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Phil wrote:It's not that the process is complicated, it's that any permit reservations from the Happy Isles trailhead (the one you want to use), regardless of destination, are incredibly hard to get, as well as fully impacted for your desired window. It's a gateway to much of the high country wilderness, and if Tioga Rd is still closed because of snow and plowing, one of the few that will get you there without several days of hiking. The other option is to try for a walk-up permit the day before (after 11am) your planned departure date. To stay in LYV or the wilderness nearby HD, and then ascend HD, you have to apply for a backpacker's HD permit as opposed to a day-hiking permit (both decided by availability and lottery), and then, you're right back where you started from in trying get that Happy Isles entry. The walk-up wilderness permit is also problematic from the standpoint of planning in that, if you're coming from the UK, then diverting from the Bay Area just to do that hike in particular, you may very well find yourself shut out and disappointed. The keys to getting backpacking permits anywhere in Yosemite are either dumb luck, incredible timing, or flexibility in where you start.
If you haven't seen this, check it out: https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/ ... lheads.pdf
As you can see on the link, where you want to start is fully impacted for your dates.
AlmostThere wrote:If you get a wilderness permit from Glacier Point or Mono Meadow, the only place to camp will be up Ilillouette Creek somewhere, not along the Ilillouette or Panorama trail, where camping is illegal. Or you hike on to LYV.
You can get to LYV on your second night out and camp there, or the third, etc. You will be entering from another trail and not be impacting the hordes of hikers coming up from Happy Isles on that quota. LYV is a zoo tho, full of noise and people who never backpack at all, and bears are particularly bad - sneaking out to grab any unattended thing that smells like food.
You can't camp at trailheads, you can't camp within a mile of a road, and many trailheads that are very busy, you have a two or four mile limit on camping -- cannot camp within two (or four) miles of that trailhead. And some trails you cannot camp on them at all like the Panorama trail. It's a big adjustment for folks who are used to camping anywhere, sleeping the car at a trailhead for example, but if they didn't have these rules this area of Yosemite would be even trashier than it is.
AlmostThere wrote:That all depends on how far you can hike at 6000-7000 feet elevation with a backpack. It also depends on when you start hiking. You have to be a couple miles up the creek from the trail to camp, if you take Ilillouette from Glacier Point, so a couple miles down to the bridge, another couple miles up the creek. Next day you come back to the trail and go another 6 miles or so to LYV, then another two miles beyond it to camp again - or three or four miles, if you have to camp near water. You can't camp until you're 2 miles away from LYV in any direction.
Some people have difficulty hauling a backpack a few miles. I usually do 8-10 miles per day, but I do that all the time. Not knowing whether you have even backpacked before with a bear canister and everything? I'm not able to give you much in the way of definite answers. These trails are often in full sun and at lower elevations so can be quite hot in the middle of the day, which can also slow you down a lot.
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