Lake Tahoe and Yosemite
 

Please help! I'm planning a trip for my husband's 60th birthday for late September and am concerned I might be trying to pack too much into a few days. We fly into Reno late morning on a Friday and plan to stay in Tahoe Firday and Saturday. I want to leave Tahoe Sunday morning and drive to the Yosemite Valley...I have reservations at the Yosemite Lodge Sunday and Monday. Planning to take a different route back around Lake Tahoe but stay in Reno Tuesday night since we fly home Wednesday morning. We're pretty active and love nature and the outdoors. I want to have time to enjoy the areas and stop in the little mining towns between Tahoe and Yosemite. Will we be spending too much time on the road? Please let me know if you think my plans are reasonable. Everyone always has such good advice. Thank you!

Your trip is reasonable, and you may be hitting mostly highlights. My preference would be leaving Tahoe, and going through Placerville and Hwy 49 down to the western entrance of Yosemite. Although Sunday traffic may be a little slow, you can make your stops and gage your time as you go along.

Leaving Yosemite via Tioga Pass to Lee Vining will take more or less than 2 hours depending on your stops. From there, you can stop at Mono Lake, Bodie is 13 miles each way off 395, and/or Virginia City, which you can pick up off Hwy 50 in Carson City and back to Reno. Your daylight hours will be less in September. Since you will be coming into Reno at rush hour, you may want to stay at the Atlantis, or Hilton instead of going into downtown. A straight drive from Lee Vining to Reno without stops is nearly 3 hours.

Hope this helps some. Enjoy.

I think your plans are totally doable. not too rushed.

mpf has given you a good routing - west from Tahoe on hwy 50 to 49 (or possibly down hwy 88 to 49 for more remote scenery and less traffic) and into Yosemite. Then out of Yosemite via Tioga Pass and 395.

Thank you for the feedback and suggestions. The route you outlined will work great for us. Thanks for reminding me about the rush hour traffic. September will be here in no time!

Here's an alternate route for your consideration. When leaving Tahoe for Yosemite, go south on CA 89 through Markleeville and then take CA 4 over Ebbetts Pass down to Angels Camp. If you leave early enough in the morning, you will have time to stop at the Calaveras Big Trees and in Murphys (which is one of my favorite Mother Lode towns) to do a little wine tasting.

Ebbetts Pas is scenic but is really curvy. If you ever get car sick driving on winding roads bear that in mind when you venture out on Ebbetts Pass.