Re: Grump. Tamarack Flat trail head closed for 12 days staring June 6

Some of you may have noticed Eeek's post that the Tamarack Flat camp ground has been given over to a native american spiritual retreat for 12 days starting June 6. But what the post doesn't mention is that the trail head is closed, too. The access road will be closed at Tioga Road to anyone who doesn't have the right ethnicity, or something.

Bad news for anyone planning to start or end a hike there. I sent an e-mail to the park service, trying to find out who will be controlling the access, but they ducked the question.

I have no quarrel with a bunch of guys doing their thing in the woods, but am annoyed that I have to cancel plans because they want to do it while blocking trail access that I was planning to use....

I was afraid that the TH access would be blocked too.

I'm just curious, does anyone know which Indian group is reserving Tamarack Campground for those twelve days? Does our resident Yosemite Indian know?

(I'm also annoyed that they, just like last year, have reserved it during what's usually the peak time of year for seeing Yosemite at its springtime best – great weather, not too hot, water flowing, everything green and there aren't a lot of other first-come, first-served campgrounds yet opened in the park.)

As an alternative hiking point, I guess you could use the Old Big Oak Flat Road TH off of Big Oak Flat Road, or hike cross-country along El Cap ridge off of Tioga Road.

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Try this instead:




Or you could go check this out:
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=ba20adac-9b10-456b-a00e-57afd184d6b1

Or simply take the Tam Crk trail. It's pretty nice imo.
But then again I think pretty much everything is pretty nice.

And like you really need more ideas, right?

O... of course then there's the Fireplace Bluff Route...

No matter how you Split Rock it... it's all good ...

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Yeah. I wanted to finally get to the Twin Falls on Cascade Creek, and scout out the ridge up the west side of Coyote Creek, and explore the burn that we had last summer on the upper Cascade drainage....

There are lots of ways to get there, but they are hikes in themselves.....it cuts down on the time available for the new stuff. Maybe I can manage to be there on the day before they shut it down.

Hey, I'm getting too old to do all the stuff on my list before I drop dead of old age. But I did just get back from a couple of rim-to-rim day hikes in the Grand Canyon. That was another place that I had never been to. Neat place, but too far to go every weekend. And it can get hot.

The list just gets bigger.

There's some nice waterfalls on the trek pict. I posted (I cut off the zig to Twin Falls)...
Unfortunately getting to really nice views of the falls is anything but trivial.
Next year I'll go up on the west side instead and poke around.

Have fun and keep exploring. It'll keep you young.

I think...

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