Leaving the Yosemite valley we took the Tioga Pass road along the north side of the park. All of this area is still in the National Park, just not in the valley itself. That is half dome in the distance in this picture.

There were active forest fires here on our visit, some of them just a few meters away from the road so we were not allowed to stop on the western part of the road. Once we could stop at the overlooks again, the landscape was mostly large rocky dome mountains that were easy to explore.

This is Tenaya Lake, and that is Alaric, the only one of us willing to go in more than ankle deep. This lake is very cold, even in mid-summer. There are several access points though if you do want to go swimming.

You can't drive past all these domes without climbing one, right? This is pothole dome, just north of the road and the one we decided to climb. There's no particular route up, it's all open rock and you can pretty much wander anywhere you want.

From the top we had a lovely view of Tuolumne Meadows. These are high altitude meadows (around 8700 ft / 2600 m). There's also a lodge out there somewhere in the distance.

Also viewed from the top of Pothole Dome, this is the Cathedral Range, there are some very long hiking trails that come through this part of the park including the John Muir Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail just a little further east.