Originally Posted by
Ridefreemc
My thinking is if it is a normal season I'll be right behind the melting snow and hope I don't see anything approaching hot (110 degrees sounds really hot). Of course you are from Tallahassee so you know what that feels like!
It will vary pretty widely each year but a July opening for Tioga Pass is not unusual. We started June 4th and still saw snow on the roadside that hadn't yet melted. There is probably a way to skip Tioga Pass if it isn't open, but I think it would require missing Tuolumne Meadows, which would be a shame. Just for calibration, I'll say that at the time I was a moderately fit 60 year old.
I do highly recommend the route to those up to the challenge. The scenery is pretty amazing.
The heat we experienced was probably unusual for that early in the season, but not unheard of.
This is one route that I do recommend carrying a water filter. There are a lot of cold mountain streams and cold water can be pretty great. There are also some very dry stretches and even one or more towns where there is no water available unless some kind local shares their bottled water. We would have been in bad shape if someone in Caliente had not given us 4 bottles.
BTW, I just moved to Tallahassee this year after living most of my life in Maryland.