Leon Turnbull Photography

My sleeping bag zipper busted in the middle of the night. Toasted. Kaput. The temperature was less than 40 degrees and I had no sleeping bag. Well thankfully I had my sleeping bag liner with me and I put the useless sleeping bag over me like a blanket so I was not cold. Now for my trip next week I am going to have to use my summer sleeping bag (hint: it is not summer).

I wanted to sleep in a bit but I was awake at 6AM anyway. I made breakfast and coffee, took some more photos of the waterfall and was on the trail by 7:15AM.

I did not see any animals on this trip but I did see quite a few animal tracks in the snow: bear, coyote, and some absolutely huge cat prints that could only be from a mountain lion. All the tracks were fresh. So where did that mountain lion go? He is probably watching me from somewhere close by. Hmmm …. lunch time …

On the road back to where I was parked I came across an interesting sight: a big truck was stuck in the snow. You would not think that someone with such a big truck could get stuck but there it was. They had already tried pushing it out to no avail so I could be of no help to him but thankfully his friend was already on his way to rescue him. I continued on my merry way and arrived back at my car a short while later. Maybe it was a good thing I did not attempt to get past that snow patch the previous day. It was a fabulous couple days in the Desolation Wilderness.

I have been to Crystal Basin Falls before but I always wanted to return at peak flow in spring and camp here as well. I envisioned it being very spectacular in spring. I put it on my list to do this year.

The timing for my vision was critical and after checking the snow maps and satellite images I thought this weekend might be one or two weeks too early. However, the next couple weeks would not be possible for me so I decided to go now. There would likely still be a lot of snow here but it still should be good.

The road to Wrights Lake on Highway 50 was still closed and gated (at least, that is what the website indicated) so my idea was to go from Ice House Reservoir. It is 10 miles to Wrights Lake from there and there would be snow but I figured I would drive as far as possible and hike the rest of the way. I hoped to drive at least 3 miles on the road. I drove 5 miles before I hit the first snow bump on the road and decided to park here. I think I could have driven a little further but I wanted to get in a decent hike. It would be 5 miles on the road plus 3 miles on the trail to Crystal Basin Falls. It would be a fairly easy hike which I certainly needed after the huge one I did in Yosemite last week.

Wrights Lake was closed in the summer for the Caldor Fire which raged through here. You might expect the entire lake to be burned but in fact there was no burn through this area at all. It was as beautiful as always. That is a good thing for sure. I did see badly burned areas along the American River canyon (highway 50) but nothing in Ice House or Wrights Lake area.

I reached the trailhead for the Rockbound Trail. This is where I expected things to get very difficult with the trail being very snowy and very muddy. Instead I found the trail to be almost all clear and very easy. This was shocking. The snow must have all melted off in just one week. Now I am thinking I was not 1 or 2 weeks too early but perhaps 1 week too late.

I arrived easily at Crystal Basin Falls at about 12:30PM. The waterfall was nice for sure but definitely not what I had envisioned. Even if I had been 1 week earlier I don’t think it would have made much difference. I now think I probably need to come back during an above average year at peak flow. Anyhow I setup my tent right next to the waterfall and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. It was an incredibly beautiful spot.

In the evening I decided to hike up to Twin Lakes. Normally I would hike on the south side of the creek but the creek was too high to cross without getting very wet and there was quite a bit of snow on that side so I tried the north side of the creek instead. It was a little difficult getting up above the waterfall but once I was able to do that it was mostly easy going up to Twin Lakes. However, the closer I got to Twin Lakes the more snow there was to traverse. It was soft but I was not postholing. Twin Lakes was very gorgeous and still iced over. The waterfall was flowing but not as well as I had seen it before. I did not stay for sunset to take photos. If I had stayed then I would be hiking back down in the dark back to camp and I did not want to do that. I already have good photos of those waterfalls. I would much rather go back down and take photos of the lower falls in the evening. That is what I did.

Part 2 is on the way …

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.

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.

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.