Leon Turnbull Photography

So with the national forests in California all closed there is not much hiking to be done. A lot of people are happy about this, saying resources are limited, don’t want any new fires, etc. Here is the problem: backpackers do not start fires. Hikers do not start fires. Only idiots start fires. And arsonists. (both of which we have in California right now). Closing the national forests only punishes the responsible people. On the Labor Day weekend with all the forests closed, there were four new fires started in California, at least one of which was on (closed) national forest land. None were big, thankfully, but the Bridge Fire would have been devastating if it had taken off. Clearly, closing the national forests did nothing to stop new fires from starting (just as I predicted).

Yosemite National Park is open. Yay! No fires there. No bad air quality there. That means I could do a quick backpacking trip there on the weekend, if I could figure out a place to go. I had an idea: Illilouette Creek. I knew Illilouette Falls was flowing somewhat decent and I hoped to find a couple new waterfalls as well. When I arrived to pick up my permit the ranger said that the upper section of the creek was completely dry. I was very surprised to hear this but she had been up there herself recently so I had no reason to doubt her words. Thus there was no point in hiking to the upper falls as planned but the other one was on a different branch and she said it was flowing. Would the falls be decent? My new modified plan was to hike up to this waterfall and camp there. But …

It was 10AM when I started my hike at Glacier Point. My pack weight was just 30 pounds including all my camera gear. This is the lightest I have ever had it and honestly I see no possible way I could go any lighter than this. I used every item I was carrying. There were (obviously) hundreds of people at Glacier Point but once I got on the trail I saw no one at all the entire day. It is a funny thing in Yosemite. You can hike on, say, the Vernal/Nevada Falls trail and literally pass 1000 people on the trail. But hike on, say, the Illilouette Creek trail and see zero people. It is not a horrible trail either. (no trail in Yosemite is horrible). I had plenty of great views of Half Dome and also Liberty Cap and Vernal/Nevada Falls as well. Vernal Falls looked pretty bleak and I did not even recognize it at first. What is that waterfall down there? I have never seen it before. Oh, it is Vernal Falls. Doh! Illilouette Creek, however, did have some water in it. Since the other branch was dry I figured most of it would be from the Clark Fork. This was not the case. I arrived at Clark Fork Falls and it was pretty lame. Very lame. It was not worth taking a photo and it was not worth staying here to camp. I was bummed. I really wanted to get at least one new waterfall on this trip. Well, all was not lost. I could still see the big one the next morning (Illilouette Falls). I decided to hike back to Illilouette Creek and camp there. In the morning I would have a short hike up to Illilouette Falls.

I found a nice little spot by Illilouette Creek. It seemed like a perfect place to see a bear or mountain lion. I did not see any of those but a family of grouse came waltzing through my campsite in the evening. I saw more grouse when I got back to Glacier Point the next day but those ones were people friendly and let me walk right up to them with no worries at all. (within a couple feet). I also heard coyotes howling in the middle of the night. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before. I heard owls hooting in the night as well. (I have heard that before).

The next morning I got up in the dark and hiked up to Illilouette Falls. Obviously it is much better in the spring but nonetheless I thought it was lovely. A 379 ft. high beauty. Some waterfalls still look nice at low flows and Illilouette is one of them. (I was hoping Clark Fork would be in the same category but nope). I enjoyed my breakfast at the falls then hiked up to my car getting back to Glacier Point at 9:30am. I was home by 1PM. It was a quick but lovely trip to Yosemite National Park.