Roll Call - Group Ride Yosemite National Park, Saturday 09/28/13

[nvgixxer]

Well heck, count me in! Haven't been to Yosemite in decades! Let's hope the weather is accommodating next Saturday! 

[288RR]

Right on Jimbo.  It will be great riding with you again.

[nvgixxer]

Right on Daniel! Should be a fun ride! And guess what kids? Weather gonna suck mid week, BUT Saturday calling for clear skies and 81 degrees in the Reno area!
Ohhhh wow, we have to be soooo careful this week. Shhhhh.......listen..........can ya hear it, that distant rumble? Lock your wife up and hide your dogs, keep 'em out of sight, Street Vibrations will be in full swing mid week and through the weekend. Thousands upon thousands of those obnoxiously loud, oil leaking, vibratin' hunks of iron will be converging upon our towns! YIKES!!
GM? This ride is a long one, plans for an early start? Post up lad, don't be shy!   

[RenoRider75]

That sounds like a fun time!  The ride is long, but the hiking at the park would be awesome.  I'm supposed to take my kids to an event with their grandma out at Rye Patch, but there is a small chance I might be able to join the ride instead...  It would be my farthest ride so far, though at ~80mph it may only be a couple of hours.  I've ridden out past Buck's Lake to Oroville and back, not sure how long this ride is compared to that exactly.

Every night this week there is something going on...  argh.  I wish there were more months in the summer for riding!

[288RR]

Well I hope you can join us Eric.  It will a great time for all.  I've rode 395 many of times,  from leevining to reno a ton of times, it's not to bad of a trip,  just not many turns

[GreenMachine]

I'm just enjoying reading your posts.  Why mess with what isn't broken.

In case the AM temps are too cold or something otherwise prevents us from taking in the Yosemite ride, I've devised an alternative.  Monitor, Ebbetts Pass, Arnold and hiking their Redwood park right off hwy 4.  Still an awesome ride and park.  It's just not mighty Yosemite.

288's right.  I-395 is mostly straight.  Walker Canyon has some 35 MPH corners, but they usually get clogged with cagers, so more of an obstacle than an opportunity.  The whole ride offers little in the way of Yuba style corners.  Park speed limits are quite low, 35 - 45 max, which is why even at 10 over, it takes two hours to get from Lee Vining to Curry Village.   At a steady 70 MPH, it takes two hours from Reno to Lee Vining, that's four hours to and from.  Sunrise to sunset is right at 12 hours.  So that only gives us four or five hours in the park, then we have to return. 

On our return, I'd like to make Gardnerville by 7:00 PM, dusk.  It's about an hour from Reno, which means if we turn the clock back three hours from that, we'll need to be fueled and rolling out of Yosemite by no later 4:00 PM.  The reason being deer at dusk.  Roll the clock froward from a dawn departure of ~7:00 AM, that puts us at Curry Village at 11:00 AM.  Maybe a stop or two for pics on the east side of the park, but quick; snap, absorb and go.  Eating and on/off gearing, puts us in the noon ballpark for all other activities.

Plus we have to expect the unexpected crash or breakdown/flat or something, so come prepared with some food and water, just in case.  I have a tire repair kit and a pump/CO2 cartridges for small stuff, but a breakdown will mean jetting back to Reno for my truck/ramp.  Can you imagine running as far as Yosemite twice in one a 24 hour period?  So keep survival in the back of your mind if you get stuck in bear/mountain lion country.  I won't actually.  If I'm eaten, too bad for me.  I should have come prepared. 

So depending on who wants to do what and how we're geared for the conditions, we can either hike once or twice or if heavily geared, mostly ride and short walks to various sites and lookouts for photo ops.  I'm hoping the recent precipitation will reactivate some of the falls.  A little water is better than none.  I'm game for whatever you guys decide.

[lhyx]

Im a newbie. How far is the ride? How many hours one way?
Getting informations first thanks.

[288RR]

Your looking around 4 to 5 hours and that would just be th trip down.

[288RR]

I'm  pretty much ready for the ride, I'm just waiting on my new registration sticker to show up.  I'm still game for ride to Yosemite, due to I'll be heading to bishop afterwards.  But if you all would like a change, then it's ok with me,  but I would prefer the Yosemite.  And leaving early doesn't matter to me either.  Heck. We could even try to leave reno at 6:30. And leave Carson just after 7.   But what ever time everyone else would like to leave.

As far as 395.  It's hit and miss with LEO's. Some days there out in force and other days you won't even see one.  I do know they like to hang out in walker  and at benchmark flat,  which is right after the Sonora pass turn off.   But with us hitting it first thing in the morning they shouldn't give us any problems.

[GreenMachine]

288, we can start whenever you think you want to get started.  It'll be chilly for a fair portion of that morning ride. 

Hard to think about riding that far when the weather is like it was today.  Jimbo promises it'll warm up though.  Let's hope.

I think it's awesome you guys are going, BTW!

[288RR]

Ok sounds good to me.  I'm still hoping on my registration  will show up so I can still go. 

[GreenMachine]

Bad news. 

Looking at the forecast for Lee Vining, which is thousands of feet lower than Tioga Pass, they are expecting rain & snow showers Thursday, then clearing into the weekend.  If we get a late start and leave after 7:00 AM, we'll be there around 9:00 AM.  That means well leave ~38° Reno, headed for Lee Vining, where the temperature on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for 9:00 AM should be  ~33° from a low of 25°.  Combine cold temps with the almost certain possibility of runoff from Thursday's storm and you can guarantee ice formation wherever conditions will allow it.  I always figure on the worst, so something along the lines of some downhill shady corner will have frost or ice.  I'm not leading any group of friends into that.  That also takes my Ebbetts Pass alternate out of the equation.  It won't be any better there.  I can't see it being any better there.

Looking at a South Lake Tahoe attempt, only looks mildly better, but still near freezing temps in the AM hours.   Hwy 50 will be much more traveled and probably dry and clear by Saturday morning.  It might work if we ride late enough in the morning.  If we make it to the west side of Echo Summit on hwy 50, I think temps will begin to rise fairly quickly, but it may take several hours of bone chilling riding to get to that goal.  And if we do, I feel confident the rest of the day will be wonderful.

Thoughts? 

[nvgixxer]

Bad news. 

Looking at the forecast for Lee Vining, which is thousands of feet lower than Tioga Pass, they are expecting rain & snow showers Thursday, then clearing into the weekend.  If we get a late start and leave after 7:00 AM, we'll be there around 9:00 AM.  That means well leave ~38° Reno, headed for Lee Vining, where the temperature on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for 9:00 AM should be  ~33° from a low of 25°.  Combine cold temps with the almost certain possibility of runoff from Thursday's storm and you can guarantee ice formation wherever conditions will allow it.  I always figure on the worst, so something along the lines of some downhill shady corner will have frost or ice.  I'm not leading any group of friends into that.  That also takes my Ebbetts Pass alternate out of the equation.  It won't be any better there.  I can't see it being any better there.

Looking at a South Lake Tahoe attempt, only looks mildly better, but still near freezing temps in the AM hours.   Hwy 50 will be much more traveled and probably dry and clear by Saturday morning.  It might work if we ride late enough in the morning.  If we make it to the west side of Echo Summit on hwy 50, I think temps will begin to rise fairly quickly, but it may take several hours of bone chilling riding to get to that goal.  And if we do, I feel confident the rest of the day will be wonderful.

Thoughts? 

You're correct GM, a Yosemite ride due to weather conditions seems to be out of the question at this time, IMO. Anyway, here is a thought for you, since hwy 50 should be more or less clear, how about a *ICR/WWS run? Should be warm over that way and no ice patches. (*Ice House Road / Wentworth Springs, east of Placerville.)

[GreenMachine]

You think?  I'm thinking with how chilly it has become and with the cold road surfaces that if I do ride this weekend, it's going to be a late start ride.  I really got spoiled with a lot of the warm weather rides we had this year.  Seems only like a week has gone by from the last time I was sweating it up.  Now it's beyond too cold for morning rides.   It's at times like this when you see how boring I can ride.  More about the destination than getting to the destination.

The weather is threatening to mellow out next week.  Who knows.  Some of the guys wanted to ride VC this week.  I could probably do some of that next week, except for Sunday.  I already have plans for that day.

That's about as committal I as can be.

[GreenMachine]

Ok sounds good to me.  I'm still hoping on my registration  will show up so I can still go. 

Are you still committed to riding south of Mammoth this weekend?