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The-Best-Backpacking-Trip-In-Yosemite.Pdf The Big Outside Complete Guide to The Best Backpacking Trip in Yosemite National Park © 2018 Michael Lanza All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying or other electronic, digital, or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the publisher at the address below. Michael Lanza/The Big Outside 921 W. Resseguie St. Boise, ID 83702 TheBigOutside.com Hiking and backpacking is a personal choice and requires that YOU understand that you are personally responsible for any actions you may take based on the information in this e-guide. Using any information in this e-guide is your own personal responsibility. Hiking and associated trail activities can be dangerous and can result in injury and/or death. Hiking exposes you to risks, especially in the wilderness, including but not limited to: • Weather conditions such as flash floods, wind, rain, snow and lightning; • Hazardous plants or wild animals; • Your own physical condition, or your own acts or omissions; • Conditions of roads, trails, or terrain; • Accidents and injuries occurring while traveling to or from the hiking areas; • The remoteness of the hiking areas, which may delay rescue and medical treatment; • The distance of the hiking areas from emergency medical facilities and law enforcement personnel. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE PURSUANT TO APPLICABLE LAW, NEITHER MICHAEL LANZA NOR THE BIG OUTSIDE, THEIR AFFILIATES, FAMILY AND FORMER AND CURRENT EMPLOYERS, NOR ANY OTHER PARTY INVOLVED IN CREATING, PRODUCING OR DELIVERING THIS E-GUIDE IS LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF A USER’S ACCESS TO, OR USE OF THIS E-GUIDE. Cover photo: Todd Arndt on the Diving Board atop Half Dome, above Yosemite Valley. Title page photo: Todd Arndt and Jeff Wilhelm on the summit ridge of Clouds Rest, Yosemite National Park. Dear Reader, Congratulations, you have just downloaded the best guide you’ll find to what I call the best backpacking trip in Yosemite for anyone seeking an ultimate Yosemite experience. It explores one of the park’s two largest chunks of wilderness, hitting highlights and more- remote areas south of Tuolumne Meadows, from Half Dome and Nevada Fall to the Clark Range in the park’s southeast corner. (The photo of me at right was taken on this trip, on the summit of Clouds Rest, with Yosemite Valley in the background.) I know you will find this trip as beautiful and adventurous as you expect of Yosemite. I make those statements with confidence not only because I have taken this trip, but I have been writing about outdoors adventures for more than two decades between my blog, The Big Outside, magazines, and authoring print guidebooks. In responding to innumerable questions from readers planning a trip they read about at my blog—and, of course, through many years of planning my own trips—I’ve acquired a strong sense of what information people like you are looking for. I believe you simply want an e-guide that tells you only what you need to know to understand what a trip is like, and to pull it off successfully and safely—without a lot of superfluous verbiage. For The Big Outside, I decided to create affordable, downloadable, single-trip e- guides that are organized to most effectively help you do just that. I also understand that you want the information presented in a way that allows you to customize the trip to suit your party’s style of backcountry travel. Whether a family outing or a group of friends, complete beginners or hard-core experts, what you are about to read will clarify what you must do to properly prepare for this trip, and then pull it off in a way that feels like an adventure personalized for you. CLICK HERE NOW for a full menu of the e-guides I offer for sale. In the pages that follow, I will describe this trip’s character and highlights, and provide details on its total distance and elevation gain and loss, difficulty, and the degree of solitude you can expect to find along it during the peak season. I will give you extensive advice in Section 1 on how to plan this trip, including tips about seasons, getting a permit, travel logistics, gear, and what you need to know regarding safety and other issues specific to this trip. And finally, in Section 2, I give you my expert guidance on how to execute this trip, including primary and alternative hiking itineraries. A few points: • I’m a big believer that much of the success of any outdoor adventure is determined before you leave home, so you’ll find abundant information in Section 1: Planning the Trip. I think you will find that my unique and thorough trip- planning advice is what most distinguishes my e-guides from other guides. • I don’t rate trips for quality or scenery. Instead of a dry, numerical rating, this e- guide will describe for you the trip’s unique character. Plus, every trip that I’ve created an e-guide for is excellent and highly recommendable, period. • I don’t provide GPS waypoints or tell you precisely where to take photos or pitch your tent every night, because I believe that excessive hand-holding sucks the mystery out of the wilderness and robs you of the joy of discovery. Instead, this e- guide suggests itineraries and, in general, the best camping areas and other highlights, with specific tips on how to maximize enjoyment and safety. • Please be aware of and always follow low-impact backpacking guidelines; learn about them at lnt.org. They ensure that we all have as pristine a wilderness experience as possible. Also, respect park regulations, they exist for good reasons. • Hold down your keyboard’s Control key when clicking on hyperlinks in this e- guide, and the link will open in a new window. If you don’t hold down the Control key, any link will open in the same window. (You could then click the back arrow in the upper left to return to the e-guide.) Alternatively, open this e- guide twice, to have one copy constantly open while clicking on hyperlinks in the second copy to view them, and using the browser’s back arrow to return to this e- guide and open other links in the second window. • If you find any inaccuracies or typos—or to simply drop a note to tell me what you think of this e-guide—please email me at [email protected]. • Lastly, you have purchased one electronic copy of this e-guide for your personal use only. I retain all rights to its content, and I ask you to respect my legal rights and not distribute it by any means or for any purpose, including for illegal profit. Thanks again for purchasing this e-guide. I hope it helps make your backpacking trip in Yosemite very special. If you would like personalized trip-planning help, or you have questions about how to safely and successfully pull off this or any trip I’ve written about at my blog, I can help you. See my blog’s Ask Me page for more details. If you want personalized help with this trip, I will deduct the price of this e-guide from my fee. Please be sure to follow my stories about my adventures at The Big Outside. Have fun and be safe out there, Michael Lanza Creator of The Big Outside Mark Fenton enjoying the dawn view above the Lyell Fork of the Merced River. The Best Backpacking Trip in Yosemite Location: South of Tuolumne Meadows and east of Yosemite Valley in the southeastern quadrant of Yosemite National Park, California. Primary Route: 65 miles/105 km (including the four-mile round-trip hike up Half Dome). Approximate Cumulative Elevation Gain and Loss (primary route): 11,600 feet/3,536m gained, 11,400 feet/3,475m lost. Difficulty for the primary route, on a scale of 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest) 4—Strenuous at times, but also with some easy stretches, with challenges including significant elevation gain and loss, steep terrain, possible severe weather (mainly afternoon thunderstorms) and hot summer afternoons, sporadic drinking-water sources, and remoteness, with potentially few other parties encountered—but no extraordinary navigational challenges or need for technical skills. Good to excellent fitness and intermediate-level backpacking skills and experience recommended. See the Need to Know section below for specific details. Overview I had already taken several trips in Yosemite over the years, backpacking, dayhiking, and climbing, before I finally got around to exploring the park’s two most expansive swaths of wilderness: the Clark Range and Merced River headwaters south of Tuolumne Meadows on this 65-mile hike, and even vaster northern Yosemite on a subsequent 87-mile hike that I also wrote about at The Big Outside. They were the two pieces of a one-week, 152-mile grand tour of this flagship park that friends and I made. And a grand tour it was, hitting much of the best backcountry Yosemite has to offer. This hike south of Tuolumne Meadows displays something of a split personality: It hits some of the busiest areas of Yosemite’s backcountry as well as some of its most remote and lonely wilderness. Highlights include what are certainly two of the best summits in the park, Clouds Rest and uber-popular Half Dome overlooking Yosemite Valley, as well as thunderous, 594-foot-tall Nevada Fall, the beautiful Vogelsang area, the mind-boggling granite domes of Tuolumne and Tenaya Lake, the remote Red Peak Pass in the Clark Range, and the rocky terrain and tarns, lakes, and creeks at the headwaters of the Merced River.
Recommended publications
  • Red Peak Pass Red Peak Pass
    Tentative Itinerary – Red Peak Pass On your trip to Yosemite, our goal would be to give you an adventure that you will remember forever while also pointing out (and getting you up and behind) some of the major points in the park that most tourists want to see. Many people come for their first trip and just drive into Yosemite Valley and look up in awe. They then make plans to come back and see and do more in the future. By contacting us, we can design an outing where you can see the valley and also complete a backcountry trip that enables you to get away from the crowds and on top of some of the more famous peaks and beside some amazing waterfalls! You will finish this adventure feeling “success” and “accomplishment” and with a greater view and experience of Yosemite then most people ever receive! Red Peak Pass Trip Length: 7 Days/6 Nights Trip Highlights: Glacier Point, Illilouette Creek, unlimited high alpine lakes, rivers, Red Peak Pass, Merced Peak, Washburn Lake, Merced Lake, the Lost Valley, Little Yosemite Valley, and the Mist Trail. Total Milage: 50 miles Rating: Moderate to Strenuous. Day 1 : Meet your guide in the afternoon. Get acquainted with the group and with gear. Valley highlights (food in the front-country not included.) Camp in Yosemite Valley Backpackers camp. Day 2: After taking the 8am morning shuttle (approx. 1.5 hours) to Glacier Point where we will take in the views before heading downhill into the Illilouette Creek Valley. We will cross the creek and continue on a gradual uphill climb before picking a creek side location to camp at.
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  • Wilderness-Use.Pdf
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  • Yosemite National Park Foundation Overview
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  • Campground in Yosemite National Park
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  • Yosemite Valley Visitor Center
    k e k e e r e C r Upper C n Yosemite o h y c r Fall n k A a e C e l r Yosemite Point a n C 6936ft y a Lower o 2114m i North Dome e d R t 7525ft i Yosemite n I 2294m m Fall e s ek o re Y U.S. Yosemite Valley Visitor Center C ya Court a Wilderness Center n e Museum Royal Arch T Lower Yosemite Medical Clinic Cascade Fall Trail Washington Columbia YOSEMITE Column Mirror Rock VILLAGE ROYAL Eagle Lake T ARCHES 4094ft Peak H 1248m 7779ft R The Ahwahnee Half Dome 2371m Sentinel Visitor E 8836ft Bridge Parking E North 2693m B Housekeeping Pines Camp 4 R Yosemite Camp Lower O Lodge Pines Chapel Stoneman T Bridge Middle H LeConte Brother E Memorial Road open ONLY to R Lodge pedestrians, bicycles, Ribbon S Visitor Parking and vehicles with Fall Swinging Bridge Curry Village Upper wheelchair emblem Pines Lower placards Sentinel Little Yosemite Valley El Capitan Brother Beach Trailhead for Moran 7569ft Four Mile Trail (summer only) R Point Staircase Mt Broderick i 2307m Trailhead 6706ft 6100 ft b Falls Horse Tail Parking 1859m b 2044m o Fall Trailhead for Vernal n Fall, Nevada Fall, and Glacier Point El Capitan Vernal C 7214 ft Nature Center John Muir Trail r S e e 2199 m at Happy Isles Fall Liberty Cap e n r k t 5044ft 7076ft ve i 4035ft Grizzly Emerald Ri n rced e 1230m 1538m 2157m Me l Peak Pool Silver C Northside Drive ive re Sentinel Apron Dr e North one-way Cathedral k El Capitan e Falls 0 0.5 Kilometer id To Tioga Road, Tuolumne Meadows Bridge Beach hs y ed R ut a y J and Hwy 120; and Hetch Hetchy Merc iv So -w horse trail onl o 0 0.5 Mile er
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  • WEB GYMOAZ01-20 Yosemite-Annie
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  • Glacier Point Area Hiking Map U.S
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  • Merced River Hiking
    PACIFIC SOUTHWEST REGION Restoring, Enhancing and Sustaining Forests in California, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands Sierra National Forest Hiking the South fork of the Merced River Bass Lake Ranger District Originating from some of the highest ranges in Bicycles and horses are not allowed on the trail. As the Sierra, the Merced River begins its journey you meander along the trail, you will discover the from Mt. Hoffman and Tenaya Lake on the north, remains of the old Hite Mine that produced over $3 the Cathedral range on the east and the Mt. Ray- million in gold and a gold mining town that once mond area south of Yosemite. It has two stood on the banks of the river. Please remember branches: the main fork and the south fork. The that historic and prehistoric artifacts are not to be main fork flows through the Sierra National For- disturbed or removed as they are protected by est and Yosemite Valley. The South Fork flows law. Violators will be prosecuted. through Wawona, winding its way through the Sierra National Forest to Hite Cove where it joins DEVIL GULCH the main river at Highway 140. Road (3S02) to the South Fork of the Merced River. This section of the trail is 2.5 miles long and HITE COVE TRAIL fairly easy to hike. Dispersed campsites are at Devil A spectacular early spring wildflower display is Gulch, the river and Devil Gulch Creek both need to along the Hite Cove Trail from February to be forded in order to continue on the trail. Caution April, with over 60 varieties of wildflowers along during high water spring runoff.
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  • [PDF] Tenaya Lake, 27(12)
    VOL. XXVII DECEMBER, 1948 NO. 12 Yosemite Nature Notes THE MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF THE YOSEMITE NATURALIST DIVISION AND THE YOSEMITE NATURAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION, INC. C . P . Russedl, Superintendent D . E. McHenry, Park Naturalist H. C . Parker, Assoc . Park Naturalist H . N . Mclntrye, Asst . Park Naturalist VOL . XXVII DECEMBER, 1948 NO. THE NATIVE FISH FAUNA OF YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK AND ITS PRESERVATION' By Carl L. Hubbs, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Orthello L . Wallis, Ranger Naturalist, 1948 Except for some studies and stories included in "Yosemite Ranger Nat- on the trout, the fish fauna of Yo- uralist Manual " (1929). The fourth semite National Park has been made and mcst important was a pamphlet known in only four publications . entitled "Fishes of Yosemite Na- The first, a book by J . M. Hutchings, tional Park." It was prepared by . Evans, as a result of ob "In the Heart of the Sierras" (1886), Willis A contained a very brief statement on servations that he made while sery . mg as Ranger Naturalist in 1941, the fish life of the Merced River The second was a chapter on "The and it was issued as Volume XXIII, : Yosemite Nature Notes Fishes of Yosemite National Park," Number 1, of . The paucity of reports on the by Barton Warren Evermann, in (1944)fishes of Yosemite contrasts glaring- Ansel F. Hall's "Handbook of Yo- ly with the thorough treatment of the semite National Park" (1921) . The terrestrial vertebrates and reflects third was a brief treatise on "Fish the limited study that has been made and Fishing in. Yosemite National of the underwater life in this and Park," written by H .
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  • Yosemite, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks 5
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  • Final Paper of Geology G188 Xinzhu Zhang the Glacier of Yosemite National Park Abstract
    Final paper of Geology G188 Xinzhu Zhang The glacier of Yosemite National Park Abstract: Domes, waterfalls, U shape valleys and cliff can be widely seen in Yosemite National Park. These landforms are all created by glaciation, especially the Wisconsion glaciation. (Kiver and Harris) Domes such as the Lembert Dome and Half Dome are strongly influenced by plucking and abrasion. (Wikipedia website) The U shape valleys and cliff such as El Capitan is also carved by glaciers. (Wikipedia website) Thus, Yosemite National Park is the masterpiece of glaciation. 1. Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park located in California, reaching across the western slope of Sierra Nevada. It’s 747,956 acres in size. It belongs to the National Park Services. Specially, Yosemite is famous for its “granite, waterfalls, clear streams, giant sequoia groves and biological diversity” (Wikipedia website). Yosemite Park was generated from Yosemite Valley. In 1864, Yosemite grant was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Later on, John Muir built a much larger National Park which included much more than Yosemite Valley alone. In 1984, the Park became a “World heritage site” (Wikipedia website) Yosemite National Park is the home for a large variety of plants and animals including some rare ones because of the unique geology formations and the composition of soil. Besides, 89 per cent of the National Park was characterized as “Yosemite Wilderness”, which is a highly protected area. People have made huge effort to protect the “Yosemite wilderness”. For example, buses are created to be quiet and without pollution. (Wikipedia website) Yosemite is also famous for its spectacular landform.
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  • Yosemite Accessibility Guide January 2015
    National Park Service Yosemite National Park U.S. Department of the Interior Photo by Dan Horner Yosemite Accessibility Guide January 2015 Welcome to Yosemite National Park! The park strives for full and equal participation for all visitors and continually upgrades facilities, programs and services to improve accessibility. This guide outlines a variety of accessible services, facilities, and activities available in Yosemite. Within each area, it describes ways for people with sight, hearing, and mobility impairments to enjoy Yosemite. If you do not need this guide after your visit, please return it to any visitor center or entrance station. The Yosemite Accessibility Guide is available at entrance stations, visitor centers and online at www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/upload/access.pdf. For general park information and descriptions of services, programs and activities, see the Yosemite Guide, available at entrance stations, visitor centers or online at www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/guide.htm. We welcome your comments and suggestions on ways to improve accessibility for visitors to Yosemite National Park. Discrimination on the basis of disability in federally conducted programs or activities of the Department of the Interior is prohibited. Contact Information: Accessibility Coordinator 209‐379‐1035 [email protected] United States Department of the Interior NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Yosemite National Park P.O. Box 577 Yosemite, California 95389 IN REPLY REFER TO: P4215 (YOSE‐PM) Message from the Superintendent: Yosemite National Park is a wonderful and beautiful place with towering trees, thundering waterfalls and massive granite formations. Set aside as a National Park in 1890, Yosemite is a place visited by almost four million visitors a year.
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