2024 Pashnit Touring on a Hayabusa

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Half Dome in the background

Everywhere you look, these granite walls thousands of feet high

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One of my memores from the park was the dramatic temperature difference between the valley floor and the upper elevations.

My brother on the Dome, back when we had game...

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Priority parking for the bikers - we take over the place - so many bikes.

Our destination is the Ahwahnee Hotel - perfect stop for lunch. I've never stayed here, it's national park expensive - like $500 a night for a room in the hotel.

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The Ahwahnee Hotel was built in the 1920s, and looks exactly like it did in the 1920s, amazing place to wander through.

Vicki for scale with the giant fireplaces inside the Ahwahnee

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These giant windows look out at Half Dome

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Half Dome is right there

Mark & new rider (to us) Vicki

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There's a small deli here at the hotel where you can get your meal and sit out back and take in the view.

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But we're actually here for the Grand Dining Room. The Grand Dining Room is 130 feet long and 51 feet wide, with a 34-foot ceiling supported by rock columns. We were here one-year ago and it and was closed for renovation - pleased to see it all finished & opened back up.

Through the huge windows, you look out at the granite walls of the valley.

This is our lunch stop.

Just a very cool place. Nothing quite like it anywhere.

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Riding out of Yosemite Valley - the loop is one way counter-clockwise - if this were June, we'd stop at the waterfalls along the way. We used to do our tour to Yosemite during June every year and there are multiple waterfalls everywhere during those times of the season.

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If you can make it here in June...

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But the day is only half done and we're headed up and over the mountains for our afternoon ride.

Our only fuel stop in Yosemite is at Crane Flat.

Mark is a Triumph guy, but don't think he'll be riding a Rocket any time soon.

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Yeah, no, I'll stick with my Hayabusa.

Highway 120 - Tioga Pass continually climbs up to nearly 10,000 ft. It's the highest Sierra Nevada Mountain Pass.

Highway 120 Tioga Pass | California Motorcycle Roads | Pashnit.com

Ride Tioga Pass through Yosemite National Park

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Mandatory stop at Olmsted Point. It has the best view of the west side of Half Dome.

This turnout was named in honor of famed landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), and his son, Frederick, Jr., when Tioga Road was opened to automobile traffic in 1961. Olmsted Senior was considered the father of American landscape architecture, and best known for his design of New York's Central Park. He was chairman of the first commission to manage Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove, and wrote a report recommending policy for the care and protection of Yosemite's scenery and wildlife. It is considered a classic national park treatise.
Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (1870-1957) also worked in the field of landscape architecture. He collaborated with the National Park Service and was a member of the Yosemite Advisory Board, a group of experts who helped park managers solve problems. He maintained a lifelong commitment to conservation, contributing the guiding language in legislation establishing the National Park Service in 1916.

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Diorama

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New to us - pleasure to have Victoria & Viktoriia on this ride.

Blue haired Victoria is a professor at Loma Linda Medical University in SoCal - same place I spent a week in their Neurological ICU after I broke the inside of my brain. I expressed my thanks to her facility for taking care of me.

Vicki is training future docs about drug interactions. Victoriia is a motivational speaker. Both long-time riders.

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At 9945 ft, the east entrance is at the summit & at the highest spot along Highway 120.