Re: Is Cloud Rest trail doable this weekend?

Wife and I are gonig to be at Yosemite Sat-Wed. and if we are not able to win the daily half dome lottery, we plan on hiking Cloud Rest instead. I have read that the trail has a creek one mile in that may not be passable this early in the year. Does anyone know for sure? How high are we talking? Should I just ask a park ranger?

Thanks,
Chris

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martincr70
Wife and I are gonig to be at Yosemite Sat-Wed. and if we are not able to win the daily half dome lottery, we plan on hiking Cloud Rest instead. I have read that the trail has a creek one mile in that may not be passable this early in the year. Does anyone know for sure? How high are we talking? Should I just ask a park ranger?

Thanks,
Chris

You have to cross the Tanaya Lake outlet which comes up at the very beginning of the hike. If you are comfortable crossing this stream then the other water crossings on the way to Clouds Rest will be trivial. There may be some snow and ice on the switchbacks leading to the Sunrise Lakes trail junction and maybe some snow coverage in the treed section of the trail after the junction. Hiking sticks are a great help.

The main thing is that if you get uncomfortable with any of the conditions then turn around and go back.

I would bet though that there will be tracks all the way to CR as others will have made the trip lately.

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Old Dude

I don't have pics, but from the road it certainly looked like there was snow on the north-facing (forested) side of Clouds Rest on Monday.

It depends. The stream crossing that you reference a mile in assumes that you start at the Tenaya Lake side of the world and hike up the Sunrise Trail. The stream will be a cold, nearly waist deep crossing through a meadow type area (i.e. it is not a fast moving typical Sierra stream). A recent report and all sorts of good info can be seen here. Be sure to read the post-trip report in the thread...you will likely get some snow on the north facing Sunrise Lakes climb.

IF you were doing Clouds Rest from the Valley (up the Mist Trail e.g.) as an alternate to doing Half Dome, you will have no problems at all as it is all south facing slopes. And the stream crossings are all on bridges.I would recommend this approach, the hike is not to much different from the Half Dome hike as far as exertion and time.

But always a good idea to ask a Ranger. Be safe, have fun!

Keep an eye on the weather. A chance of thunderstorms Sun-Tue are starting to creep into the forecast. Whatever you do, be safe.

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ALSO EXPECT A SLIGHT CHANCE FOR SIERRA NEVADA THUNDERSTORMS THIS WEEKEND...MAINLY FROM YOSEMITE TO JUST NORTH OF KINGS CANYON. HAVE EVEN ADDED SLIGHT CHANCE POPS FOR THIS AREA FOR MON AND TUE AFTERNOON

NOAA Yosemite Valley Forecast

Thanks everyone. Yeah, keeping an eye on the weather. On our day doing the Tioga Road we may hike the one mile to the water and see how bad it is. Other than that, I think the trip is out of the question. We will look into the mist trail approach though.

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martincr70
On our day doing the Tioga Road we may hike the one mile to the water and see how bad it is.

From the road to the water crossing it's 0.14 miles with an elevation drop of 14'.

Bear in mind that the trip to CR from HI has 6000' of elevation gain and is 20 miles round trip. Quite a day hike.

From Tanaya Lake it's 1700' of elevation gain and 12 miles round trip.

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Old Dude

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mrcondron
Bear in mind that the trip to CR from HI has 6000' of elevation gain and is 20 miles round trip.

For reference, that's about 1,000 feet more vertical and 4 miles more horizontal than Half Dome.

Last year, while hiking to CR from Yosemite Valley, I felt a touch of
altitude sickness coming on. Somewhere, I'd read that keeping your
mind busy is one way to stay sharp, even when feeling sluggish due
to the thinning air. So, I tried to do this math problem in my head:

How many scoops of ice cream does Yosemite Valley hold?

I didn't know what constituted a "scoop", so the answer eluded me.
But, upon returning home, I found that a scoop is considered to be
4 ounces. Given these numbers....

Yosemite Valley = 1 mile x 7 miles x 1/2 mile and 1 scoop = 7.21875 cubic inches,
the answer is obvious......YV would hold 123,325,108,468,531.2 scoops.

Now you know.

But, how long would it take to EAT that much ice cream? Glad you asked.

Eating one scoop/minute, without stopping, ever, It would take a single
eater 234,476,212.09ish years.

There is no moral to this story.

Maybe not the moral of the story...but the result of eating all of that ice cream would be that you were even more sluggish heading up to Clouds Rest.

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Bearproof
Maybe not the moral of the story...but the result of eating all of that ice cream would be that you were even more sluggish heading up to Clouds Rest.

If you had that much ice cream you could just stack it and climb straight up the face of Clouds Rest.

I hiked Clouds Rest on Tuesday. Tons of mosquitoes but no snow at all. There were a few patches of snow easy to post hole through.

Is it still flooded at the Sunrise trailhead - or has it dried out?

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SoCalCPA
Is it still flooded at the Sunrise trailhead - or has it dried out?

The blops reported (via radio) that the crossings was a rock hop.... nearly dry.
Pretty much it's drying out quickly everywhere... Personally I didn't even
use bug spray a single time on 4 day trek to Mt. Florence / Hutching Creek /
Lyell Fork and back... (it was very breezy though... and ... YMMV depending
on route and camp-on location)

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Thanks Chick-on Hope all is well with you

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SoCalCPA
Thanks Chick-on Hope all is well with you

Can't complain. It was all good on Friday the 13th:


Have fun

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