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Arranged from least energy output to most, named by the
starting points and trail names of the 4 most obvious access trails.All of these hikes use a portion of the John
Muir trail.Distances are to Merced lake.If running the upper stretch starting at the
Lyell Fork confluence is desired, add about 5 miles to the hike.
The reservation system is not realistic for kayakers,
therefore only information about first come-first serve permits are mentioned
below.Permits are issued at 11am the
day before they are valid at one of the wilderness permit stations in the park. Permit priority for a particular trailhead is given to the closest permit issuing station, though a permit can be procured for any trail at any permit issuing station. Show up willing to use any of the trailheads available, and have a list of options ready. Early arrival is wise. Camping in the backpackers camp the day before a trip is an option for those with a permit.
Glacier Point:A little over 13 miles.This option allows one to camp near Moraine
Dome, where paddlers can ditch their camping gear.This means only about 8 miles of hiking are
required with a full load. The camp is
at the end of the whitewater section.
First come, first
serve permits available: 4
Tenaya/Sunrise Lakes:About 11 miles.Two uphill portions, each a mile or
less.Full gear will need to be carried
to the Lost Valley, Range of Light and down will need to be run with a loaded
boat.
First come, first
serve permits available: 6
Tuolomne/Rafferty:Just over 14 miles.Longest distance to Merced Lake on this list,
dropping into the Merced about a mile above Merced Lake, it is a good option
for boaters running the section above Merced Lake.Merced Lake is a good campsite, everything
below there must be run with a full load.
First come, first
serve permits available:8
Happy Isles:About 11 ½ miles, be aware the first 3 miles
are brutal.Can camp at Moraine Dome.
First come, first
serve permits available: 12, these are highly sought after by hikers.
Parking is also more regulated than the average kayaking
run.The bus system is not designed for
kayaking purposes, but can be used for shuttling people (probably not
kayaks).Check out the “Getting Around
Yosemite” section of this link for more info.
Access for kayakers is not completely dialed yet, so more
options for getting into this section may be available to crafty boaters.All trips require a hike out of 4 miles along
the John Muir Trail (the Mist trail is not recommended for kayakers with
backpacks).
This trip really started a couple months ago with a botched attempt at Upper Cherry. I was highly skeptical that the classic run was going to be in the desired flow range but was on a train destined for a collision course with California. I decided that instead of jumping ship I would look into other options in the area. The obvious choice was a salvaging run on South Silver, despite lamentations to the contrary we ended up doing this run and really enjoying it. I also noticed that there were a couple runs on the Merced flowing and further research showed that a couple new sections on this stream had just been legalized thanks to the work of American Whitewater. I checked out the maps and was most intrigued by the headwaters run on the Merced, which had large/smooth slides that could be seen from the satellite imagery. I did some basic reconnaissance on the internet but since it was only a backup plan didn't delve too deep.
Ben Mckenzie, Kory Kellum, Priscilla Macy and myself headed out from the Willamette Valley at a leisurely pace certain that Upper Cherry was still high and we had a couple days to kill before we would even be thinking about hiking in. As I mentioned earlier we took a pit stop at South Silver and had a great time. Totally the epitome of class fun. We portaged the mandatory as well as a manky double drop near the beginning, but other than that we slipped and slid our way down our first taste of Granite goodness. I walked back up the creek to run shuttle while the others walked the boats past the last hundred yards of mank.
We were liking what it was California was offering.
We left South Silver in high spirits headed towards Groveland, where we met up with Willy Dinsdale. Despite high optimism from others who were going to start their hike that night, we were skeptical at best that Cherry would drop into a good range. After pizza and beer with Willy (high water Cherry veteran) we decided that we would make the call in the morning.
What we were working with, hearing that 3.4 was considered a good, padded flow and 4' was high.
Morning came and the gauge had actually gone up a touch, we had no reservations about aborting and considered the alternatives. Ben and Willy decided on low water Fantasy Falls while Priscilla, Kory and I decided to check out Yosemite since we had never been. We parted ways and did a quick park and plop on the SF Tuolumne on the way over.
Kory having a good time.
On the way down we decided to check out Yosemite Valley but also were looking for an IK to haul up the Merced to run the headwater slides, given we only had a couple days and needed to move quick. The plan was to then take turns running the slides and have a pretty leisurely time at it. We went to the local guiding company, but the only IK they had was a friends who was not in town and understandably they chose to honor their duty of keeping it safe and did not loan it to us. I decided I would just haul my hardshell up and we could take turns carrying the boat and overnight gear, then take turns running the slides. We knew we needed a permit so went to the office where they informed us all the permits had been assigned for the day that allowed access to that area. We were a bit bummed but while looking through a book in the office we saw a picture of one of the slides and we which fueled our fire to return. It looked to be over 50' tall and totally clean! We got a permit to Ostrander Lake instead and had a nice evening hike up to the lake, doing the last hour or two at night under a full moon.
Ostrander Lake in the morning
We got up moderately early as we needed to do the 7 mile hike back to our vehicle quickly in order to run shuttle for Ben and Willy before driving back to Oregon.
We got into cell range and had a message from Ben; "Had to hike out of Fantasy, Willy dropped me off at a Starbucks. No rush, lots to do here in Angel." Thats another story on its own, but the gist is it required another overnight backpacking trip to retrieve Ben's borrowed boat and a long drive through the night to get a sick Kory back to work afterwords.
We were exhausted and I left California with mixed feelings. However, a week later while at work back in Salem the Upper Merced popped back into my mind. This time I did the fully required research, learned about the challenges of acquiring permits, the best hiking routes, compared pictures from hikers to historic water levels, found more than enough pictures of big granite slides to get me very excited and the trip planning began.
Click on this link and you will understand!: bunnell cascade
After 2 weeks of planning we felt ready to give it a go.
Priscilla and I decided we would take inflatable kayaks (IKs) to reduce weight on the 14 mile hike in. The internet scouting led us to believe the best drops would go just fine in these craft and would make portaging in tight locations easier. Levels looked good for a trip that weekend, but rain bumped up the levels out of our comfort zone a couple days before our planned departure. We spent a nice weekend on the Klamath, hoping levels would drop down by the next weekend, it did not. Sunday we checked the forecast and saw that levels were projected to drop throughout the week down to a reasonable level for a trip the following weekend. Sunday evening we told our friend Ben about the trip, thinking he might be interested. Half hour later he informed us that Steve Fisher and Pat Keller were already hiking in the next day to do the very run we had been planning for. We had been hoping to have the first crack at this run, but figured so long as we got in there before they got home and started posting media we could still have the pure experience of a pioneering style trip. We decided we would pull the trigger, taking some time off work for an extended weekend and give it a go for ourselves. Forecasted thunderstorms for the weekend had us a little nervous, but as is often the case knowledge is power and after more research, phone calls and checking the forecast we felt comfortable we would be ok and possibly enjoy camping in the thunderstorm. With levels projected not to be affected by the weather, Priscilla picked me up from work mid-day Thursday and we set off on our adventure.
We set off from Salem heading north, the opposite direction to Yosemite. This was because Priscilla had a presentation to deliver in Cascade Locks which would complicate logistics further, but proved to be worth the effort. I traded vehicles with my mother for the week to maximize gas mileage (IK's don't need roof racks!) and we set off south with plans to drive through the night to get to Tuolumne Meadows in time to secure a permit. Things looked to be falling apart when we had to take an hour long detour near Bend, but persistence prevailed and we crossed the California border around 2:30 AM, arriving in Tuolumne Meadows around 9:30 AM. We got in line at the permit office, excited to see we were first in line. We were willing to take any permit we could get, but had a desired route in mind. Come 11AM we walked up to the counter and secured our permit to hike from Glacier Point to Merced Lake. We had a day to kill before we were allowed to begin our hike, so headed down to the valley for our first horizontal slumber since we had awoke at 5:30AM the day before.
The drive to Yosemite Valley and our campsite was over an hour and just as we were getting ready to unload our gear the first thunderstorm of the weekend hit. We continued to unpack but as the water piled up and gumdrop sized hail began in ernest we yielded to the weather and retreated back into the car where the large amount of gear prevented the seats from reclining. We spent the next hour waiting it out, we were then able to get camp set up and finally rested our eyes at 3PM.
Evening in Yosemite Valley
The next morning saw us up at Glacier Point around 8AM, we intended to camp at the end of the whitewater section today and with 7 miles of trail in front of us 9AM seemed like a reasonable time to begin the hike.
Near Glacier point, looking up the Merced headwaters
Two hours of packing saw us hitting the trail after 10AM. The hike in really isn't too bad, but that much weight on your back for that long is going to hurt.
Stuff for our back
Stuff on our back
The thunder returned in the afternoon and this time we found it enjoyable. We made camp around 5PM near Moraine Dome at the upstream end of Little Yosemite Valley at the base of a large cascade.
We got camp set up just as it started raining, the rain ended an hour later and was the last precipitation of significance for the trip.
The next morning saw us hiking between 8-9AM, covering the 6 miles to Merced Lake by 2PM. We had left our camp set up near Moraine Dome and were hiking "light" with just our boating gear. By the time we reached Merced Lake we were tired but happy to be paddling. The run starts off in top form with a fun, straight forward slide.
It was so fun that even sore from all the hiking we had to walk up the granite sidewalk to do it again.
The gorge the slide started off lasts about a half mile and is as fun as it gets. There were back to back 5-10 foot slides the whole way finishing with a 50 foot tall slip and slide. Unfortunately, one of the limitations of the IK's was brought to focus when Priscilla hit a hole in a small rapid, filling up the boat with water just above an eddy we intended to catch. The couple of seconds of having a heavy boat before it drained were enough to cause her to miss what otherwise would have been a simple eddy. She turned to face the next double drop while I yelled the line to her from shore. I jumped back in my boat when she did not pop out from the second drop in the series right away, as I did I saw her boat rocket unmanned into the air. I still couldn't see her as I resurfaced from the first drop, as I crested the second drop I saw her rise from the depths and into the pool below. We both got out on the left side with her recovered gear and took some time as she was understandably shaken up.
Good stuff in the first gorge
We talked it out and assessed that the combination of being tired and having IK's would likely mean we wouldn't be running some of the class V sections we had seen on the way up.
The next rapid was another double ledge/slide and she chose to hop back on the horse. We finished up the gorge shortly arriving at the exit drop (the 50'+ slide) We saw a sweet line on the left that could be done if we skipped the lead in, so only ran about 30-40 vertical feet of the slide, but it was a blast. As we were finding out, this run is full of the largest class III-IV rapids either of us had ever run. Below this large one was an island we ran on the left and then a short meadow.
Assessing the exit slide to the first gorge.
At the end of the meadow is a foot bridge marking the entrance to the largest gorge on the run. We ran/portaged the series of rapids leading up to the point where the walls became vertical and large on just before a right turn and found our predetermined take out on the left. This gorge is full of good rapids, but the entrance and exit didn't really go in IK's and portaging the exit would require setting up rope before dropping into the gorge so we decided to let it rest, confident Pat and Steve had likely already unlocked that particular piece of whitewater. We deflated the boats and walked around the trail on the left. Half hour or so later we arrived at the end of the gorge and stashed our gear (minus the IK's foam floors we were using for sleeping pads). Planning to finish the run the next day, we walked back to our camp. We ate ravenously that night and the joy that comes with adventure in the wilderness started setting in.
Good stuff before getting locked into the main gorge.
A taste of the goods.
Exit rapid
Exit to the exit rapid.
The next morning we were back to our gear and paddling downstream before noon, likely a couple hours earlier but I wasn't paying attention. The day started with a few steep bouldery rapids with good boofs and a quick portage or two. This section ended in yet another long slide, this one was lower angle but had a neat pillow move off a boulder in the middle.
Another island followed, then we were back into steep bouldery rapids, one of which created a clean drop between 10-15'. We portaged the gorge above Bunnell Cascade, the entry drop had three boofs in quick succession and would have required not getting any water in the IK in order to execute said boots. I thought it went for sure in a hardshell and likely went in an IK, but decided against running it. We both ran Bunnell Cascade, which I thought was one of the funnest drops I have ever run. Its tall and fast and low difficulty! The exploding mess at the top had me a bit worried, but after further study I was confident there was a line on the left and indeed there was.
Bunnell, so fun!!
Below here was an island and a meadow with an easy log portage or two before a couple of class IV rapids leading up to the final large cascade just above our camp. The lead in rapids were fun and the cascade was divine; tall, fast and all it required was lining up and keeping it straight, resulting in a skip across the pool at the bottom.
Walking up for round 2.
We then took a nap and a swim before deciding we may as well paddle/hike out that afternoon. One more island below camp and then a few miles of pleasant meadow floating through Little Yosemite Valley.
This section had a few easy log portages. We took out just before the whitewater picked up again, below this point the stream enters a gorge which concludes with Nevada Fall and is not legal to paddle. We were going to take the Mist Trail, but weren't sure where it branched off from the trail we were on (John Muir). We made it to the lip of Nevada Fall before realizing it had branched off back near the bathrooms. We were glad to have made the mistake as the view from the lip of Nevada Fall is incredible. We backtracked and began the knee/back busting descent down the Mist trail. The Mist trail is breathtaking and should be done by anyone capable, but not with a kayak on your back. If you are carrying a boat, use the John Muir trail. This trail is a little longer but not as steep. For us, the Mist trail turned out to be the most difficult part of the whole trip and our bodies were pretty beat, the trail flattens a bit before Vernal Fall which helped ease the strain. As the trail descends from the lip of Vernal it gets rough again and we were really feeling the pain. The next hour or two was challenging for us, but we made it out to the bus stop shortly after dark and it only took us a little stumbling around in the dark to locate our camp and flop down for the night sans dinner.
The next morning we ate a harty breakfast of all our left over
camping food and I took the last seat on a $25 dollar bus shuttle to
return to our car on Glacier Point. I expected a dull ride, but it went
quick as the driver told stories of the area and how things got their
names, it was nice being a tourist after many days of effort. Upon
arriving back at Glacier Point the adventure had one more trick up its
sleeve in the form of a dead battery. After figuring out the tricks of
jump-starting a Hybrid I returned to Priscilla and the Valley where we
loaded up and began the 10 or so hour drive to Grants Pass.
The trip was long and full of trials, one of my favorites yet.
