Vegas to Death Valley to Yosemite to Tahoe

[cruisincari]

My husband and I are planning a trip through CA in September. The first leg of our trip will be to rent a car in Vegas and drive to Lone Pine to spend the night and explore Death Valley. The next day we plan to drive to Lee Vining, stay the night, and explore Yosemite. After Yosemite, drive to Tahoe to stay a couple nights before heading to Sacremento and beginning our journey down the coast. From LA we will drive back to Vegas. Does anyone see any problems with this plan? Particularly the Vegas-Death Valley-Yosemite-Tahoe leg?

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

There is a pretty big obstacle in the way of your plan: The sierra nevada mountains.

The majority of Yosemite National Park, particularly the Yosemite Valley, is located on the west side of the sierras, which means that Lee Vining really is not a good location to use as a base to tour the park. Tioga Pass is a great scenic drive, but its too far and too slow to use to commute for daytrips into the park.

I think you'll find that it makes more sense to go to Tahoe first, then head back down and across the mountains to Yosemite. From there, you could head straight over to the coast around Monterey, or go to San Francisco and start south from there. In either case, you could Sacramento unless its a priority for you.