Crossing the Mountains - Over the Sonora Pass

From Bodie, we crossed the Sierra Nevada mountains towards the more populated part of California. The original plan was to cross the Tioga pass into Yosemite but we were suprised to discover that it was still closed due to snow! We took the next pass north, detouring several hundred miles, and even then the Sonora pass only opened last week. There was still some 10 feet of snow at the top of the pass - although we realised this was not so suprising when the road climbed up over the 9,000 foot mark. We actually felt breathless at the altitude!