I met up with the Advance Party at the Big Oak Flat entrance station Friday evening after a pleasant and uneventful drive from the Bay Area. The weather was quite mild for fall, and the forecast was for more of the same. After rearranging our gear a bit, we headed towards our trailhead, stopping first at the Aspen Valley gate to leave a car for the return trip. At the trailhead we set up a nby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
The winter route(s) to Ostrander do not follow the summer trails exactly. The three ways to Ostrander I'm aware of are: 1) Merced Crest--the most direct, but also the most difficult 2) Ghost Forest, which more or less follows the summer trail from Bridalveil Campground 3) Horizon Ridge, which departs the GP road between the summer Ostrander and Mono Meadow trailheads, meeting up with the suby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
Another benefit: in winter you avoid blowing moist air into the sleeping pad and thus reduce the chance of ice forming inside it... I would say with lithium batteries 2 hours runtime seems about right. A set of batteries is good for easily 20-30 boat inflations, and each boat takes maybe 3-5 minutes to fill.by basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
As of October 15, there will be no overnight parking on the GP road... and you can't even park at formerly-Badger Pass until the ski operations open, usually in December. (This is why we did a hike off the GP road last weekend--last chance to get a TQ segment in the area before the parking restrictions became effective...) You might want to check out the areas that can be accessed via the Alby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
There will be no overnight parking on the Tioga Road after October 15, so if you want to do an overnight trip in the North Dome area, you will have to access it from the Valley. If you are in decent shape, you could hike up the Snow Creek trail and down the Yosemite Falls trail as a 2-3 day hike. As of a few weeks ago there was water in Lehamite, Indian Canyon, and Yosemite Creeks. Note that tby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
Over the past few years we have visited several Yosemite lakes that have submerged nets that are being used to remove unnatural fish from them... it looks like this effort is paying off: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/1003/Hope-for-hoppers-Endangered-frog-begins-to-recover-in-Yosemiteby basilbop - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Fortunately, this trip's "glitch" was a minor one: I had forgotten to procure tortillas to bring to the Advance Party, and didn't remember until I was well past any place I could procure any. Despite the downright fall-like cool temperatures I had experienced in Buck Meadows (37F), the start of my climb up the Beehive switchbacks was quite warm. Only near the top did a cool breeze pby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
Despite my much-later start, I wasn't too far behind the Advance Party as I approached the Friday night campsite. The evening temperature was mild and the sun was still up, making for a pleasant arrival. I had eaten on the drive up, but I brought in some chicken nuggets to supplement their meal, and to go with my wine as a nice treat to enjoy while watching the sunset. The next morniby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
I don't know if this phrase is in the current Schaffer edition, but "the Forsyth trail, not worth taking" came up recently. Another favorite was something along the lines of: "as always, the panting Sierra hiker is rewarded with ever-improving views." And, from last weekend (TR in progress...): "delicious"by basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
Quotehikerchick395 Oh Boy...a roundabout? Let me guess: it'll be a roundabout with stop signs.by basilbop - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
For the first time in several weeks I started from the trailhead with the usually Advanced Party. The first day would be repeating familiar terrain, albeit under different, mostly drier, conditions. Wapama Falls was surprisingly dry given how large the Falls Creek drainage is. No water flowed under any of the numerous Wapama Falls bridges. The mountain mahogany were all displayingby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
Yes, literally, apparently... It sounds like the Ackerson Meadow parcel may end up in limbo (e.g. held by the current owners, who will probably manage it like the park service would) or will be designated as a new national monument to get around Congressional inaction. FWIW, I think the Yosemite West addition is in a similar state of limbo.by basilbop - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Quotechick-on 1 square on z Topo map is 640 Acres... More specifically: one red square (A Public Land Survey System section, usually with a red number printed in the center) is generally 640 acres or one square mile, but this can vary depending on the quality of the underlying survey. One black square (UTM grid) is 1 square kilometer (or "klick" ).by basilbop - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
I think this is the new addition: The road that enters and leaves the addition from the west is the Evergreen Road. The southeast 1/4 or so of this map is Yosemite; the rest is Stanislaus, except for the grey area surrounding BM 4527, which is private. Presumably at some point it would make sense to transfer the surrounding Stanislaus NF land to Yosemite, but this would literally requiby basilbop - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Yosemite National Park in California adding 400 acres of meadow, forest Fortunately someone we all know has located the boundary markers that now need to be relocated. As a side note, I haven't seen any updates on the proposed expansion near Yosemite West.by basilbop - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
There are several places to camp northeast of the Clouds Rest trail at about the 9400' elevation line, just before the trail starts the final climb up the NE ridge of Clouds Rest itself. This area is fairly broad, open, flat--and popular. The best bet for reliable water is the small stream that the trail crosses at the low point between the Sunrise Lakes and Forsyth trail junctions, but theby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
Neither M nor I could leave for the mountains until Saturday morning, but we wasted no time heading up, grabbing our permit, and getting to the trailhead. Soon we were away from the bustle of Tuolumne Meadows as we circled Cathedral Peak, from which we could hear climbers working their way to the summit. We passed Upper Cathedral Lake and continued to Cathedral Pass, where we got our firsby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
It looks like it's under 100 named lakes left... but not by much :-(by basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
Despite a reasonably early departure from the Bay Area, I didn't arrive at the trailhead until around 8:00pm due to various accidents and delays on the way. On the other hand, this meant I had the Mono Pass trail to myself, almost... The sky was cloudy, but the air was still, warm, and somewhat humid. It made for very comfortable hiking, but I worried that one of those rare nighttime monby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
Quoteags What is the meaning of "witness" to the marker? What's the function or purpose of these? I'm not familiar with surveying methods and procedure. Witness trees and markers are used to confirm the location of the marker itself. The survey notes will have the distance and compass heading to these trees so that the marker itself can be located by triangulation. In more recent sby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
QuoteKevinDyou guys a crazy! Guilty as charged... And yes, I was surprised that there were still flowers and south-exposed snow fields (and unfortunately, mosquitoes) on a mid-August trip.by basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
M and I weren't able to leave the Bay Area until mid-afternoon, so we didn't arrive at Sonora Pass until well after sunset. Despite the darkness and elevation, the temperature at the pass was quite mild--warmer than our typical East Bay evening. We weren't starting our hike from the pass, but we had to transfer some extra supplies to the Advance Party's car that was parked there. Our trailheadby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
The New, Improved Mirror LakeTM! "Forget it, Jake. It's Boystown." #boatable "There it is. Take it." macOS 10.14 "Lake Yosemite" The New, Improved Mirror Lake is a registered trademark of Delaware North, Inc.by basilbop - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Quotebalzaccom Interesting that they found it easier to get there view Leavitt Lake than to come up from the West...which would require them to deal with Cherry Canyon somehow, I guess. Having just walked a good portion of the Horse Meadow Road, I can think of a few reasons the Leavitt Lake route was preferred: 1) The road follows metamorphic and volcanic terrain from Leavitt Lake to the desby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
All Picasa photos are visible in Google Photos, but the Picasa functionality to generate image embedding URLs seems to have disappeared. It looks like it may be possible to reverse-engineer image-specific URLs from the albums, but even if this works, who knows for how long. OTOH, while OneDrive does now have an embed URL generation, the link to view the entire album includes a "Download&by basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
(First of all, apologies for the delays in posting... Google finally made good with their threat to kill off all remaining useful Picasa functionality--such as embedding images in websites. I don't know how long they'll keep the old Picasa links functional; they seem to have already killed my "More Pictures" links for reasons... ) The Advance Party, as some of you know, is on a quby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
I think it's about 16-17 miles from the Tamarack Flat campground/trailhead to the base of the Yosemite Falls trail at Camp 4, which makes for a long day hike or a nice multi-day trip. You can park at Tamarack Flat (until October 15) if starting there. The trail is fairly well-traveled, and I can't think of anything that would qualify as a "trouble" spot. The only water sources may beby basilbop - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra
And, from here: Principal Point - The principal point is the point where the perpendicular projected through the center of the lens intersects the photo image. So, in short, there's nothing on the ground or anything special about these points, and thus no need for anyone to drag anyone else through random shrubbery to try to find something there...by basilbop - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Quoteags He vaguely mentioned the impact of some aspects of the proposal as he was aware that would have significant impact on the viability of the HSCamps. I was intrigued and later spoke a bit more with him. I thought there might be restrictions on the HSC because of use of water, or sanitary disposal. It was pretty clear that the issue was banning use of stock to transport supplies to the campby basilbop - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
For those interested, some documents with initial concepts for these two topics have been posted at the planning URL above. For Visitor Use and Capacity, the documents consider changes to the current trailhead-based quota system, including zone-based, entry/exit, and assigned campsite (within popular areas) quota alternatives. The motivation is that visitors to extremely popular areas (e.g. tby basilbop - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion