Yosemite Forum

I hadn't even considered the SF Cathedral might be dry. Thanks for suggesting I check. The ranger said that there were 2 to 4 inches in SF Cathedral in late July and that I should only rely on lakes. Yikes! I'll definitely stock up on water at the western tarns before the segment to 10 Lakes. You're literally a life saver! Thanks.

Copy and paste from the wilderness conditions web page updated 08/07/20:

Tioga Rd: West Half Moon Meadow, Ten Lakes, South Fork Cathedral Creek, May Lake Trails mostly clear and dry. Creek crossings are at a low flow and water availability should only be counted on at springs and lakes.

May lake HSC bathrooms are closed and potable water is not available. The road to the May Lake Trailhead is open.

With this heat wave, time that climb out of the gorge for as early as you can. For me it would be 2-3 liters onboard, but I would wager that the creek can still be effectively pumped. 2-4" of flow + pooling is entirely doable

Greetings, We just got back from our trip to Ten Lakes where we started at the Ten Lakes Trailhead with plans to exit via GA and TM. We started Friday morning and there wasn't any water along the trail until around mile 3.5 and there was a little outflow from either a spring or remnants of a small stream that was next to the trail that we kinda zigzagged around. The flow was very low that we could barely get our water bag to collect any water. If it isn't a spring, it will be dry soon. So if you are hiking up from the Ten Lakes trailhead, I would not plan on getting any water along the way. The lakes were beautiful and no bugs (ie. mosquitoes). Our plan was to continue to GA but talked to someone coming down who had hiked over to to see the SF of the Cathedral Creek and she said it was dry. We then met another packer who was planning on doing the same route and they had talked with the back country ranger who confirmed that the SF Cathedral was dry and only had a few areas of stagnant water. So we decided to stay and explore around the Ten Lakes area and return the same way. Smoke wasn't bad Friday or Saturday so the views were pretty good. Sunday saw more smoke but we were basically above it and it didn't bother us on the hike to/from or at camp. Now if were were in the valleys, it would have been much different. Stay safe.

Thanks for coming back here to provide the update, and the trip report! Glad to hear you had a good time. It's a beautiful area...