Backpacking Yosemite
My wife and I decided to celebrate our first year of marriage by embarking on a 50+ mile backpacking trip through Yosemite’s backcountry. Here are some photos and notes from the trip.
We started planning the trip back in February. The requirements for our trip were as follows:
- minimum crowds
- 4–6 days
- high altitude scenery
We are both in pretty good shape and camp frequently, but we wanted to push ourselves with this trip. After some researching, I found Yosemite’s Red Peak Pass Loop. The trail is a 50 mile loop that takes you out of the Yosemite Village crowds, goes up to 11,699 ft and has some pretty amazing landscapes.
Day 1
We took it easy the first day to let our bodies climatize to the altitude. Day 1 was 5.1 miles from Glacier Point south along Illilouette Creek. There were several river crossings that required some pretty high tech foot wear.
At this point we still have not seen the actual Red Peak. With Half Dome being 8,842 ft — the mountain in the first photo— and Red Peak being 3,000 ft taller, we were a little nervous to see how big Red Peak was going to be. The first big mountain we thought was Red Peak was actually Mount Starr King which is still only a little over 9k ft.
Day 2
We ended up camping the first night still without seeing Red Peak. Day two was our first real push. The entire day was 11.5 miles of gradual up hill. Before we knew it, we made it to Lower Ottoway Lake. After hearing about the plane crash at this lake in Valley Uprising, we were both pretty excited to stay here for the night.
Day 3
I woke up early to get some shots of the sunrise coming up over Lower Ottoway Lake. This was probably to most peaceful scenery of the entire trip.
We enjoyed some coffee and breakfast while the sun came up. The next stretch was around the mountains on the left to finally see how hard Red Peak Pass was actually going to be.
Once we got above Lower Ottoway Lake and turn the corner, we saw the pass. The final push is roughly 800 feet of elevation gain via the switchbacks leading between the two peaks.
We made it to the top!
After that climb, we stopped to make some coffee and hot chocolate.
We hung out at the top for ~30 minutes before some dark clouds started rolling in. The north side of Red Peak had significantly more snow than the southern side. There were no signs of the trail at this point. Luckily, there was 1 pair of foot prints in the snow. Those helped out as the next 7 miles of the trail were covered by the snow.
At somepoint I accidentally started following some bear prints. Once Amalie pointed out that the prints dead-ended at a little cave under the rock, we decided to head in the other direction.
Day 4
We pushed through the snow and setup camp where our trail met the Triple Peak Fork River. Now that we were back down to ~9k ft and out of the snow, we took full advantage of the warm sun and warmed up our clothes for the day.
This day ended up being our biggest push. We covered 16.1 miles and got back down to ~7k feet.
The distance and weight really started to catch up with my back. Every time we stopped, I would try to find a sloping rock to stretch out on.
There was a mile or so stretch of fallen trees. The trail was literally carved out of the fallen tress.
The last half of the day followed the Merced River. This was our first glimpse of Yosemite Valley after being on the other side of the Clark Range for the past 3 days. This was also the first time that we saw a human since the first river crossing on day 1.
Day 5
Our final day was 10.3 miles through Little Yosemite Valley and back into Yosemite Valley. The fire at the end of last year was definitely still noticable.
After a few miles through the Little Yosemite Valley tree graveyard, we made it back to Yosemite Valley via Nevada Fall. It was still pretty early in the day, so the crowds were at a minimum.
The rest of our day was on the Panorama Trail following the southern ridge of Yosemite Valley. After several days of hiking along trails with no other humans, this was definitely a bit of a shock to be back in the crowds. Amalie and I could smell the clean clothes of all the tourists as they walked by. I can only imagine what we smelled like to them.
We made it!
Thanks to Goal Zero, I was able to keep my phone charged enough for Strava and my Basis Peak to be recording throughout the entire hike. The final stats of our trip are:
- 54.3 miles
- 7,865 ft of elevation gain
- 92.5 hours
- 132,917 steps
- 16,585 calories
