was another stop in between but the map lied (or more likely I read it totally wrong). Thinking it would be fine, there had to be food and gas inside the park we just continued along. There were two main road options and we ventured left onto Hwy 120. Before long we found a gas station and filled up but the small market attached was closed. We continued on assuming we'd find food. Have I mentioned that I get totally hypoglycemic when I don't eat and subsequently incredibly crabby. We wanted to see Tenaya Lake and the Toulumne Meadows. Usually Tioga Road is closed from late October to mid-May/early-June but there hadn't been much snow so the road was still closed. We were able to drive all the way to Lembert Dome before we had to turn around because I was famished and starting to get quite pissy about the big cars that would come up behind me and ride my tail on the twisty roads. Tioga Road has some incredibly beautiful sights. It also has zero services open during the winter. NO gas. NO shops. NO food. Because the road isn't suppose to be open and passable. And it's nearly a two hour trek getting from the park entrance to Lembert Dome (well with lots of stopping to look at the sights and see the snow on the side of the road). I was super excited to see snow so there was a lot of stopping and squealing over that. Turns out the only places to get food in the winter are off Hwy 140(?) where the Yosemite Lodge and Visitor Center is.
After stopping to take photos of El Capitan (which is spectacular) our options were The Yosemite Lodge, The Ahwahnee, and Curry Village. We chose The Yosemite Lodge. Turns out that was not the way to go unless you want more over-priced high school cafeteria tasting food. We stopped at the cafeteria. The selection was crap. There was also a restaurant which may have been better but I'm not holding my breath. If you are going to the park and want to eat in the park eat at The Ahwahnee. The hotel is beautiful. The restaurant did not look huge so if you are visiting during peak seasons it probably requires a reservation. I cannot say with certainty that the food is better but it certainly looked a hundred percent better than our experience at the lodge. However, if you have small people with you the lodge is certainly less fussy and has lots of options that are a bit more kid friendly.
Food sorted we set off to get in one small hike before sunset. Our plan was to trek up to Vernal Falls. It took us a bit of time to get the path to the falls sorted and as we were headed in the right direction we passed a lovely older couple whom were quite concerned that we were headed to the falls. Turns out there wasn't enough time to make it up to the falls before dark. The man told us how to get to the bridge at the base of the falls where we'd be able to see it and be there and back before we were left in total darkness wandering around in the woods. We made it but only barely. I have asthma and I forget this fact because 95% of the time it doesn't bother me. I'm not so good with ascents, particularly in a rush. It's a bit of an uphill climb to Vernal falls. It took a number of stops to catch my breath and drink fluids but we made it.
After we checked out Sunday morning we headed back to Tioga Highway. I wanted to stop and see some frozen ponds around Toulumne Meadows and my friend wanted to climb Lembert Dome. Then we were driving all the way through the park and exiting through Tioga Pass so that we could make a stop at Mono Lake. The meadows are a huge plain of dry grass during the winter but living in Los Angeles I was excited by the little bits of snow and icy ponds formed by the side of the road. Lembert Dome is a HUGE rock with a fairly steep face. I'm not a climber so I opted for us to take the hike up that wound around the dome (a good 10x longer than just climbing up the face). We didn't get far before snow and ice made the trail difficult to pass (in trail runners) and difficult to follow. We ended in a clearing where the path to a lake was visible but the path up to the dome disappeared under the snow. Not keen on getting lost in the wilderness we turned around and headed back to the face of the dome. As we started to wind around the face of the dome a man in his 60s maybe and a 40-something woman started to trek straight up the front of the face and they made it all the way up to the top. I was not as adventurous or as sure footed. We wound around and about halfway up before I stopped to enjoy the view and did not have enough confidence to continue up and risk falling off the side of a bloody dome in Yosemite. The view was spectacular though.
Our next stop was in Mono Lake which I had wanted to see since I took a geology field lab as an undergrad way back in 2001. It was everything I'd hoped it would be and more. I would have loved to have spent a bit more time driving around the lake and exploring different views but we had a long drive home and it was already late. The town of Lee Vining is surreal and something reminiscent of a horror film. I'd love to shoot something there one day. There were a ton of great sights to see along the way back down the mountain but we had zero time. Stopping for dinner also proved tricky. The towns are few and far between and have very few food options. By the time we got back to LA it was late and we were exhausted but totally blissed out. While it is a bit cold in mid-November and not much is open in the park it was a great time to go because it also wasn't crowded and everything was easy to see if you had time to see it and it was accessible.
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