Mosquito school is over. Summer is here. The mosquitoes are ready to lay waste to the Sierra Nevada and from what I had heard, they were already having a party. A bloody party.
I hate mosquitoes! This is why I never go backpacking in the summer. But this is the year of the record snow pack, is it not? Maybe I could get one last backpacking trip in before the party got too ugly. The weather forecast looked very promising at the beginning of the week. Delta breeze. Cool temperatures. However, by the end of the week all that was gone. The heat was back. No wind. The mosquitoes were revving up for the weekend. Should I even go? I decided to continue my plan in hopes that they would not be too bad at the location I had chosen. I mean, how bad could it really be?
I started my hike at Kennedy Meadows at 7:30am. There were no mosquitoes. In fact, it was an absolutely beautiful, perfect day. My hike would be 17 miles with 3600 ft. elevation gain. Say that again, slowly. I knew there would be snow over the pass so I had brought my spikes. I did not think I would need them but it was a possibility. Better safe than sorry. The pass is called Mosquito Pass. I did not even know it was named this because it is not labeled on my map but a couple people mentioned it to me. It is probably a bad omen that it is named Mosquito Pass. There were no mosquitoes but there was quite a bit of snow. This makes the trekking very slow and tiring, as you know. By the time I got to Emigrant Lake I was dead tired. I still had to hike to the end of the lake, another 2.5 miles. The mosquitoes made their first appearance of the day as well.
I arrived at my camp below Emigrant Lake at 5PM. I totally overdid it on this day. I was so tired. Almost bonked. I thought that camping alongside the roaring creek below the waterfall would keep the mosquitoes away. It did not. There were a horrendous amount of buggers here. They would not leave me alone even as I was photographing down beside the waterfall. They were not really biting me because I had doused myself in bug spray but they were very annoying nonetheless. Argh. I hate mosquitoes! Also, I stupidly forgot my pan at home so I could not even cook my dinner. How did I manage to do such an idiotic thing? Well, I was so overtired that I was not even hungry so it was not a big deal on this first day. I just ate some trail mix for dinner and went to bed. It would be a much bigger problem for the second day, however. I would definitely need to eat something more substantial than trail mix.
Emigrant Lake Falls is 59 ft. high. It is a stunning cascade and a lot bigger than I expected. I got some nice colorful light above the falls as well. It is an awesome place to camp below this incredible waterfall but I could not enjoy it too much. I took my photos and went to bed.
The photo is the upper 63 ft. section of Upper Wester Park Falls.
I woke up very early. My plan was to hopefully hike all the way back to the car on this day. It was about 16 miles and 3600 ft. elevation gain. I could have done it. Except for the snow.
I did much better keeping to the trail proper on the big climb out of the Mokelumne River canyon (2600 of the 3600 ft.). There were a few places where it is horribly overgrown and I lost the trail but I wasn’t completely frustrated. Only partially frustrated. I got up to Munson Meadow only a little bit behind schedule. I thought I was doing pretty well thus far.
Munson Meadow killed me. As I mentioned before the trail is mostly non-existent. There was also a lot of snow which just makes it very difficult to follow the trail and also very difficult to hike on. This section took a very long time. When I got back to Cole Creek Lake I was now two hours behind schedule and very tired. It was noon and it was still 6 hours from here back to the car.
I ate my lunch on some rocks beside the creek. I was resting, eating, and minding my own business. All of a sudden a coyote came bounding by, no more than 7 feet from me. Then it was gone. It was a big guy (or gal). Not ugly. Beautiful. I had no time to get out my camera. I am sure it did not see me until after it had passed by, otherwise it would not have come so close. It was a very cool experience.
After lunch I continued on. I arrived at Bear River late in the day. It was another four miles to my car but I had no energy to continue. I was far too tired. Hiking in the snow just took too much out of me so I decided to camp here. One big reason why I wanted to go all the way was because of mosquitoes. I figured they would be horrible here at the Bear River. It is the same elevation as at Cole Creek Lake and Munson Meadow and there were quite a few there. However, there were zero mosquitoes at Bear River where I camped. I actually had a very pleasant evening camping here. It was cold and there was even frost on the ground in the morning. Perhaps that is why there were no buggers. Whatever the case, it was an enjoyable camping spot.
In the morning I was up early as usual. I can never sleep in, even if I try to. I ate my breakfast and hiked the remaining four easy miles back to my car. I was home by noon. It was an excruciatingly tough but amazing trip into the Mokelumne Wilderness.
I slept fairly well and was up at 6AM. That may seem early for you but it is not early for me. I relaxed, had breakfast, and packed up camp. My idea was to climb up the ridge to take a short cut over to Munson Meadow instead of going back the way I came down (which was very hard). I was not really sure how this route would be or if it would be too cliffy. It was a bit of a risk but I decided to go for it. I’m glad I did. It probably saved me 1.5 hours of hiking at least. And it was not cliffy at all.
However, once I got to Munson Meadow the day detiorated quickly. The trail through Munson Meadow is essentially non-existent. It is so faint you can hardly tell there is a trail. Only the bears use this trail now (I do not think that is inaccurate). I would find the trail and then 30 or 60 seconds later I would lose it again. There was also snow, which certainly did not help in trail finding. I thought that once I got over to the top of the ridge and began the big descent to the bottom of the canyon then the trail would be much easier to follow. Au contraire. It was just the opposite. The trail was far worse now. It was impossible to follow and I got off track many times. Since it was so much brushier down here, this made it very difficult. I was so frustrated. I thought about turning back many times but now I was well past the point of no return. I had to continue. I had to somehow make it down to the river and find some sort of campsite.
Finally I made it down to river level. I was so frustrated with the trail and so over tired. I found a spot to camp near the river and near the waterfall. There were no good camping sites along the river because it was so foresty and brushy but this one would have to do.
There were a ton of flies around my camp. They were very annoying so I spent most of the afternoon inside my tent. There were also mosquitoes. I did not think there would be many mosquitoes at this elevation. I was expecting to see much more at the higher elevations than down here. It was also supposed to be windy which should have kept them away. Neither was true and I had to put on bug spray to save myself.
In the evening I went up to see the waterfall. Wester Park Falls is massive, dropping a whopping 730 ft. in multiple segments. It is a spectacular sight to see from a distance. Unfortunately it is not possible to get up close to it because it is so incredibly brushy. The distant view was the best I could come up with but it was a very pleasant experience after the very frustrating hike.
I returned to camp and hopped into the tent quickly to escape the mosquitoes. Tomorrow I would have to climb out of this canyon. It would not be fun.
I had a permit for Yosemite this weekend and once again, I was not able to go. I think God does not want me to go to Yosemite this year. Tioga Pass Road was still not open on July 8. I thought for sure it would be open by July 4. Frankly, I am very disappointed. I know we had a huge snow year but all the other passes have been open for a long time now. Only Tioga Pass is still closed. Sigh. Well I already had the days off work. I should go somewhere else.
New plan: Mokelumne Wilderness.
I went into this area in early July 2019 to Cole Creek Falls. I found it very difficult because of all the snow. 2019 was a big snow year but not as big as 2023. How would it compare this year? Well …
The snow levels were about the same as before. Some spots had more snow than before, others had less. (kinda weird). Bottom line, this was going to be a very difficult hike. I was going much further than Cole Creek Falls this time.
I started out an hour earlier than in 2019. That year it took me 5.5 hours to hike 8.5 miles. This year it took 6 hours. Once again, I was spent. It is very hard walking on snow. Twice as hard as on a trail. It is never flat. There are a lot of ups and downs. It is extremely tiring. I was not even finished. I still had another 2.5 miles to hike.
I was not really expecting so much snow. It looked completely clear on the satellite after you got to the top of the ridge, but there was snow all the way down in the canyon. This made the trail impossible to follow (in addition to it being so tiring).
A couple other things I was not expecting: (1) no mosquitoes. I really thought they were going to be horrendous at 7300 ft. elevation. However, I found a small but lovely campsite out in the open beside the creek and no buggers. There were a few that came out in the evening but nothing to write home about. (2) Wester Park Creek was massive and definitely not crossable (thankfully I did not have to cross it). It is well past peak flow now, so I was certainly not expecting it to be like this. Should make for a great waterfall anyway.
I relaxed in the afternoon and chatted with my wife (I had one bar of service on my phone). In the evening I went down to see the waterfall. Another thing I was not expecting: the waterfall was absolutely huge. Upper Wester Park Falls is 191 ft. in total height. A big cascade of 63 ft. followed by an enormous 128 ft. drop. It was very easy to get down to them. You could walk down right alongside the upper cascade, then it was an easy scramble to the bottom of the lower drop. I chatted with my wife some more while I waited for the sun to go down before I could take photos.
I returned to camp and went to bed. I was incredibly tired. But if I thought this day was a frustrating and tiring one, tomorrow would be far worse …
