Easterners headed to Yosemite area this summer, help!

[86Scotty]

Sitting here in Whitney Portal CG just up the hill from Lone Pine Ca on the east side of the Sierras. Barely hanging onto a phone signal. Wow, I'm home. This place is beautiful.
Death Valley was 125 deg today and the van had a hard time pulling up the mountain on the west side over to Panamint area but so beautiful! We made it and are out of the hot desert for a few days.
Anyone want to recommend a great campground in Sequoia NP for tomorrow night?

Thx

[dig255]

I really like the Kennedy meadows area. It is south of there down 395 to Nine mile road. Then take Kennedy meadows RD to Sherman pass RD to Mountain hwy 99 or kern river hwy. Goes over a 9000 ft pass and a great view of Dome land then down to the Kern river. If you go south you go to Lake Isabella, if you go north you go towards Johnsondale, then to M50 Parker pass rd, then to the Great Western Divide rd 190 north is Sequoia National forest. The whole area is part of Sequoia.
DIG

[86Scotty]

Thx DIG. That was our 2nd choice if Whitney Portal was full. We're headed south towards there this morning.

[86Scotty]

DIG, we did just that. Quite beautiful! I sure wish I was in my old BMW on the Great Western Divide Hwy. Quite a nice collection of curves.
From there we went around to Sequoia Park south entrance and were able to work our way up to Lodgepole by dusk. Decent camping but not our favorite. That park was great but didn't hold a candle to King's Canyon, one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. We'll be back! You west coast folks sure have a lot of pretty places in your back yards. We stayed at Sheep Creek and just loved it down in the canyon. Just came out today and will finally explore Yosemite tomorrow and Monday. I hate that we'll be there on a weekend when crowds will be heavier, but still want to see it.
Thanks for all of the advice on Yosemite, we're hoping to finally use it to our advantage tomorrow.

[dig255]

[quote="86Scotty"]DIG, we did just that. Quite beautiful! I sure wish I was in my old BMW on the Great Western Divide Hwy. Quite a nice collection of curves.
/quote]
Like I said one of my favorite local riding areas.
Glad you liked.
DIG

[86Scotty]

Yosemite was great, but crowded as I was told. Still good, it didn't ruin it for us, we knew what we were in for. We went over the Tioga road and instead of spending a second night there fighting for a good camping spot, and the eastern side of Yosemite was better than the valley. Less crowded, and really beautiful around Toulumne Meadows. We started out across eastern Ca and Western Nv on Hwy 6. What an absolute blast of a highway! Absolutely desolate past Mono Lake but beautiful and curvy with lots of changing scenery. We worked our way over to Cathedral Gorge SP and never saw another human there the from 6 p.m. to the next day, not a ranger, not a host. It's a nice small campground if you are near I-15 north of Vegas and want someplace accessible but quiet.
We're over in Springdale Ut now playing around Zion for a couple of days.
I'll start adding some pics to this thread soon but it's too much data and too little time to do it on the go.
It looks like, as a few folks told me, we aren't going to have time to fit everything in. From here, we are headed towards Co. Springs (family) and then towards home. No time to play much in Canyonlands or Arches this trip. We'll have to start there next time.
We may get off I-70 and go through Moab/Montrose and then across Co into Co Springs though, I think we will have time for that.

[86Scotty]

Well, looks like we dodged a bullet as another forest fire broke out near Cedar City NV right after we left there. I didn't do it, honest!
Zion was beautiful as always, here's a lousy phone pic of us in front of checkerboard mesa

From there, we went up 89 and across 70 back to Colorado Springs. The fun money is running out and we were a little paranoid about getting caught up in the chaos of a forest fire, so we just headed on back instead of exploring more in Colorado.
We did decide to do one last night of camping in a quaint, beautiful little CG in Fishlake Nat'l Forest called Gooseberry. Isn't there a guy here whose handle is Gooseberry? I wonder............

Happy to report the old 5.4 climbed Vail and Loveland passes without incident, never seeing above 195 or so trans temp and 210 coolant temp, chugging along about 50 mph and 3100 rpm. I think I want a V10, no plans for a diesel unless it's donated.
We took lots of pictures of distant forest fires coming through Grand Junction yesterday, a spooky backdrop to beautiful country. I-70 through Colorado and Utah is one of the most beautiful stretches of interstate, if you've got to drive interstate, in the country.

[89srule]

Looks like you had a great trip. We are planning to visit some of the same sites as youin about 3 weeks. Thanks so much for all of the advice. Wish we had more time as wel, but isn't it always that way.

[86Scotty]

No problem, I hope it helps you. Just pm me if you'd like any more specific info, I stayed pretty general on most of this but if you ask soon while it's fresh on my mind, I can give you some more specific info.

Do remember that gas isn't as cheap out there as it is in the Southeast right now. It's 2.86 at my local station today, I was happy to pay 3.86 in some places I needed fuel out there, and that was for 85 octane!

over 6000 miles, I spent about $1500 in fuel for the trip.