Where is Dark Hole Meadow, and where was the yosemite creek ranger cabin?!

OK. I'm frustrated! Can't find much info online, so I thought I'd come here.

Been camping in Yosemite for 25 years, visiting multiple times a year! We stay in Yosemite Creek Campground every summer for 5 days, and jut returned home. I recently saw on the bf's GPS "Dark Hole" on Old Tioga Road. Wondering if it's the little meadow we pass on the way down to the campground on the right? Also, i read about "Yosemite Creek Ranger Cabin" that no longer exists, but want to figure out where it was. The internet is not helping me find much!

I know the fire last summer that closed Yosemite Creek in August was named the Dark Hole Fire, after the historic meadow, but can't find info about the meadow itself. Any Yosemite-lovers have any info/links/ideas?

Thanks!
D

It really isn't much of a meadow anymore. The pines and firs have pretty much taken over the spot. It was located where a small west to east stream that eventually fed into Yosemite Creek crossed the old Tioga Road. Here's a Google Earth view (circa 1987) of what remains of the meadow:

And here's a link to a PDF file of the 1897 USGS Yosemite quadrangle topo map where "Dark Hole" first appeared:

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/maps/CA_Yosemite_299696_1897_125000_geo.pdf



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2015 01:43AM by plawrence.

It's mentioned in the Yosemite Place Names book by Peter Browning. That's still in print, and under copyright..

Basically, it was a stage stop on the old road. An earlier map listed it as DH (Dark Hole?) Corrals. Supposedly called Dark Hole because the surrounding trees cut off the starlight so much that it was very dark at night.

The ranger station was on the old road, a quarter mile west of the crossing of Yosemite Creek. There was a gov't telephone there in 1920.

Wow, my eyes grow damp imagining what it used to be like when there was no dam there, as the map shows.