Tuolumne Meadows to Yosemite Valley, via Vogelsang Pass and Lyell Fork — Yosemite NP — MDW 2021
This hike happened over a year ago. I’m upset with myself that it took this long to get it on paper because it was truly a fantastic hike. But as I sit here nursing a torn achilles that has robbed me of a precious hiking season (a good lesson to cherish each one as they are certainly limited), I am ecstatic for the opportunity to go back through the memories of this walk and looking forward to being back in the Sierra.
Day 0 and 1: Tuolumne Meadows to the Upper Merced
This was a hike that was supposed to be solo but a friend of mine, Madeline, ended up joining me on the last minute. Hiking solo is fun, but hiking with a friend and showing someone the wonders of the Yosemite backcountry is special so it was a no brainer. Overall, the hike was another fantastic foray into the Yosemite region that will never, ever get old (no matter how bad the traffic gets in the Valley).
Day 0 and 1: Yosemite Valley to somewhere in the Upper-Merced River
I was coming from the beautiful wedding of my friends Talia and Daniel in Carmel, CA and had met Maddie who was driving from LA in the early afternoon of May 27th in Yosemite Valley. We quickly grabbed our permits, executed a car drop in Tuolmne Meadows, and made it back to Happy Isles so that we could get into the backcountry and spend the night in Little Yosemite Valley. We got to the Happy Isles trailhead at about 6pm and commenced what I recall being a delightful sunset walk up the Mist trail. I’ve done this trail a million times, but never at sunset or in the twilight and that was a treat. As always, it was beautiful and due to the time of day, it was relatively empty which is rare. We climbed the Nevada Falls staircase as the sun set, topped it as it was getting dark, and hiked the remaining trail to LYV by headlamp which wasn’t much further. Doing this allowed us to sleep in a bit in the morning and make the hike up Half Dome much easier as it was now a few miles versus the eight from the Valley floor.
Little Yosemite Valley is usually dusty and overcrowded but this time around it was pleasant. We slept in a bit, stretched, and made our pack-less ascent of Half Dome which is always fun.
We summited just before Noon and spent a nice amount of time at the top taking it all in since this was Maddie’s first time up there. We relaxed, rumbled down to LYV to get our stuff, and were on our way up the Merced by 2pm.
We hiked up the Merced River which is always a beautiful walk outside of the nasty burn scar from 2014. Its full of granite domes, ponds, streams, and waterslides which are signatures of this region and always have you staring and smiling off into the distance.
During my previous walks into this part of the Merced, I had always wanted to try one of the waterfalls as a water slide. Given the time of year, I worried that they might be too risky to do without something to float on, so as per usual I brought my go-to Sierra floating donut along just in case we found a good slide. Low and behold around 5pm — some 10 miles up the Merced — we passed a completely gushing waterfall/waterslide that I simply could not pass up. We stopped and then I stripped and blew up the donut. Finally I could fulfill this pretty-stupid but totally necessary urge that I had been harboring for years. Judging by the videos, you can see that the flow was just a bit too strong to go from the top, but i did get to like 20 yards or so which i thought was cool. Hopefully from the top next time.
After my tubing itch was scratched, we wandered further up the Merced to a campsite I had had my eye on for a while now. It’s a site big enough for a group and is located little bit before the confluence with Echo Creek. Its a fantastic site that is perfectly flat with a fire ring and has tons of granite floored river-front real estate. A 5-star place to spend the night in my opinion.
Day 2: The Middle/Upper Merced to just below Vogelsang Pass
The next morning we woke up and continued the gradual ascent up the Merced River where we passed Echo Valley and Merced Lake where the High Sierra Camp was again closed due to Covid restrictions. Although it can become a bit repetitive, I love the tranquility of the upper-Merced. It doesn’t have the grand vistas or peaks and spires that some other regions have, but there is a peacefulness about it and the constant hum of the running river and birds chirping can drop you into a meditative state quickly. Most importantly though, it’s got granite in every direction you look so there is some variety.
We pressed on and continued to ascend all morning now walking up Lewis Creek towards Vogelsang Pass. This was new territory for me and I was excited to check it out. Also, both Maddie and I were antsy to get some downtime at a creek or a lake (something we had talked about basically since we started the hike almost 2 days prior) and thus were setting a rather motivated pace. However, as the afternoon pressed on, it became clear that the weather might have other plans for us. The incline up Lewis Creek had become steeper and we struggled to find a good spot to stop for lunch whereas both of us were starting to get hungry. We found a spot but two minutes into setting our stuff down and setting up the hammock for lunch, the first raindrop fell and by looking at the sky it looked like this summer-shower was going to get angry. Maddie made it very clear at the start of the hike that staying warm is the absolute #1 priority, so we changed courses immediately. The first clap of thunder made it very clear that we were about to get dumped on so it was all hands on deck. Within the 2.5 minutes that it took Maddie to layer up and me to get the tent and rain cover on, it went from rain drops here-and-there to fingernail sized hail pelting down on us with thunder and lightning not too far off in the distance. The speed of the storm was impressive. The whole episode was out of a sitcom where two idiots think they’re going to have a happy lake day but end up huddled up in a tiny tent waiting for the storm to pass. The video below tells it all.
Typically the mid-afternoon summer storms in the Sierra are like 20 minutes and that’s what we were prepared for. Fast-forward to two joints, half of our snacks, a few games of cards, and almost three full hours later, it was finally time to get moving. There wasn’t a pressing need to cover much more ground but we figured since it was only 5pm or so and we had plenty of daylight, we might as well get closer to Vogelsang Pass to make the following morning a bit easier. We packed up our wet stuff and pressed on through short showers of drizzling rain. We made camp on a flat granite spot a few miles later with a gorgeous views of the Clark Range in the distance. We proceeded to indulge.
Day 3: Just below Vogelsang Pass to the Lyell Fork
The trip thus far had already given us top notch scenery but i think this second full day was my favorite. On this day we went through some absolutely gorgeous country. It began as we left our campsite (and it’s fantastic views of the Clark Range) and continued towards Vogelsang Pass. It was a nice, gentle ascent to get the legs and lungs going first thing in the morning. The weather couldn’t have been better, and i believe we made it to the top of the pass in about an hour or so going at a leisurely pace.
One at the top I gave Maddie a hug, congratulating her on topping her first (of hopefully many) backcountry passes. The notable thing at this point was now that we were on the north face of Vogelsang Pass, this was the first time we encountered snow. This was pretty mind-blowing to me: it was LATE-MAY 2021, and the only snow that we were encountering was on the North Face at 10,500+feet. It felt like early-July conditions! At any rate, I had an itch to climb Vogelsang Peak but we decided to pass due to the snow and the fact that we were still vying for some down-time by a lake .
We hiked off the pass into a truly beautiful part of the Yosemite backcountry. Vogelsang Lake is nice, but the area just a bit further surrounding Vogelsang High Sierra Camp and beyond is truly spectacular. This is by far the nicest High Sierra Camp that I’ve seen so far. It too was closed due to Covid and we only saw one other group who had come up Rafferty Creek. Along with the solitude we had a range of flowers, boulders, and streams to remind us just how good the Sierra can get.
We finally made it to Evelyn Lake where we would make a small lunch-camp to hang for few hours. The walk to Evelyn Lake continued the theme of “holy shit this place is beautiful” and on the way we took tons of breaks to take in some of the beautiful vistas. When we got there, Maddie found a juniper with a perfect seat in it and proceeded to create quite the connection with this tree. I didn’t blame her because the tree, with its branches and trunk, literally said “sit here!” Interestingly enough we found a heavy rectangular block that we thought could be someone’s grave marker. Not a bad place to be laid to rest…
After a few hours, it was time to start the last phase of our trip. We wandered down the trail that leads us to the Lyell Fork and after a bit of walking, Amelia Earhart came into view. It’s an absolutely gorgeous peak that thankfully would be in our line of site for hours to come. After making the descent down into the Lyell Fork area, it became obvious that we were now on the John Muir Trail and the solitude that we had enjoyed for the last few days was no longer. Even though there were hiking parties everywhere, the Lyell Fork definitely deserves its regard. It’s an enormous glacially carved valley that is quintessential Sierra with a beautiful river running through it, meadows everywhere, and granite peaks in every direction. We were able to find a fantastic campsite on a granite slab right on the water where we put the hammock up and watched the valley turn colors.
Day 4: Lyell Fork to the car (Tuolumne Meadows)
The morning walk back to the car was peaceful but uneventful. Lots of people and day hikers but still extremely pretty. I unfortunately didn’t take many photos so not much to put down here. The only notable thing i remember is how nice it was to end a hike at Tuolumne so that we could get absolutely crazy in the general store. Nothing puts a cap on a hike like a hot meal and a massive fountain soda. Until next time….
