First, some of that history. Before the white men showed up, the main Indian trail across the Sierras between Mono Lake and the western foothills was the Mono Trail. It came up Mono Pass (much nicer than Tioga Pass, even though it is slightly higher), across Tuolumne Meadows, and past Tenaya Lake. From there a branch went east of Half Dome to Bridalveil Creek and branched out from there (see link), but the main trail went southwest to Porcupine Flat, then to Tamarack Flat, Gin Flat, Crane Flat, and onward towards the foothills. Major branches went down to Yosemite Valley on either side of the Yosemite Creek crossing: In the east it was the Indian Canyon Trail (see link) and in the west it was the North Cliff Trail, which became the above mentioned horse trail (see link) that was eventually was replaced by the Old Big Oak Flat Road.
Perhaps Yosemite_Indian can add some comments about the significance of the old Mono Trail.
After the gold rush, there began to be a lot of miners' traffic over the Mono Trail to the high country and beyond, in addition to summer cattle and sheep outposts at all the above mentioned flats and in Tuolumne Meadows. In 1857, the Mono Trail was blazed as a horse trail, and in 1862 the original Yosemite Grant was carefully laid out such that the park did not infringe upon this route. See "Trail to Mono" in the 1869 map below. which I have highlighted with red dots, and the old park boundary, which I have outlined in red.
That map is too poorly drawn to allow someone to trace the route today, but the 1883 topo map is much more specific.
This map was made in the heyday of the Mono Trail. It has some interesting features. Unfortunately, it does not go any farther west, so you can't see Tamarack Flat. But it does show the main trail (my red dots added). It also shows a newer trail, called "old trail" coming up from Gentry's Station, which was the entry station and hostelry at the park boundary. It also shows the newest trail, called the Eagle Peak Trail, which took tourists to El Capitan, Eagle Peak, and the newly completed Yosemite Falls Trail. It is now called the El Capitan Trail.
On the map, 5 is the top of Ribbon Falls, with El Capitan a bit to the right. 4 is Gentry's Station at the old park entrance. 1 is the junction of the upper branches of Cascade Creek. There is a twin waterfall at the junction, which has been the subject of recent postings (see link). Various of us have been toying with going for a close-up view of the falls, and Chick-on did it a week ago. I trust that he will post something about it on the Twin Falls thread. 3 is a very specific spot on the Mono Trail, where you can tell exactly where it went, since it is a narrow cleft and there is no other possible horse trail past that side of Boundary Hill.
The 1883 map is the last one to show this portion of the Mono Trail. That same year, miners put in the (old) Tioga Road, which effectively took over all the traffic from the lowlands to Porcupine Flat and on to Tioga Pass. Not only was it an actual wagon road, but it had a bridge over Yosemite Creek. Instead of coming up through Crane Flat and Tamarack Flat, it came through Aspen Valley and White Wolf, not joining the Mono Trail until Porcupine Flat. Travelers from Yosemite Valley towards Tuolumne could go up the improved Indian Canyon Trail (actually, the canyon is named after the indian trail, so it should be Indian Trail Canyon) until it was put out of business by the completion of the Yosemite Falls Trail. In any case, there was no need for anyone to go from Tamarack Flat to Tenaya Lake via the old trail. Fifty years ago the big Oak Flat book asserted that the trail was mostly gone, but some blazes remain. I figured, "How hard could it be to trace the old route?" since I knew where it went and there would surely be some 200 year old trees with 150 year old blazes. Plus, I had two very specific clues about the trail: The Split Rock and the notch next to Boundary Hill.
The Split Rock is mentioned in Schlichtmann's book: "A generous two-tenths of a mile past the present bridge over Tamarack Creek [traveling west from the saloon at Tamarack Flat] brings one to a well-marked gully leading up on the left. Along this small gulch went the Mono Trail joining Tamarack Flat with Yosemite Creek... ...It was exceedingly rough and steep even after being cleared out and blazed in 1857, but had the advantage of water and shade. Now it is impassable. [This was written in 1959.] Other portions of the Mono Trail have been maintained by the government for modern hikers, but this branch has been forgotten and is recognizable only by the blaze marks about six feet up on the large trees. Many of them have fallen and disintegrated but such marks as are left are always to be found on the right of the trail no matter in which direction one is traveling. [Meaning that they didn't blaze both sides of the same tree.] About a mile up the hill the trail goes through "Split Rock" which looks as if it had been divided for the purpose."
Looking at the satellite photos, here is a pretty good candidate for Split Rock:
But if that's not the right one, there are hundreds of other big rocks up there which might turn out to be Split Rock. Plus, Chick-on says that he saw it on his way to the twin falls last week. But somehow I missed finding Split Rock that day. I will go back...
Ha. So on Monday I set out to trace the old trail as far as Ribbon Meadow. I started at the 6338 benchmark. A trail junction is the only logical reason for the surveyors to have put the marker there a hundred years ago. I contoured east to the ridge, then straight up past the 7000 foot level. Looking for blazes. Looking for split rocks. Head spinning like a top.
I did find some things. I found the old 1875 telegraph line on its way to Gentry's Station. The insulators are still up in a tree near the road.
There was a later telephone line, which has been salvaged and carried away. But they broke one of the insulators and left it behind. It is the type that has an internal thread, and screws onto a threaded dowel, sort of the way that a push broom head goes on.
I met a bear, but he wouldn't pose for a photo. I passed an old skull. But the chief was not amused.
.... 
I met a chicken sphinx. Unlike many statues, this one is equally fowl on both sides....
.....
But what I didn't see is any blazes. Although there were some huge trees, easily two hundred years old, none showed blazes. Disturbingly, the great old giants, ponderosa and sugar pines, stood very far apart and there were no young pines. Almost the entire forest was made up of firs. Some were fairly large, but not 200 years old. All of the young trees were firs. They tended to form in isolated thickets of equal size...some thickets six feet tall and some half that size, probably based on particular fires. All the trees showed significant fire scars. The great sugar pine forest for which Yosemite was famous is gone here. Killed, perhaps, by horrible crown fires resulting from unwise forestry practice. I'm told that old tree rings show evidence of ground fires every decade or so, which wouldn't have killed the larger trees, but recent fires like the huge Arch Rock Fire can kill everything....
I had a chance the following day to see plenty of blazes along the Yosemite Creek Trail, but none were on very large trees and the oldest ones were healing over. Based on this hike, I would say that 150 years, along with fire damage, would be enough to obliterate any blazes at this altitude. However I'm told that blazes last longer on the slow growing trees up in Mono Pass.
Speaking of beneficial ground fires, the current Cascade Creek fire has been burning for over a month and is still only about 30 acres in extent. This was of great interest to me, since it was just upstream of my bushwhack (see link).
Even though the wind was constantly blowing the smoke to the northwest, away from me, one errant burst of smoke caught me on the knob just above the double falls. My eyes teared up so badly that I couldn't see to walk for the next five minutes. You don't have to warn me twice. I turned around and checked out a different route on the way home. Ribbon Meadow could wait until tomorrow.
On Tuesday I decided to go to Ribbon Meadow via the El Capitan Ridge from White Wolf. Not the fastest route, about five hours to get to the meadow, but it's my favorite off-trail hike in Yosemite (see link). No brush, open ridge, great views, like a walk in the park. At the south end of the ridge stands a prominent knob, called Kaialauwa Hill on the old maps. Next to it is Boundary Hill, so named because one of the vertices of the original Yosemite Grant is on its summit. Between them is one of those perfectly straight fault-based gullies that you see in Yosemite, which the Mono Trail passes through. Kaialauwa Hill is by far the larger of the two. At 8971 feet it is slightly higher than Half Dome and 500 feet taller than Boundary Hill. Why its name has disappeared from modern maps is unclear, since it is a much better landmark than Boundary Hill, unless you are a surveyor...
Here is Half Dome seen from Kaialauwa Hill, with part of Boundary Hill in the foreground.
Descending to Ribbon Meadow in the usual place puts you right smack onto where the old trail used to run. From here to Yosemite Creek there is no need to hunt around for the old trail...your feet will keep you on it. (Still no blazes, though)
Note that the trail on the old maps was just sketched in, with only the main peaks surveyed by triangulation. The elevations shown along the old trail would be barometric ones obtained by some guy with a mule and a mercury barometer. Hence the unfamiliar look of the creeks and other stuff away from the trail. Here is a less fanciful modern map of Ribbon Meadow:
Even so, the modern map is misleading about the northern edge of the meadow. It turns out that a little creek flows east along the base of the hill. The ground slants steeply down the hill into the north side of the creek, but the south side of the creek is a grassy verge rising to a level bank before falling off again to the south. I remember thinking, "What a perfect place for a trail!", as I walked along it into a majestic grove of giant old pines....Ponderosas, Sugars, Whites, with no underbrush and a modest assortment of immature specimens to round out a healthy forest. This is what the great sugar pine forest must have been like 150 years ago.
Soon enough the creek turns to the south, but the land remains gentle until the desired cleft appears ahead. Then, suddenly, you get a taste of what a second-growth, badly burned forest is like:
Still, I was lucky. This is easy to walk through today, but in a few years it will be a labyrinth of fallen logs.
Then up the cleft. Perfect. Not burned, dirt floored, reasonable gradient. At one point the granite walls close in, and the path is about eight feet wide. I was standing right on the old trail. I listened for ghosts, but they were quiet.
Then I made a possible mistake. The other side of this little pass is called Bluejay Creek. I needed to take that down to the Yosemite Creek Trail, then head back to White Wolf. But Chick-on had done Boundary Hill last year, and reported that Bluejay Creek was almost impassable due to downed trees. So I went over Boundary Hill and down the other side instead.
The upper part of this trek was fine, the only problem being some strange blowdowns: Only the biggest live trees were knocked down, and all parallel to each other and across my path. Younger trees and dead tress remained standing. These windfalls were really big trees, so it meant detouring fifty feet one way and fifty feet back, repeat ad infinitum. Sometimes the detours were longer, where the trees had fallen like dominoes. Still, all was well until halfway down the far side when I hit another brushy burn area and was forced to the right and down through some bush-covered broken cliffs to the Eagle Creek Trail. It was two hours and 40 minutes from when I left the old trail to where I passed it again at the mouth of Bluejay Creek. If the old trail had still existed, it would have saved me two hours and some shin bruises. I haven't given up on there being a better route through there, but Chick-on and I have both missed it so far.
Then home in a hurry, in order to reach the car before sunset. Which I did, but only because the days are long right now. Eleven hours, 4600 vertical, and 22 miles make for a long hike.
On the other hand, including some hiking on the Smoky Jack Ridge next to route 120 on Sunday, I logged 22 hours of hiking in Yosemite, in July, in sight of the Valley, and never saw another hiker. Who says that the place is crowded in the summer?
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2012 02:05PM by wherever.
