Motorcycle Ride Through Yosemite National Park

Back in October we were able to get away for a few days, so we decided to ride through Yosemite National Park. There’s no better way to experience a place than riding through it on your motorcycle. Before we left, we upgraded our communication system to the Sena 20s. They worked incredibly well. It was such a step up from our ChatterBox. We were able to talk back and forth seamlessly without feeling like we had to say, “Over,” when we were done speaking.

We left on a Thursday night and stopped off at F. McLintocks for dinner in Pismo Beach. The food was outstanding. It’s kinda pricey, though, so if you want to go try it out, be sure to bring a bag of cash.

We spent the night in Oakhurst. It was the weirdest campground I’d ever been to. It seemed so out of place. It served its purpose, but it really wasn’t a place you’d want to camp and hang out.

Motorcycle Ride Through Yosemite Begins

Friday morning we set out to ride through Yosemite.

We pulled over at the Tunnel View, which is on the east end of the Wawona Tunnel along the Wawona Road (Hwy 41). The view is incredible and totally worth dealing with the chaos of all the tour buses, cars and people. Once we were able to park and take in the view, all that noise went away. El Capitan and Half Dome in the background. You can see why John Muir went crazy over this place.

These kind folks dug my GoPro

We headed on down the road towards El Capitan.

We stopped to look at El Capitan, which is such an impressive site. Pictures just don’t do it justice. My husband spotted some rock climbers….can you see them?

We stayed there a while and watched some rock climbers climb up the face. We met a guy who had just finished climbing it the day before. It had taken him 4 days to do it. His hands were swollen and cut up, but he had the biggest smile on his face. Quite an accomplishment. He took this photo of my husband and I.

I really wish I would have taken one of him. When we parted he told us to be careful, and we all had a good laugh on that one. We think that climbing El Capitan calls for the “be careful” speech more than putting around on a motorcycle. How about sleeping suspended off the face of El Capitan a couple of thousand feet up?!

We rode a little further and pulled over to check out the view.

I could have stayed there longer.

A lot longer.

We continued on down the road.

We passed some tour buses – many, many tour buses.

We rode our motorcycles through some tunnels.

Stopped at some beautiful sites along the way.

Drove by Tenaya Lake, which is an absolutely beautiful lake.

Stopped for a photo op.

We continued down the road and had lunch in Lee Vining.

Motorcycles and a Bear in Mammoth

We had lunch when we got to the other side at Lee Vining. We decided to head down to Mammoth and stay the night there. We rode around and saw the Mammoth Lakes. I can’t believe I didn’t get any pictures of them though…..I guess I’ll have to go back. It was starting to get dark so we decided to get a room. The guy at the front desk warned us to not leave any food on our bikes because the bears had been breaking into cars there overnight. I had brought some trail mix with us, so I was sure to get it out of my pannier right away after we parked for the night. At around 3 a.m. I was awoken by a loud bang. I just wanted to go back to sleep, but figured I better look outside to see what it was, if anything. I opened the curtain and saw a bear on top of my bike (apparently the scent of trail mix lingered). I freaked! He was no more than 15-20ft from our window. I yelled to my husband to get up. I wanted to get a picture, but before I could get my camera, my husband had opened up the door and shouted at the bear to scare him off. It worked, but the damage was done. The bear knocked over my bike which knocked over my husbands bike. Damn domino effect. Why do we park like that?!

Luckily, there was a truck with its tailgate down next to my husband’s bike. His handlebars landed on the truck’s tailgate and stopped the bike from completely going over on its side, which would have caused a tremendous amount of damage to his pipes.

His throttle got jammed and he had a huge ding in his gas tank from my handlebars, but other than that his bike is fine.

My windshield broke and my right mirror broke off.

Somehow my gas tank lid popped open and all of my gas poured out while the bear was on top of it. If you look close, you can see the bear prints on the ground.

An even closer shot of the bear tracks.

We were really surprised that no one came out of there room when all the commotion was going on. It wasn’t until morning when they started coming by and asking us what had happened the night before.

Motorcycle Ride Around June Lake

We packed up our things and started to head back. We did the Mammoth loop where we had some deer cross our path. Got to watch out for those deer! Then we took the loop around June Lake.

Stopped for a selfie.

That was enough of that….time to hit the road again.

We continued to ride our motorcycles around the June Lake Loop

Found a clearing between the trees where you can get another good glimpse of June Lake.

Then we headed back up the Tioga Pass towards Yosemite.

We had a great ride back to our campsite. The weather was perfect that weekend.

Winky Eye

She’s a winky eye for now until I can get her fixed.

We met so many interesting people and had such a great time. And so it goes when you take a motorcycle trip. There really is no better way to travel. I absolutely loved Yosemite, and I would like to go back and spend more time there.