Leon Turnbull Photography

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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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.

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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 …

 

 

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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.

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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.

 

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