Routing My Yosemite Trip

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HappyHiker11
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Re: Routing My Yosemite Trip

Post by HappyHiker11 »

A question for alter on in the route...

After we camp near 1/2 Dome and Clouds Rest. The plan was to head N and end up past Sunrise Lakes or Cathedral Lakes.

If we were going to continue on to Cathedral Lakes and out. Is there a route that goes to the N of Sunrise Mountain through the little shoulder with Peak 10151 past the little unnamed lake? From the map, it seems like it would be easy to hop over the ridge and meet the trail down at the creek before it heads NE up past Columbia Finger.

And I'm assuming the quickest / best way down from Cathedral Lakes if we made it that far is just via the JMT out to the TH?

Otherwise if we pulled up shorter and stopped near Sunrise Lakes. I've got it noted we could do one last short and easy day to hop up to Mildred Lake and link up to drop down the Tenaya Peak trail to Tenaya Lake?
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Re: Routing My Yosemite Trip

Post by c9h13no3 »

HappyHiker11 wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:32 pm If we were going to continue on to Cathedral Lakes and out. Is there a route that goes to the N of Sunrise Mountain through the little shoulder with Peak 10151 past the little unnamed lake? From the map, it seems like it would be easy to hop over the ridge and meet the trail down at the creek before it heads NE up past Columbia Finger.
Certainly seems doable, I haven't done it. The terrain is pretty mild & rolling in that area. But we did have a lot of navigation issues finding our way out of the High Sierra camp :P. Stupid horse corrals everywhere. So maybe going cross country would be faster than poking around in the camp, looking for the right trail out #-o
HappyHiker11 wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:32 pmAnd I'm assuming the quickest / best way down from Cathedral Lakes if we made it that far is just via the JMT out to the TH?
Quickest route out to 120 from Lower Cathedral Lake is via the Medlicott Dome climber's trail. It's in really good shape and was easy to follow.
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Re: Routing My Yosemite Trip

Post by Dave_Ayers »

The section of high trail from Lyell Fork to Lewis Creek is very scenic. You might consider coming over from the JMT via Roper's SHR so as to include that section.

I've done the Gallison traverse. Doable, but quite steep side-hilling. +1 on WD's comments on Bernice being a gem. Likewise for Fletcher and Townsley.

Lewis Creek below the Florence Creek junction used to be very pretty. But a fire a few years back has made it less so. But I still prefer it to the Fletcher Creek trail.

Merced Lake is no big deal, there are many better places to see and/or swim. Avoid the area near the toilet due to odors. But X-country routes from ~Emeric/Babcock over to Echo can be problematic with ledges in places too short for 40 foot topos, but beyond class 2 ... so decent alternatives are not apparent to me.

The rill at the JMT/Cloud's Rest trail junction is spring fed and should be reliable. If you camp there, scout high for the best sites. Far better to camp there than LYV which is uninteresting. There is a little spring along the Half Dome spur trail too.

I'd prioritize Cloud's Rest over Half Dome by a sizable margin. However, the rill between Sunrise Lakes and the Cloud's Rest trail junction peters out late year and I've only found a couple of decent camp spots near there. There is a small tarn NE of there, but quality is not great. So you may want to carry water there, and maybe camp on the CR NE shoulder to catch the sunrise on top.

Sunrise Creek below CR is spring fed and reliable year round, but it does dry out higher up. After CR you may want to drop down via the Forsythe trail and catch the JMT heading towards Sunrise. Views along that section of the JMT are excellent. There is a spigot at the Sunrise camp, but it has a chlorine taste.

All the trails in that area are well marked and straight forward. Elevation gains are the only thing to slow you down on them.
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Re: Routing My Yosemite Trip

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c9h13no3 wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:40 pm Certainly seems doable, I haven't done it. The terrain is pretty mild & rolling in that area. But we did have a lot of navigation issues finding our way out of the High Sierra camp :P. Stupid horse corrals everywhere. So maybe going cross country would be faster than poking around in the camp, looking for the right trail out #-o
- HAhaha! I'll be sure to get my compass/map/gps out when entering the horse corrals if we head through there :-)
- Not sure if I'd try this or not, it just seemed like we could replace some trail miles with a little exploration of a shorter distance. But it doesn't always work out like that off-trail. So maybe just sticking to the route through there might be best unless it's worthwhile.
c9h13no3 wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:40 pm Quickest route out to 120 from Lower Cathedral Lake is via the Medlicott Dome climber's trail. It's in really good shape and was easy to follow.
- This is super interesting to me. I was looking at it on a map. Then had scratched the idea when I started searching on-line and it seemed like it was to a climbing route and I wasn't sure if it was a hiking trail past the climbs that we could get out on if we stayed at the lower lake. Sounds like it's a pretty straight forward trail walk out that we could rely on for a casual morning out to Tioga Road and our pick-up car then. Thanks!
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Re: Routing My Yosemite Trip

Post by c9h13no3 »

HappyHiker11 wrote: Wed Jul 17, 2019 10:39 am
c9h13no3 wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:40 pm Quickest route out to 120 from Lower Cathedral Lake is via the Medlicott Dome climber's trail. It's in really good shape and was easy to follow.
- This is super interesting to me. I was looking at it on a map. Then had scratched the idea when I started searching on-line and it seemed like it was to a climbing route and I wasn't sure if it was a hiking trail past the climbs that we could get out on if we stayed at the lower lake. Sounds like it's a pretty straight forward trail walk out that we could rely on for a casual morning out to Tioga Road and our pick-up car then. Thanks!
Yeah, it's a walking trail. It's maintained by climbing groups, has deadfall cut & everything.
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Re: Routing My Yosemite Trip

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Dave_Ayers wrote: Wed Jul 17, 2019 3:29 am The section of high trail from Lyell Fork to Lewis Creek is very scenic. You might consider coming over from the JMT via Roper's SHR so as to include that section.
- I've never read up on this as it always seemed out of my current scope to complete. The only references I'd seen I thought went around the Cathedrals to Tuolumne? I'm sure I could dig around a bit and find it. It could be interesting to consider. Again I'm not super familiar with the SHR and the Yosemite the trail names. Does this section you're referring to bring us into Yosemite via a different pass off-trail from Donahue and drop us along the Merced heading towards Washburn?
- Having never done the JMT (other then some around the Valley and along Whitney... this entry knocked off a section of that as well and to be honest. Was the easy start to the plan and getting into Yosemite.
Dave_Ayers wrote: Wed Jul 17, 2019 3:29 am I've done the Gallison traverse. Doable, but quite steep side-hilling. +1 on WD's comments on Bernice being a gem. Likewise for Fletcher and Townsley.
- Yeah, I think I'll skip that section. If we go through here I'm sure we'll make the call that day to either go across Parsons Plateau to Vogelsang Pass or dropping straight down to above Bernice. This bench has been a target of mine if I ever passed through here. A few years ago, I didn't really ever think I'd be planning something like this with approved permits :-)
Dave_Ayers wrote: Wed Jul 17, 2019 3:29 am Lewis Creek below the Florence Creek junction used to be very pretty. But a fire a few years back has made it less so. But I still prefer it to the Fletcher Creek trail.

Merced Lake is no big deal, there are many better places to see and/or swim. Avoid the area near the toilet due to odors. But X-country routes from ~Emeric/Babcock over to Echo can be problematic with ledges in places too short for 40 foot topos, but beyond class 2 ... so decent alternatives are not apparent to me.
- Thanks for the good intel on this section as well. It seems from what I'm picking up here that Emeric / Florence just adds some miles with no route advantage across that would be helpful to this trip.
Dave_Ayers wrote: Wed Jul 17, 2019 3:29 am The rill at the JMT/Cloud's Rest trail junction is spring fed and should be reliable. If you camp there, scout high for the best sites. Far better to camp there than LYV which is uninteresting. There is a little spring along the Half Dome spur trail too.

I'd prioritize Cloud's Rest over Half Dome by a sizable margin. However, the rill between Sunrise Lakes and the Cloud's Rest trail junction peters out late year and I've only found a couple of decent camp spots near there. There is a small tarn NE of there, but quality is not great. So you may want to carry water there, and maybe camp on the CR NE shoulder to catch the sunrise on top.

Sunrise Creek below CR is spring fed and reliable year round, but it does dry out higher up. After CR you may want to drop down via the Forsythe trail and catch the JMT heading towards Sunrise. Views along that section of the JMT are excellent. There is a spigot at the Sunrise camp, but it has a chlorine taste.

All the trails in that area are well marked and straight forward. Elevation gains are the only thing to slow you down on them.
- Thanks for the spring fed water source tips. I'm glad to know that we should be ok targeting the junctions there between CR and 1/2 Dome towards the end of August. I'll be sure to note to look high for our site :thumbsup:
- 1/2 Dome is only prioritized because of the permit issue for a 24 hr period. And because we wanted to leave and exit out over Clouds Rest if possible. We could trim the last section to Sunrise--->Cathedral Lakes and take an extra day if needed and maybe just exit out from Sunrise Lakes to gain both summits.
- If weather, time, or energy didn't allow to cross Clouds Rest I was planning to loop around the JMT to Forsythe trail and up to Sunrise Lakes. It seemed to add some extra miles to drop back down Forsythe if we can cross Clouds Rest. But if there's good camping and water near the top of that section, I'd be curious for tips. But it looks just like a steep descent all the way down to the JMT and where Sunrise Creek would be spring fed below CR on the map. And then we'd have to gain back everything we lost the next turn up the JMT.

- Also, I thought I had read that Sunrise HSC is not opening this year and that water spigot would be off? So it may not be as useful this year. But we'll see if we cross there. Hopefully we breeze right through coming from the lakes above.
http://highsierratopix.com/community/vi ... mp#p147886
"JMT (Happy Isles to Tuolumne): Bears have been very active along the JMT corridor. Please store food (and toiletries!) properly to... Sunrise HSC is not opening this year and there will be no potable water; plan to filter from the surrounding streams."
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Re: Routing My Yosemite Trip

Post by Dave_Ayers »

Search Google for "sierra high route kmz". The first one that pops up is CalTopo, you can click on that and see the route. The section I mentioned goes from the west end of 1000 Island Lake to Lake Catherine, Twin Island Lakes, and then follows the Lyell Fork down to the high trail.
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Re: Routing My Yosemite Trip

Post by wildhiker »

But the Sierra High Route from 1000 Island Lake over Blue Lake Pass is substantially more difficult, not to mention very lengthy and thus slow, cross-country than the short segments the OP has been looking at so far.
-Phil
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Re: Routing My Yosemite Trip

Post by HappyHiker11 »

Dave_Ayers wrote: Wed Jul 17, 2019 1:39 pm Search Google for "sierra high route kmz". The first one that pops up is CalTopo, you can click on that and see the route. The section I mentioned goes from the west end of 1000 Island Lake to Lake Catherine, Twin Island Lakes, and then follows the Lyell Fork down to the high trail.
- Thank you for the info, I took a look at the map and route.

- Definitely was thinking it looked like the below comment.
wildhiker wrote: Wed Jul 17, 2019 11:40 pm But the Sierra High Route from 1000 Island Lake over Blue Lake Pass is substantially more difficult, not to mention very lengthy and thus slow, cross-country than the short segments the OP has been looking at so far.
-Phil
- I'll probably save that for a more advanced x-country route finding trip. It looks like a wonderful way in or out to a S-E loop tour of Yosemite when I'm ready to step up to that level of route finding.
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Re: Routing My Yosemite Trip

Post by maiathebee »

HappyHiker11 wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 4:42 pm Would Bernice to 1/2 Dome base-camp be feasible for a day of hiking?
Totally reasonable so long as you stay on trail.
HappyHiker11 wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 4:42 pm I was just trying to account for slower off trail travel those 2 days. And it would make me sad to rush off the Gallison / Bernice area. But if it's needed to connect the distances in the time more comfortably it will have to be.
Good that you know this. I expect you'll be even slower than the slow you expect!
HappyHiker11 wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 4:42 pm Since you mentioned being aware of water sources drying up. I was thinking we should be ok up to Thousand Island Lake and through Rush Creek drainage. Do these areas go dry typically? We should still be ok to find spots somewhere when camping under Maclure and around Bernice. Then down Lewis Creek and Merced Lake should both be able to provide water access?

I expected that connector trail from Merced Lake to the JMT to be fairly dry all the way across and was aware it had burned. So load up before climbing up past Echo Creek from the Merced was my thought assuming the tiny lake/pond and creek mid-way across the ridge might be dry.
The tarn, if not dry, will be brackish and gross. It has a lot of grass growing in it. The stream is weak even in early season so will almost surely be dry. There is a little stream you cross (easy to miss it though as the bridge is unremarkable and you might not notice if distracted) about halfway up the little section of the Echo Creek trail that you'll take if you take the higher route there. I like both the higher trail and the Merced canyon trail through LYV. Canyon route is more interesting at peak snowmelt when Merced is raging. Higher route has views down the canyon that are nice, too. Even though the higher route has a burn section, so does the canyon route. Plus that section of burn in the canyon seems to go on forever and is hot as hell in the afternoon, especially in August. Also JMT from LYV up Sunrise is steep and you probably wont want that at the end of this long day. I suggest getting a very early start on that day. Hiking west is better views and photos in the morning anyway.
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