#157 El Portal Indian Flat RV park 3 nights

When we begin to plan the trip to Yosemite, we began to look for a place to RV camp.

Turns out that inside Yosemite itself it's very packed almost all year and it's almost impossible to get a site. There was maybe one site Yosemite, and it said a maximum of 35 feet and I told him I was 36 and he said go away. I guess I was just saying is it that big a deal were only talking one foot. He said rules are rules so go away. We looked elsewhere and I mean there isn't a whole lot of available anywhere near the Yosemite entrance. You'll find it it's just kind of all Forest out in the country nothing until you get to the first town called El Portal.

I kept on emailing and trying to contact them by phone and no matter what I did they would not respond.

I never could quite decide whether they were just busy or there was no vacancy. I wondered if they were just tired of saying no.

The name of the place was called Indian flat and it was about maybe a 30-to-40-minute drive to the Yosemite entrance and it's the last civilization you get to before the Yosemite entrance.

Looking back, I believe there was a resort maybe 15 minutes closer but that is absolutely it.

I didn't have a lot of options so I had made my mind up we were going to go and hope for the best.

At some point, I finally got a response and he said that although they didn't have anything this minute to just keep checking because sometimes there would be a cancellation. We headed up there with the hope that something might shake loose for us and I guess it did.

As I got closer, I called the guy and he says actually there's been a cancellation and I've got a spot for three nights. I said I’ll take it. Later I found is that there had been a big rock slide blocking the road so nobody really wanted to stay there. The blocked road changed the commute from 15 miles to 40 so some people canceled. They've been working on it for like a whole week.

About the time that we got settled, they had fixed the road like that day so it was about as perfect as it gets.

This story ended well and normally what I did would be pretty risky. I was happy it worked out so well.

The first day we drove the truck all the way to Yosemite and I stopped along the way at many of the lookouts that show the Merced River.

We also hit Yosemite at the most perfect time because it had been a ridiculous amount of precipitation over the winter and they had insane snowmelt. The water was coming down the Merced River like you would not believe. I've got quite a lot of pictures of that. It seemed like when the water hit the rocks it was flying 15 feet in the air. I had planned on doing a little kayaking through Yosemite Valley but it was so flooded and the water was so high they had to cancel kayaking on the river.

I had heard of Tioga Pass and thought at some point we should go see it. I found out it was a winding almost monotonous drive and in late spring, May there was still 8 ft tall of snow at Tioga Pass. It had been closed for quite a while may not open until July or August if at all. That's a bunch of snow.

Down in Yosemite Valley a week ago it was near 100 degrees as they were having a heatwave. Up at Tioga road at 10,000 feet, there is still 8 feet of snow on the road blocking Tioga Pass. All that snowmelt is creating great waterfalls this year. They have an entrance to the park from the south on Hwy 41 where you exit a long tunnel and emerge into the valley and this is called tunnel view.

it has Yosemite falls on the right and Half Dome and on the left is El Capitan.

We went to Yosemite Valley and it was a little bit crowded. We parked the truck and took to the tram around to do stuff.

We went to as many waterfalls as possible. Our first stop was bridal veil falls.

We hiked a lot and I took tons of pictures. We hung out for a while at Yosemite Falls.

It's just to be so pretty and then we ended up going to a ranger talk. The presentation was cool and we learned a lot about Yosemite that day.

It was a film about an hour or so and it was kind of an older film maybe 1970. It talked about how they used to do the nightly Yosemite Firefall. It would be pouring hot coals over the cliff and it would look like a waterfall of fire and although it was spectacular, they finally decided that in essence, it was extremely unnatural and probably pretty good for forest fires. After the film, I spoke to the ranger. I asked if she could suggest anywhere I could find an RV site. She was the nicest person in the world and mentioned that I could go just up north on top of the big hill above the valley. It's where the Tulum Meadows and Crane flat are. They don't have any RV parking necessarily but if I went another mile or so just outside the boundaries of the national park I would be in a national forest. The rules are in a national forest you can park anywhere you want to. After our days at El Portal, we would take her advice. We did and it was called Evergreen Road.

This decision would make our stay at Yosemite possible and an amazing experience.

Our site at El Portal was fine but it was no bigger than the RV. We didn't really care because it had a full hook-up and we were lucky to have found it.

As an electrician, I did notice one thing all that they were doing. They were giving everybody a 50 amp service and I looked at the wire feeding my site and it was a 12 gauge metal-clad cable. It's technically only good for 20 amps. I don’t know how they made it work. Maybe since it's underground if it gets too hot there’s nothing flammable but dirt. If it ain't on fire is big enough I guess.

On our second day, we chose to take the bus. We went down to the bottom of the hill about a mile to the fire station. Nearby at a parking lot, the bus came by every hour or so.

While we were on the way to the bus stop we rode by the really coolest display of an old train locomotive.

I had seen old style locomotives with a big crank arm that went all the way around the drive wheel and rotates as the piston moves in and out, I even have seen them sliding on the rails in movies. This particular engine had the coolest technology. It had more of a pinion gear that would just create ridiculous amount of torque to go up the steep grades in the Yosemite area.

These tanks would fill the steam boilers with water to go off and do more work.

Yosemite RR turnaround table

We would spend all day at Yosemite doing this and that. We went on a hike to mirror lake.

After the hike we went to a ranger led tour of the Majestic Hotel. It was opened for guests in 1927. The nightly cost is 550 to 900 per night. I don't think we can quite take all that. It really pretty and all but dang.

All the wood beams in and out were actually fake pre fab concrete. So many of the grand hotels of this era frequently burned and the didn't want to chance it. Even at close range i thought it was real wood.

This the view from the second floor balcony

This just seemed like such a cool Chandelier

We wrapped things up after a great day and caught the bus back to El Portal.

When I was in Texas I had worried that if I didn't get there in early spring, I would miss the amazing waterfalls. That was not the case. They had amazing snowmelt this year and it was just more water than they had seen in years so we hit the jackpot. it was quite a visit.

The year before we came by in the late autumn and oh my god when you go to Yosemite and every single waterfall has dried up it's kind of a total bummer.

The Mariposa Grove was closed and that’s kind of sad because it would have been gorgeous to have seen the Mariposa Giants but someday we will.

Indian Flat Campground RV Site Full Hookups reservations send e-mail to reservations@indianflatrvpark.com with the date of arrival and number of nights 9988 Highway 140, El Portal, CA 95318 Phone: 209-379-2339 Fax: 209-379-2275