Backpacking Yosemite — Preparations
This post is part of the “Backpacking Yosemite” Series. If you haven’t done so yet, please start reading the overview post:
Planning Ahead
As mentioned in the intro to this series, I started planning our trip 9 months in advance. And that payed off. Every year, millions of people are visiting Yosemite, but campsites and wilderness permits are very limited.
Deciding Where To Go
I guess my approach was a little bit unusual. As a photographer, I use photo sharing sites like Instagram or 500px a lot. When I stumble upon great photos of places that I want to visit, I save them for later. Many of them are actually geotagged, so that I can get the latitude and longitude in order to place them on a map.
I created a custom Google map and started adding the photo spots to it. Later on, I also added campgrounds, wilderness permit stations, trail heads and some GPS logs to it.
Deciding Which Trails To Use
Now that I had a better idea of which areas of the park I wanted to visit, needed to find some trails. I heavily used AllTrails, which contained a lot of insights from other hikers. Another helpful resource was Yosemite Hikes, which provided a great overview as well as the very neat “Do you know Yosemite?” quiz (seriously, don’t miss out on this!).
Route Type
I was looking for loop trails only. I wanted to get back to the car every few days in order to re-stock our food and potentially drive to the next trail head. The one exception I made was for the Pohono Trail, which was an out-and-back trail.
Length & Duration
Except for one day hike through the Mariposa Grove, I wanted to do multi-day hikes with at least one night in the wilderness, but not more than three in a row (too limit the amount of food to carry). I estimated that we would be able to hike 10–15 kilometers (~6–9 miles) per day. That left me with a range from about 20–50 kilometers (~12–30 miles) per trail.
For estimating hiking duration, I used Naismith’s rule, which takes distance and ascent into account. However, this rule of thumb is for day hikes and not for backpacking. To account for the heavy backpacks, the modified rule is:
Allow 20 minutes for every kilometer forward plus 20 minutes for every 100 meters of ascent. Or allow 30 minutes for every mile forward plus 60 minutes for every 1000 feet of ascent.
Elevation Gain
Although I didn’t care too much for this while planning, I would recommend that you do so when preparing your trip. It turned out that most of our hikes had an elevation gain of over 1 kilometer (~3200 feet) per day. That can get quite challenging if you’re not used to it, especially with 16 kilograms (35 pounds) on your back. Also keep in mind that you’ll start your hikes at an higher altitude if you’re not roaming around in the valley.
Water Sources
I made sure that we’d be able to refill our water bottles along the trail and that we’d camp next to a water source every night. Be it a lake, river or just a creek, having easy access to water is great for cooking and cleaning. I wouldn’t want to miss that.
We brought a UV light purifier to make sure that we drink clean water, although I think we wouldn’t have needed it. The water in Yosemite is probably as clean as it can be. We also had some chlorine dioxide pills but didn’t end up using them. Better safe than sorry!
Wilderness Permits
Now that I knew our trails heads and approximate camp locations, I could take care of the required wilderness permits. Applications for permit reservations are open 24 weeks in advance of the start date of the hike and will set you back $5 plus $5 per person. Permits for popular trail heads are usually reserved after the first day of the application window.
If you’re not able to get a reservation, you can still try your luck and attempt to get one of the first-come, first-served permits at a permit issuing station (but be there early). Luckily, I got all the permit reservations I applied for.
Keep in mind that a reservation confirmation is not actually a permit. You need to pick up the permit in person not more than one day before the start date of your hike. Be prepared to show an ID and to answer some questions about the wilderness regulations in Yosemite.
Campground Reservations
There are large areas in Yosemite where camping is not allowed if you’re out of a designated campground. Most notably that includes the Valley, Glacier Point, Wawona, and generally areas near roads and popular spots that are easily accessible.
In total there are 13 campgrounds in Yosemite, but only few of them are open all year. Just like the wilderness permits, you should reserve campsites as soon as possible. If you want to get one at a weekend in May through September, you’ll have just a few minutes to make a reservation before all are gone.
I planned our trip in a way that we spent the weekends out in the wilderness and not at one of the more popular places, which helped us avoiding the crowds. But still, I was only able to get one reservation (actually, the very last free campsite on the whole campground).
Luckily, there are also a few special backpacker’s campgrounds. These can’t be reserved and allow wilderness permit holders to spend one night before and one night after a wilderness trip there. They’re also cheaper than the normal campgrounds — $6 per person per night — but come with less comfort as they are a bit more remote. You’ll have to walk longer to get water and park your car far away.
I think that’s about it for planning, let’s talk about equipment:
