Living in NJ, my wife and I are only able to get out to Yosemite once (or, occasionally, twice) a year. We usually stay in Yosemite West which, for the lower part of the park, is very conveniently located, very comfortable and, by now, feels like home to us. We almost always go in May so rarely get to see much along the Tioga Road but there are more and more hikes up there that are calling to me. So, this year, we'll plan a trip the first week of September. We booked too late to get anything at TM Lodge and the "real" cabins at White Wolf were already taken (which, I suspect, is no surprise...I understand that I'm more likely to win big in the Megamillions lottery than to get a cabin at WW). At any rate, we were able to get a few nights booked in a WW Tent Cabin and I have a number of questions( it might be relevant for some of these questions to know that we'll only be doing day hikes):
1. What kind of night-time temperatures can we expect in September?
2. I've read that the Curry tent-cabins have electric heaters...is there any kind of heat in the WW tent-cabins?
3. We normally buy most of our food on the way in to the Park and keep it in the room. What sort of bear concerns should I consider here? Should we have bear cannisters in the room? For the car? Are we better off leaving food in the tent or in the car? Or just throw everything out every night and re-stock at WW every morning?
Similar question for the day-time while we're out hiking...what should we do with our food?
4. How about valuables? We're certainly not planning on bringing a selection of oil paintings to decorate the tent-cabin and most of the electronic stuff will be with us (either in the tent at night or with us during the day) all the time but has anybody had problems with stuff getting stolen from the tent cabins?
5. Between cell-phones, walkie-talkies and cameras, I'll need to be doing at least some recharging over the 3 or 4 days we'll be up there. Any suggestions? I have a car charger I can use for some (but not all) of these devices but has anybody had any luck with solar chargers or those "recharge from a battery" devices?
6. Hate to sound like one of those "scared of the wilderness" newbies but we're used to a certain kind of setup (i.e., a secure room with heat and electricity that can be used as home-base) and I just don't know what sort of preparations we should make for the new experience in "almost-outdoors" accomodations.
7. Finally, the three hikes we currently have in mind for the area are Tenaya Lake to Cloud's Rest, TM to Glen Aulin area (and maybe a bit beyond if we're feeling ambitious) and Tamarack Flat down a good stretch of the Old Big Oak Flat Road. If we can swing it time-wise, we're also thinking of WW to Aspen Valley. Does WW seem like a good base of operations or do you think we should look for last-minute cancellations at TM Lodge? I believe that TM only has tent-cabins (is that correct?) If so, would any of my WW Tent Cabin questions merit different answers at TM?
Thanks (as always),
David