Leon Turnbull Photography

The Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River. Yosemite National Park. I have been to the main waterfalls on a day hike but I have always wanted to explore more of it. In peak spring season. Waterwheel Falls at peak flow. That was my dream. Starting at Tuolumne Meadows is a big NO. By the time Tioga Pass road opens the waterfalls are already at much reduced flow (whether it is a good winter or a bad winter, it does not matter). There is only one way in to the Tuolumne River in early season and spoiler alert: it is very difficult. (surprise surprise)

It should be a LOT easier than it is, frankly. We will come to that shortly.

I began the big journey at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. I arrived at the gate 30 minutes before opening and there were already 6 cars ahead of me. Dang, I wanted to be first in line (like last year) so I could start my hike as early as humanly possible. It would be a very tough and long day. Well no big deal, the ranger even opened the gate 10 minutes early. I picked up my permit. They made me sit down with the ranger to talk about my itinerary. This tells you something about how difficult and crazy my planned route was going to be. But it was a good thing because I picked up a couple tips and adjusted my planned starting point which would make my hike a bit shorter and easier. (slightly easier).

I was planning six nights but I had food for seven nights (eight days) in case I wanted or needed to stay an extra night. My pack weight was 46 pounds with 11 pounds of food! I also had to carry extra warm clothes (it would be cold at night) and rain gear (there were showers in the forecast) and spikes (there was still snow). At least my pack should be a bit lighter on the return trip out of the canyon after I ate all that food.

My first day would take me 11 miles to Harden Lake via Smith Meadows. A whopping 3700 ft. of elevation gain. If I could make it I had hopes to continue an additional 2 miles to Morrison Creek. Upper Morrison Creek Falls is pictured here.

It is a tough climb but the first section of trail to Smith Meadows is not too bad. There is some overgrowth and bushwhacking involved – which I did not know about beforehand – but I made it to the creek crossing in 3 hours. Not bad. My hopes were up. The ranger told me (and also I heard from others) that the section from here to Harden Lake is hopeless. The trail completely disappears. I knew it would be difficult but it started out pretty good and I was beginning to think they were all wrong. The trail was great. Then the fatal moment finally came: the trail completely disappeared in a wall of brush 10 feet high. I did not know which way to go. I seriously thought I was going to have to retreat back to the car. After quite a while of searching around I finally broke through the brush and found the trail again. I continued on. From here on until the top of the ridge it is a horrible bushwhack. The good news is that you can still follow the trail through the brush which is up to your waist or chest or higher. It took at least an hour or more of solid bushwhacking to reach the top of the ridge. Finally at the top, the last section of trail to Harden Lake is clear. How do you spell RELIEF?

Why is this trail so darn difficult? It is greatly upsetting to me. The trail should be clear. There was a fire many years ago and since then the brush has overgrown the entire area. But the park has not cleared the trail yet! This is a principal trail in Yosemite National Park and they have not bothered to do any maintenance on the trail whatsoever. They have let it go to rot. This trail is the ONLY way in to the Tuolumne River in early season. Why would they just abandon an established park trail? The ranger even told me that the trail crews were starting on the day I started my hike. Did I see any crews working on the trail when I returned some days later? Nada. I will tell you one thing: If I had $43 billion to spend like some people apparently do I would spend it on worthwhile things, and one of those things would be to clear every trail in every park and national forest in the country. This was the realization I came to as I battled my way along, unable to see the sunlight above me because the brush was so high over my head. Unfortunately I highly doubt I will ever have that kind of money to spend. Ha ha.

It took 7 hours in total to reach Harden Lake. I was done and much too tired to continue to Morrison Creek. I would spend my first night camping at Harden Lake and get up early to make it to Upper Morrison Creek Falls in the morning. Harden Lake was more like a pond then a lake. It does not have any inlet or outlet stream so it fills (I guess) entirely from snow melt. Even though we had a bad winter it is early season and I expected it to be much nicer than it was. It was also very difficult to retrieve drinkable water from the lake because it was so scummy all around the edge of the lake. Nonetheless I made do and found a nice place to setup camp and had a very lovely evening, falling asleep to the sounds of the frogs at Harden Lake. I love the sound of frogs and there were probably many hundreds of them at Harden Lake. They were amazingly loud. You gotta wonder what they talk about to each other non-stop all night long. They are such an amazing creation of God.