Leon Turnbull Photography

This is Middle Cherry Creek Falls, 36 ft. high. Where I camped for the night. A very beautiful place!

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It rained most of the night. It was still raining when I got up and continued to rain throughout the morning. So what did the weather forecasters say about this? TWENTY percent chance of showers on Sunday. I think one site might have said 40 percent chance of showers but the others said nothing like that at all. WHAT AN EPIC FAIL. Showers is one thing. I expected I might have a little bit of off and on showers and so I did bring my rain jacket. This was constant rain all night and morning. Light rain. But still rain nonetheless. Not showers. I did not bring my rain pants or my gloves. I dearly wished I had brought these two items. If I had then the hike back out would have been much more pleasant in the light rain. Instead it was miserable. You can call me an idiot for not being prepared enough, I don’t mind. I should have known better. It is a 1500 ft. climb out of the canyon with no trail and a lot of brush. The brush was wet from all the rain and so I was a soaking dog long before I finally got to the top and back on the trail.

I was extremely happy that I saw all the waterfalls on the previous day. I certainly would not have wanted to go to any of the falls in the morning in the rain. I ate my breakfast and drank my coffee hiding under a tree sheltered from the elements. The photo shown here is Lower Cherry Creek Falls, 51 ft. high.

Once back on the trail at the top of the ridge it is a 4 mile hike back to the car. Unfortunately there is still a lot of brush overgrowing onto the trail. It is not a problem if the brush is dry but of course it was not dry. It was also still raining. It was too miserable to stop so I hiked the entire 4 miles without stopping. It is all downhill though so that was good. I got back to my car and turned up the heat to warm myself up. I drove straight home. I did not stop for pizza this time but I did get a triple western burger at Carls when I got back. It was a good trip down into the Cherry Bomb gorge in the amazing Emigrant Wilderness.

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This would likely be my last backpacking trip before Fall (though I may possibly do one more in June). I had this trip on my list for this spring but I did not think I’d get to it. I did not really want to drive back out to Yosemite for a third time this spring (it is not Yosemite actually, it is Emigrant Wilderness which is just before Yosemite but essentially the same amount of driving). However, rain was in the forecast for the weekend. Quite a bit of rain. But for the Yosemite area there was no rain in the forecast or very little anyway so going back to this area seemed like the best bet for the weekend. Yeah right. More on this in part 2.

 

It was Saturday. It was raining on Saturday. What did the forecast say? ZERO PERCENT chance of rain on Saturday. I don’t know about you but to me ZERO means ZERO. Nada. Nothing. Zip. No possibility of any rain whatsoever. If the stupid weather forecasters have any doubts why don’t they say 10 percent. Zero means NOTHING! Anyway, it was not raining very much but I did need to get out my rain jacket. I did bring my rain jacket but I did not bring much else. It was only a 20 percent chance for Sunday after all. Again, more on this in part 2. (it’ll be a good one)

 

There were a lot of cars at the trailhead including one that I was pretty sure belonged to kayakers. Cherry Creek is a popular run for expert kayakers but I thought it was a bit late in the year for them to be doing this run. Well I hoped that no one would be camping down in the canyon where I was going. I suppose it was unlikely because there is no trail and it is very difficult. Still it was possible.

 

After you climb up to the top of the ridge on the trail you need to go off trail down into the canyon. No trail. Very brushy. It was a lot harder than I remembered. I made it down to camp by 2PM. There was no one else down here. Fantastic. I had the entire place to myself right beside the Middle Falls. It is a gorgeous campsite and a very large sandy beach like area to put up my tent. There were very few mosquitoes at this spot. It was perfect!

 

Thankfully it was a cloudy day. It was also still very early. My plan and hope was to go to all four waterfalls today. That way I could sleep in a bit and not have to go to any of them in the morning.

 

When I was last down in this canyon I failed to make it to Cherry Bomb Falls. My planned route turned out to be much too steep and I could not figure out a way to get up above the cliffs at the Middle Falls for the life of me. So what do you do when you fail the first time? Give up! No! The madman does not give up but when it comes to waterfalls he certainly may need multiple attempts before success is found.

 

I had a different route this time and a better one. I was able to make it above the cliffs without much difficulty. Once you get above the Middle Falls the scenery is absolutely outstanding. Wide open granite. It is an easy walk over to the edge where you can look down into the Cherry Bomb gorge.

 

Maybe only kayakers will appreciate this view. Cherry Bomb Falls is not really much of a waterfall. It has a 20 ft. drop at the top and then it continues into a long cascade in a very tight and steep gorge. Of course I knew this beforehand but I still wanted to come here. It was certainly worth it! I really loved this spot and this beautiful cascade. The scenery is incredibly magnificent!

 

Now it was onto the next three waterfalls, the last one being the Middle Falls at my campsite. When I finally got back to my camp I found that I had company. The kayakers had made their appearance. I missed seeing them go over the waterfall as they had already done that and set up their camp. Thankfully they were camping on the other side of the river. I don’t know if they planned to do that anyway or they saw my tent and decided to go on the other side to give me space. Either way I am grateful because they had a large group and if they were camping right beside me they would have been invading my space and been too loud and keeping me awake in the night. I was so glad to have my peace and quiet at my campsite on the beautiful sandy beach. Part 2 is on the way.

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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.

 

 

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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 …

 

 

 

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