Yosemite Forum

Hi, I should start with a thanks in advance. I've received a lot of great info from this board already in my trip planning and think I've hit my last hiccup of which I need some guidance.

Me and 3 other backpackers have a trip from Tenaya Lake -> Sunrise Lakes -> Clouds Rest -> Half Dome -> Happy Isles planned with our entrance this Sunday (7/24) and our exit Thursday (7/28). We have our necessary wilderness and half dome permits reserved and are excited for the trip. We were originally counting on a friend to come up with us the first night of the trip and he was going to drive separately and allow us to leave one car at the exit point at Happy Isles and drive us all up to Tenaya. He can no longer make it and now I'm trying to figure out the bus system to get the 4 of us from the valley up to Tenaya.

From what I've found there are two bus options. One being the hikers bus that leaves the valley at 8:05am and the YARTS that leaves at 5pm. Both of these seem impossible with our current plans but I thought maybe someone here could help. We can't do the 8am hikers bus because the permit office doesn't open until 8am. We wouldn't be able to pick up our permit and get to the bus in time in this case. The 5pm YARTS will get us up to Tenaya too late as I'd think that would cause us to be hiking from Tenaya to Sunrise Lakes in the dark.

Options I know of

- Come in a day early and stay at a backpackers campground to get permit the day before and then hop on the bus the next morning (we can do this, but our wives will kill us if we tell them we're going to be gone an extra day )
- Park the car at Tenaya and try and catch the bus back up at the end of our trip (this can also be done as well but adds 3 hours of drive time home afterwards that we would rather not have)
- Drive up two separate cars (same issue as above)
- Hitchhike (I've read that this is possible but it seems like it's usually someone solo or maybe two. I'm guessing 4 guys would be a hard sell.)
- I know we would also be willing to pay private party if there are people that do that, but I haven't been able to find anything like that online...

Are these all of the options? Is there any way for us to get the permit earlier on the day of so we could still make the bus at 8:05?

Thanks again for the help!

Why not ride the bus to Tuolumne Meadows, get the permit at that office, then ride the free shuttle to Tenaya Lake? Later start but plenty of daylight left in the day to get to Sunrise Lakes.

Ah! That's a great idea! Thanks so much. I think we'll go that route.

Any other tips on the trip are appreciated, but your help thus far is more than generous

I've posted this for several others recently so you get it too Most important on that route is the last water spot, there is NO more once you have passed it until you're over and down south of CR.

Thanks for that MadDiver. We're bringing up 5 liters of water storage each and were planning on considering that small lake as the last stop just in case the stream were dry. This let's us know that we can get a little further!

Thanks for circling some camping there. I read that there are actually some spots near The Pinnacles south of the summit? Are you aware of those spots?

5L sounds about right. I bonked really hard after filling up then making the final climb, but I had started the day at May Lake too. I camped about where the X on the map is. That area is very open, lots of decent spots. I've not been to the spots by the pinnacles myself, my journey took me down through the "burned area" and over to Merced Lake. WanderingJim, however, recently posted about camping there viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3610 It seems you have plenty of time for this trip, something I was recently reading about is the "diving board". It's an outcrop just south and looking up at Half Dome. Check it out if you find yourself with extra time and wanting to explore a bit, be careful, some of the routes seem a bit sketchy There were some recent discussions about it over there too: http://yosemitenews.info/forum/list.php?17