Leon Turnbull Photography

My planned hike was a very difficult one mostly all off trail and over 4000 ft. elevation gain. I had no room to spare and only two nights available because I had to get back home for a few important things (one of which was my anniversary – not much wiggle room for that one). However, it took much longer to reach Laurel Lake than anticipated. I did not think I’d be able to make up any of that time on the rest of the hike (from Laurel Lake it gets harder not easier).

The further I descended down into the canyon the more I realized I would not make my intended destination to the big waterfalls. I would be hard pressed to make it to the first of the waterfalls. I really needed two more days for this hike than I had planned but I did not have any more days. The canyon is absolutely stunning. It reminded me of West Cherry Canyon but it is much more difficult. There is quite a bit of brush to negotiate with some (but less of) the fantastic open granite spaces yet still the canyon walls are incredible all around you.

I came to a place where I could not continue. At least not very easily. By this point I was incredibly tired, it was getting late, and there were still three more hours before I would even reach the first of the waterfalls. Even if I could make it that far it seemed pointless to continue because I could not make it where I really wanted to anyway. As I said I needed a couple more days which I did not have. I decided to retreat.

I came to this small waterfall on Eleanor Creek and found a place to camp. It was actually an incredibly pretty little waterfall about 20 ft. high and definitely a worthy one. I call it Far Upper Eleanor Creek Falls. I enjoyed my camp here with the tiny lizards. They were about 2 inches long and scampered about, jumping behind the rocks when I came too close to them. They were hilarious.

I don’t ever sleep in but sometimes I would like to. I was up at 6AM. Sigh. I packed up, had my breakfast and coffee, and started my journey back home. I still had a long way to hike back to the car. It took 9 hours to get this far and I anticipated the same back.

If you know exactly where to go that does save some time and I got back to Laurel Lake an hour ahead of schedule. From there it would be all on trail and mostly downhill. I would not go back down the Frog Creek canyon. I was done with all the off trail anguish for this trip. That means I would have to cross Frog Creek at a different place. The creek was flowing “somewhat” gently at the crossing but it was deep and I realized that this crossing would probably be up to my waist level. All my electronics hang around at about waist level so I took off my pack and moved them all up to a higher safer place. The creek was very cold but only up to my mid thigh. (that is pretty darn deep though).

It is 8 miles from Laurel Lake back to my car. The last 4 miles from Miguel Meadow to Lake Eleanor are along a very old overgrown road (now a trail). The section along this old road I found to be very interesting and there were also tons of butterflies. Back at Lake Eleanor I found the trail crew still there. Two days later and they still had not started doing any trail work. Maybe they weren’t actually a trail crew after all. They were all hanging out in a circle and blindfolded. I walked right past them and they did not even see me. Is this some kind of training for being a trail crew? or maybe fire fighting? or maybe none of the above? I don’t know. All I know is that the Cottonwood Creek trail at Hetch Hetchy still desperately needs to be cleared. I got back to my car and drove to Pizza Factory in Groveland (of course). It was another beautiful and amazing trip to Yosemite National Park.

 

 

2 Comments

I left work a bit early on Wednesday afternoon and took off. Back to Yosemite again! I picked up my permit and drove straight to the Lake Eleanor trailhead. It was 6:30pm. My plan was to hike in 3 miles to Frog Creek and camp for my first night. The next day the fun would begin (I hoped).

Surprisingly there were quite a few cars at the trailhead. I was not expecting to see anyone here in the middle of the week. I have been here a few times before and never seen anyone at all.

There were also a large number of cars on the other side of the dam and a whole bunch of people sitting around a campfire. It seemed they were a trail crew getting ready to start out to work the next day. But were they? (come back for part 2)

I passed them by and continued on my journey to Frog Creek arriving just after sunset. I walked straight to the creek to look at it. The weather has been extremely warm and the river flows have jumped up significantly. The Tuolumne River had tripled in flow up to 1670 cfs on 5/19 (and 1780 cfs on 5/20). One last gasp of snow melt before the summer starts. I was 80% sure that Frog Creek would not be crossable and my trip would be a bust (though I did have a Plan B). I took a look at the creek and well … it was flowing strong but it did seem crossable. I think I was going to be ok for my next day after all.

I backtracked to find a place to setup my tent. There was another couple camping here. They had all their stuff spread out and had pretty much taken up three places to camp. I suppose they were not expecting anyone else to show up but still … Anyhow I found a good spot. By now it was dark so I setup my tent and went into bed. In case you are wondering, yes there are frogs here at Frog Creek. I think they were more around the lake than at the creek but I’m sure there were some along the creek as well. I fell asleep to the sound of them again. My wife says she knows what frogs talk about to each other all night long: they talk mostly about what “bugs” them. Sigh.

I got up early, packed up, and quietly walked past the sleeping couple to the creek crossing. It was up to my knees and cold but otherwise not too bad.

You may wonder what I was doing crossing Frog Creek here. There is no trail on the other side of it. My plan was to climb up the Frog Creek canyon all the way to Laurel Lake (and beyond). I have done this before but just to the lower Frog Creek Falls. There is a middle and upper falls as well (the middle falls is pictured here). Frankly, I don’t know how I missed this one before because it is immediately above the lower falls and is a heckuva lot nicer than the lower falls (it is about 40 ft. high).  There was a lot of mist so it was difficult to photograph but I was able to get some shots. I had my breakfast here before continuing up the canyon to the upper falls and then all the way up to Laurel Lake. It took a long time to get to Laurel Lake and I arrived about 2.5 hours later than I had planned. This was not a good thing at all.

Part 2 is coming …

 

 

 

No Comments

This is Far Lower Piute Creek Falls, where I camped on my second last night.

My final day! I had to make it back to Hetch Hetchy by about 4:30pm because the gate closes at 5pm. I needed to allow 8 hours for the hike. So my brilliant math calculation told me that 4:30pm minus 8 hours is 6:30am. This the math of a madman. Doh! I’m an idiot. I was up early anyway (I always am) but I could have at least allowed time to have some coffee in the morning.

Anyhow I made very good time through the horrible brushy section and arrived at Smith Meadows in 3 hours. (it took 4 hours on the way up). From here it was 3 hours back to the car. I had forgotten about the horrible brushy section just past Smith Meadows. I guess I had blocked it out of my mind. Well that section took a bit of time to negotiate but finally made it past all the brushiness and then I was home free. All down hill back to the car and on a decent trail. I arrived back at 1PM.

I drove straight to Pizza Factory in Groveland. My usual after backpacking place to stop.

So as for the trip I did not see too much wildlife: just one deer, one big lizard, and two harmless rubber boa snakes. I saw a lot of fresh bear tracks and scat but never did see any of them which was disappointing.

I saw 13 waterfalls including 11 new ones. What does that bring my Yosemite total to? I have now seen 86 out of 161 Yosemite waterfalls or 53%. Hmph. Still a long way to go but I do have some more Yosemite trips I hope to make this spring. All in all it was a 6 day fabulous backpacking trip into the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River.

2 Comments

In the morning I woke and began to climb up into Piute Canyon in search of more waterfalls. I wasn’t expecting to get far and indeed I did not. However, I did make it to Lower Piute Creek Falls which is a marvelous tiered waterfall consisting of a couple sweet 30 ft. drops (only one tier is shown in this photo but I took many photos). I was actually really happy to make it to this lower falls. There is a bigger waterfall further up canyon but there was absolutely no way to continue. It was just too cliffy and much too brushy. I returned back to camp and ate breakfast.

It was still early in the morning so I decided to pack up and head out, up up and away, out of the canyon. I would be going home one day early but I had seen everything I wanted to or could see and there was nothing else. Let’s go home!

I had 3500 ft. to climb out of the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne plus the additional 500 ft. up to Lower Piute Creek Falls that I made in the morning for a whopping 4000 ft. of elevation gain for the day. I would be doing most of the 3500 ft. in the heat of the afternoon. It was going to be a doozy. Nonetheless I felt good for the entire climb. My pack was a bit lighter now though probably still 37 or 38 pounds. It was only when I reached the top that I finally reached my limit and I was close to bonking. I do not think I could have climbed any more elevation if I had to. The last mile or so to Harden Lake was nice and flat. I found the same campsite that I had for the first night of the trip. The frogs were still there (and loud). The mosquitoes made their first appearance of the trip in the evening so I ended up going into my tent before the sunset. Also I saw human. There were a couple guys camped at Harden Lake on the other side of the lake. These are the only people I saw for the entire trip (6 days).  This is world famous Yosemite National Park and I saw absolutely no one until now. When I was at Waterwheel Falls there was literally no other human within 30 miles. When I spoke to them in the morning they said they were not planning to go down to the river. Their trip route did not seem to be an especially interesting one with not to mention far too much bushwhacking involved. To each his own I guess. Well I sure had an awesome trip. And tomorrow there would be pizza.

 

2 Comments

My night at Waterwheel Falls was my coldest night of the trip. It did not get down to freezing like it did at Harden Lake (though it was probably a bit under 40 degrees) but it felt much colder probably due to all the mist from the waterfall. Once I put on all my layers I was quite warm in my sleeping bag so it is definitely a very good thing that I brought my extra clothes. Of all the gear I brought with me in my 46 pound bag the only thing I did not need were my spikes and a second can of fuel and my rain gear. (it never did rain on my trip though it was in the forecast). All in all I think I packed very well.

One of the major waterfalls I wanted to see on this trip was Cathedral Creek Falls, a monster 350 ft. tiered waterfall dropping straight into the Tuolumne River. It is 3 miles downstream from Waterwheel Falls so I needed to get up early and hike back down the trail as quickly as possible in order to make it there in good lighting. I arrived at the falls at 8AM. Cathedral Creek Falls was definitely one of the highlights from my trip, an absolute beauty. You cannot see the upper tier from the river side so the photo shown here only shows the lower tier dropping into the river (I did take a photo of the upper tier also).

After photographing Cathedral Creek Falls I could finally relax and I made my breakfast with coffee here enjoying the sight of the waterfall in the warm sun before continuing on my journey. Of course I still had to make it back across Register Creek.

I got back to Register Creek at around noon, right on schedule. The creek may have been a bit higher than the day before but it was not noticeable and I safely made the crossing. I suspect that one day later the creek would have been significantly higher. The river flow jumped up from 980 to 1080 cfs on 5/3 (and continued to rise even higher on the days following). Whether it would still be crossable or not I don’t know but I am glad I planned my trip the way I did. Safety first.

My destination for this day was Piute Canyon, a very interesting side trip from the Tuolumne River with questionable access. Who ever said the most beautiful things are easy to reach? The trail is seldom used but it is not hard to follow at first. Until you reach a massive swamp. The trail seemed to go straight through the swamp. It was deep and ugly. I did not (and could not) hike through it. I tried to find a way up through the brush around it and with great difficulty I did. Now on the other side of the brush I could continue on the trail easily again. Until I came to the section where I needed to go off trail and down to my camp along Piute Creek. This part was extremely brushy and difficult. I do not remember it looking so brushy on Google Earth. Indeed it was supposed to be nice and open. Well I made it down to the creek and I was happy to find a nice camping location right beside a gorgeous 50 ft. cascade (this was a nice bonus waterfall on my trip). Piute Canyon is a very beautiful and seldom seen canyon in Yosemite and I had a very lovely evening.

 

 

2 Comments