Wanted to see how things are Tuolumne for myself, so...
Took the 8:17 YARTS from Mammoth to TM yesterday...Observations (In no particular order):
Great driver - Roger, (and his first grade son - Justin) will handle most of this route this season...Say Hi...blow his mind!
Only 4 passengers...still $7 (senior price) one way. (cheaper than I could drive it!)
They were putting the canvas roof back up on on the store this morning...Was told finished by tomorrow. Ice machine is shakey but what else is new? Meadows are dry and very green.
TM main campground gate was still locked...nobody knew exact opening date...yet.
Stayed TM backpacker camp...water is turned on but the toilets are locked? Closest Porta Potty is at the stone building - camp reservation/ski hut parking lot.
Amazingly, some nice lady (with an official 2-way radio) came around this morning (woke me up) and asked to see my wilderness permit in order to stay in the TM backpack camp. I have never seen this - ever - probably stayed hundreds of nights there. There were maybe 20 other campers there too...no problems, looked clean too. No yellow self-pay envelopes in the box yet.
Lots of PCT coming through now.
Our employee tents behind the store and those at the lodge are ready...good thing too as we report for work (somebody has to set up the store) Monday at 8:00 AM. I'm moving up Saturday. Store slated to open July 12th-ish (13th?)...Lodge/shuttle bus/hiker bus slated for the 19th.
As we have no extra dedicated phone lines, there is no ATM at the store...Cash or Plastic work...we do not give out any cash. Same thing for selling fishing licenses too - no deicated phone lines, so no license sales up there.
The local TM (Olmsted - lodge) bus will be operational this year. I talked with Helen (our TM boss lady) and she did not know if they were charging a fee (she hoped not) or free as before...stay Aramark tuned.
I was going to go TM down to the Valley this morning (as it was a free YARTS day)...but met a few friends that just drove up, who told me it was a 4th of July chit-show down there. Some good news though - was told that Aramark is now operating 13 Valley shuttle buses this season...better than the 8 last year.
Stop by the store and say hi.
mark
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2019 05:07PM by markskor.
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