On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
TKH
Continuation of the hike from Lake Catherine, the end of Part 1 of this submission, to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite NP.
Lake Catherine drains into the South Fork of the Joaquin River. As you reach the point where the eater just plunges down, you have several hundred feet of complex terrain to find your way down through. At some point you reach a 120 ft waterfall where the wster is just in free-fall and you should try not to mimic it in the interest of your continued existence. What you have to do is climb out on skier’s right and find your way through an extended system of cliffs and talus bands to a point where you are at the same altitude as the tarn that the water fall plunges into. The instructions are vague and you live by your wits, experience and parltience.
In this photo you see where the plunge if the water begins at the skyline, you see sime white water in the top third and you see the esterfall at the bottom plus some of the terrain you have to find your way through to circumnavigate the waterfall.
This is the drainage that Lake Catherine empties into. Lookcarefully at the smooth rock on the side if the valley. This rock has been polished by a glacier. This entire hole was once filled with ice, several hundred to, probably, a thousand + feet thick. And nothing is left of it today, a change that is really difficult to comprehend.
An example of the micro-navigation required. Roper’s book just says“ work your way around the Southern shore to the outlet”. Your line of sight is often 10 ft or less, so you have to try things and keep your cool.
Inthis situation, the right way was to climb down to almost water level, the take the ramp up to the left and work your way across some slickrock, i.e. glacier polished granite to a spot where you have to make your next set of decisions. It is slow, mentally demanding, not to say tiring, work. The scenery, the sense of accomplishment when your decisions work out, make it all worthwhile.
One crosses the outlet of the Southern Twin Island lake not too close to the point where the water plunges. Because of snow/slush/ ice floating in the lake the water is very cold. It is also very clear and the depth is difficult to gauge. Shall we say some sensitive parts got very wet and cold for a guy of 6’4”. I pity the longitudinally challenged!
It’s a kind if calendar shot, the red Indian paint brushes framed by the willows, the island in mid-distance and the magnificent skyline in back.
Another giant, glacier-carved valley. The photo really does not do justice to the scale. It is a bucolic environment with lots of water, giant meadows not grazed by cattle, an abundance of plant life. And, most importantly, after all those hard miles, really easy to walk through. Just pure bliss!
But all bliss must, or will at any rate, end. One reaches the top of Bench Canyon at Blue Lake and on has to get up to Blue Lake Pass on the ridge of Forrester Peak. Here again the photo does not do justice to the steepness of the terrain and its complexity reveals itself only as you start climbing. I chose a route that exploited as much as possible the grassy bands on the right begore transferring to the bare rock slabs in the center that got me up to the pass.
It was good that I was prepared for this view of the North side of the pass. It has a reputation and a well-earned one, I might add.
Right below of where I am standing are cliffs one can’t navigate coming from above owing to limited visibility of the terrain ( one may be able to navigate them going North to South since one can assess the entire system from below).
I chose to contour at more ir less Pass-level to the white outcropping in the distance across half a mile of talus and scree. It was slow and demanding work as the dirt and scree passages I needed to cross were quite loose. Type 2 fun: not much fun while doing it, but will have been fun a few weeks from now in the re-telling.
After some beautiful cross-country travel pat Blue Lake Pass I found the Isberg Trail with some difficulty as the portion I was trying to hit has been abandoned for a long time. The crucial part of the trail, however, is innexcellent shape and a marvel of trail engineering. The trail spits you out at the Lyell Fork and this is what it looks like looking upstream. It is a torrent and there’s no wSy even for a guy my size to get across this frothing mess safely. The guide mentions log bridges (trees that have fallen across the stream) , but they wrre nit in evidence. I found a spot where the creek was wider and a little slower where I dared to cross. I pity the longitudinally challenged!
After fording Lyell Fork and another couple of miles of climbing and descent I found myself in the Lewis Creek drainage.
Yosemite valley and zTuolumne Meadows are near, so the solitude came to an end.
This picture was taken along Lewis Creek shortly before the Bernice Lake cutoff. To me it epitomizes timberline country in the Sierra, the interplay of granite rock, water and the trees at the border of where they can just persist.
The last grand panorama for this section of the High Route towards Halfdome.
It had been a wonderful and at the same time hard hike. I got to forget for some eight days all the crap that was going on in the “ real world”. That’s what I needed, that’s what I got. This always works for me and hopefully I can have a few more years of being able to do hikes like this.
cheers!
TKH
This was my first (and last!) submission from my phone. I apologize for the apparent lack of any proofreading.
I am also pretty sure, in retrospect, that I submitted the photos in the wrong format. Thanks to Watergirl for fixing this!
(Is she actually human? Has anybody seen her in the flesh? She gets way too much done for being a carbon-based life form, I think.
Baud
@TKH:
Pictures are lovely.
Pretty sure WaterGirl is AI. No real person could do as much as she does.
J.
I agree with @Baud. Lovely photos and WaterGirl is amazing. Though how do we know that Baud is not some clever bot? 🤔
Brian Perkins
this wonderful trip report is disorienting since I usually go to High Sierra Topix for this sort of thing. I had a wonderful June hike through southern Yosemite and the Ansel Adams Wilderness but I bailed out on a Northern Yosemite loop because I was worried about crossing too many flooded creeks. Thanks for posting your trip.
Winter Wren
Another beautiful set of photos – they all seem calendar-worthy to me!
eclare
The photos are beautiful but wow that sounds like a difficult hike!
Betty
Based on the early photos, I was wondering how meadows would fit into the story. Happy to see that after your challenging hike, you did find the meadows. What an adventure.
HinTN
My enjoyment of the High Sierra backcountry has and will be vicarious. I’ve walked to the top of Half Dome, but that was a long time ago. Thanks for taking us on this trip.
TKH
@Betty: That Tuolumne store PO was critical as a resupply point for the plan to go all the way to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport. It’s not straightforward to get to the 395 corridor via Tioga Road and the bus runs only twice a day and I surely would not want to start this trip with 9 days’ worth of food. Six days’ of food + bear can is quite enough!
It’s even more important for the JMT and PCT hikers.
frosty
You’re right that a photo doesn’t do justice to the scale of the landscape – I find this all the time on our road trips. At best it can remind you of the immensity.
What a challenging height! I’m nowhere near 6’4″ but I wouldn’t try something like this even if I was. I wouldn’t mind somewhere with a few less people than the National Park hikes we did this summer, though.
cope
Lovely pictures and a compelling narrative, thank you. Your descriptions of route finding are spot on.
I may have asked on one of your previous posts but do you use any kind of walking stick or poles or a long ice axe when you are working your way across the scree and loose, steep spots?
Torrey
I appreciate that the pictures can’t show what a drone with a good camera would, but these are excellent pictures, nonetheless, and, as someone who is never going to even attempt such a hike, I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to get a sense for what this kind of hike would look like and, even though it’s the merest hint, a sense of what kind of scenery doing the hike gives one access to. I am amazed that you found any way to get across the stream at Lyell Fork. It’s beautiful, but wow!
All of which is a way of saying: thank you for these amazing pictures and descriptions and the taste of a hike I envy you for experiencing.
bluefoot
Wow, great photos. Ignorant question: For trails that are little used or have been abandoned, do hikers try to clear the trail a bit as they pass through to maintain it?
pieceofpeace
Thank you for the photos – they give a spot-on indication for how it feels when there.
TKH
@cope: I use walking poles and can’t imagine going without. One is very top heavy with a pack and the footing is very uneven. They are even more important for the stream crossings. With poles one is, in essence, a four-legged animal and one can move one limb at a time with three firmly (or “firmly”) on the ground.
Lastly, I use them to support my shelter so that I don’t have to carry tent poles.
TKH
@bluefoot: People like to leave cairns, but cairns only tell you that somebody was there before you, they don’t tell you that they were on the same itinerary.
I personally ignore amateur cairns and work with altimeter and compass bearing instead. You can most often work out a way to intercept the trail you are looking for.
I have built and/or maintained trail for the Colorado Trail Foundation. After a week of work with 15-20 people you can see that something gets accomplished with the tools the CTF provides. Sans tools and solo there is almost no way that you can do anything that would appear to have been worthwhile when you are ready or need to move on.
KatKapCC
Gosh, some of these would make great postcards!
cope
@TKH: Thanks. Now in my mid 70s, I find walking poles very useful when I’m hiking.
I love the use of the poles for your tent. That might make a good picture (plus your other gear) for a future post.
Thanks again.
Gary K
What’s the number for the type of fun that involves marveling at someone else’s adventures while seated safely at home in a chair?
StringOnAStick
@bluefoot: If a trail gets a lot of use, that can keep it looking like an active, easy to find trail. One this committing and requiring so many days with carrying all your food are real gems because they just don’t see much use.
Such a gorgeous area, thanks for the tour! Love that Sierra granite!
trollhattan
Respect. This is a HARD route compared to the JMT and while I’ve followed bits of it during other hikes I’ve not attempted the Roper route (so very much XC navigation).
The high Sierra themselves are unique and instantly distinguishable from other ranges.
Interstadial
Oh my gosh, more photos of places I’d planned to go to when I was younger! Lake Catherine, Twin Island Lakes, and Bench Canyon are places that caught my attention on the topographic maps long ago. The North Fork of the San Joaquin drainage is certainly a remote region that requires lot of hard work to get into. The Lyell Fork of the Merced River* is another one I had my eye on long ago.
Glad you got to see and enjoy this wonderful area, and thank you for sharing your experiences and photos for everyone to enjoy.
*Not to be confused with the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River which is much better known and a lot easier to get to.
Interstadial
@trollhattan: Yes, respect indeed. That’s really rough country.
The one mountain range that reminded me of the Sierra Nevada was the Sawtooth Range in Idaho. Unlike the grayish granite mountains in that region of the Idaho, the Sawtooth have Sierran-style white granite. While hiking there I’d feel for a moment like I was in the High Sierra. However, the trees species are partly wrong and overall appearance is just a little different. It was very beautiful but also somewhat uncanny, like an almost-clone that fools you only for a moment before you realize it’s not the same.
kindness
Sure is pretty. Thank you for the extended tour. Being a car camper nowdays, I don’t see that back country any more.
BigJimSlade
That ramp looks tough enough to do as it is, but with a full pack on anything like that is way more challenging (tips hat)!
Yes, the sierras are a bit short on alpine cheese ;-)
BigJimSlade
Great series – thanks for sharing all the info (and pics, of course)!
way2blue
TKH. Wow. Your traverses! I would find them exceptionally stressful, not even considering that I’m longitudinally challenged. My spouse cleared trails in Kings Canyon for the park service when he was 19. When we did a ‘nostalgia’ backpack trip there a few years ago, the mantra was—I don’t remember this being difficult at 19… He recalls that the Vietnam vets on the trail crew hated crossing streams and stressed whenever the helicopters arrived with supplies. Echos.
Dmbeaster
@cope: They now make tents expressly designed to use two hiking poles. Makes for a very light tent !