If you are planning on visiting Yosemite National Park there are two different hubs to base your experience from. The most popular one is Yosemite Valley where the vast majority of visitors go. Shuttle buses scoot you around to the icons of the park, Half Dome, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls, etc. It is extremely busy with tourists and traffic moves very slowly in the busy summer season.
Tuolumne Meadows Camp
If you want to experience Yosemite as it was originally intended - go to the eastern side and base yourself out of Tuolumne Meadows. This is where the serious hikers base themselves. It is also the start of the hikes to the High Sierra Camps.
Campsite
The campsite has a beautiful creek running beside the 70 platform tents. The main lodge has a small store and dinning room where people could have a sit down meal. This site was also the last place where you could buy a beer or get any cell connection - for the next four days !! No devices on this adventure.
Tents
The tents were simply furnished. The pictures below will show you the basic layout. These tents would be our home for the next 4 nights. Most had a small wood stove to attest to the pretty darn cold nights ! After all we would be hiking in 8-10,000 feet of elevation. The cots and mattress’s felt like they were purchased from the US Army at the end of World War II. No complaining though - at least we were off the ground.
Tuolumne Meadows to Vogelsang Camp
There are many beautiful hiking trails that start from Tuolumne Meadows. Lots of day hikes but also the start for hiking the popular High Sierra Camps loop. We got an early start, had breakfast and finished packing - trying to keep our packs at 20-23 pounds including water. For the next four days every thing we needed other than food and cooking utensils - was in our packs.
The hike to Vogelsang is 7 miles long and involves 1,500ft of elevation climb. What a beautiful valley we started the hike from. But it wasn't long after we started the first serious climb, that my breathing became a bit more laboured.
The camp sites along the High Sierra Camps loop are supplied only by horse and mule trains Shortly after our start we had to step aside for one of these - probably taking supplies to Vogelsang. Supplies in and trash out.
Kathy and I have had opportunities to hike in some pretty spectacular locations. I’m going to say the beauty of our first day of hiking in Yosemite - matched any of the other places we have hiked. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.
Vogelsang Camp - elevation 10,130ft
Vogelsang (German for bird song) Camp is surrounded by beautiful mountain peaks - Fletcher Peak being the most impressive. There was a constant sound of rushing water as a small creek running out of Fletcher Lake made the setting all the more beautiful.
We lucked out because there was a National Park Ranger staying over and he gave two naturalist talks after dinner. His astronomy talk was held just outside of camp and it was as dark as it could be. He had a powerful laser pointer and kept us totally enthralled for over an hour. What an amazing first night out on our High Sierra Camp adventure. Off to the tent, it was going to get pretty darn cold tonight.
