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.