TiMa wrote:
What about:
Option 1
Day 1: Happy Isle to Little Yosemite Valley
Day 2: Half Dome
Day 3:Little Yosemite Valley to Clouds Rest
Day 4: Clouds Rest to Cathedral Lakes or Tenaya Lake
Day 5: Cathedral Lake or Tenaya Lake to Tolumne Meadows
Day 6: Tolumne Meadows to Lyell Canyon
Day 7: Lyell Canyon to Thousand Island Lakes
Day 8: Thousand Island Lakes to Reds Meadow
Day 9: Via Shuttle back to Happy Isle/Yosemite Valley
If you are in not great shape, this is easy to reverse. There is no free shuttle but you can take YARTS if you go while they are running. Leave the car at the Agnew Meadow trailhead parking and take the Reds Meadow bus to the resort, the resort bus to town, and get a campsite in Mammoth Lakes at the east end of town. Walk to the YARTS stop at the Days Inn and ride the bus back to Yosemite valley trailhead. Do your hike back to the car. (I wish someone had told me this prior to my trip ending in Reds Meadow.)
You will not camp in Tuolumne meadows or at Tenaya Lake - neither is in the wilderness. You might be able to stay in the backpacker camp in the campground in Tuolumne meadows for five dollars per person as they will let thru hikers do that, but it is illegal to camp within four miles from a trailhead, and within a mile of the road anywhere. Tenaya Lake is right on the road.
Camping on Clouds Rest - wow. Many people can't even bring themselves to walk over it. It's 50 feet wide with a lot of exposure - long, cliff face drop on the front, nearly as steep and cliffy on the back.
My suggestion:
Day 1: Happy Isle to Little Yosemite Valley
Day 2: Half Dome (if you get a permit, if not, move on from LYV and see below)
Day 3:Little Yosemite Valley to Sunrise Creek - day hike to Clouds Rest
Day 4: Sunrise Creek to Merced Lake - there is a High Sierra Camp here, but backpackers have designated sites they can use
Day 5: Merced Lake to Fletcher Lake - this is where Vogelsang High Sierra Camp is - you can go down the trail to Boothe to wilderness camp if you don't want another stay in backpacker sites at the resort
Day 6: go back uphill and take the trail past Evelyn Lake, descending to Lyell Canyon, and head as far up Lyell as you can to be positioned as close to the pass as possible. There are flat spots at the headwaters of the river.
Day 7: Over Donahue Pass, up Island Pass, turn right off the trail at Thousand Island and head south to the legal end of the lake to camp.
Day 8: If you did not spend a day doing Half Dome, continue onward and camp around Trinity Lake or in Johnston Meadow. If you did Half Dome, take a right in the Shadow drainage and head to Ediza Lake for the night.
Day 9: If you camped at Trinity or Johnston, walk to Devil's Postpile and catch the shuttle up the hill to Agnew Meadows to get your car. If you camped at Ediza, go down the Shadow/Ediza drainage and exit Agnew Meadows to your car.
REMEMBER that you will need to fit all your food into bear canisters for the whole trip - I highly recommend going to trailcooking.com and get ideas for food that will survive in a bear canister, and then to Wild Ideas' website where you can rent the biggest and lightest canisters possible. You will each need the largest Bearikade to comfortably fit all your food, trash and hygiene items into the canister every night - The first night you will have a bear locker to accommodate overflow food. The second night you are not, unless you go from LYV to Merced Lake and totally skip Clouds Rest.
Option 2
Day 1: Happy Isle to Little Yosemite Valley
Day 2: Half Dome
Day 3:Little Yosemite Valley to Cathedral Lake
Day 4: Cathedral Lake to Tolumne Meadows
Day 6: Tolumne Meadows to Tenaya Lake
Day 7: Tenaya Lake to Clouds Rest
Day 8: Clouds Rest to Happy Isle
Thanks again,
Tim and Marion
See above - no wilderness camping at Tuolumne meadows or tenaya lake. You must be in the wilderness. Four miles from a trailhead, one mile from any road.