High Sierra Camps Loop, Southeast Section
TRAIL USE
Backpack, Horse
LENGTH
30.1 miles, 15–24 hours (over 2–4 days)
VERTICAL FEET
One-way:
+5,700', –5,180'
DIFFICULTY
TRAIL TYPE
Point-to-Point
FEATURES
Canyon
Lake
Stream
Wildflowers
Great Views
Camping
Swimming
Steep
Granite Slabs
FACILITIES
Bear Boxes
Restrooms
Shuttle Stop
The High Sierra Camps Loop hike is very popular, not surprisingly, because the five backcountry camps are spaced 6–10 miles apart, distances that are about right for most backpackers. If you can get reservations to stay at these camps (see “Camping and Lodging”), then your food and bedding will be provided, which allows you to hike with a light pack. In reality, your chances of getting reservations are poor (and the camps are expensive), so most people settle for staying in the backpackers’ camps adjacent to each site.
I’ve broken the loop into two parts for two reasons. First, most hikers don’t have the luxury of spending six days in the backcountry. Second, by being out fewer days, you will have a lighter pack because you carry less food. An advantage of the high camps is the bear-proof food-storage boxes at each site, allowing you to carry slightly bulkier food than might fit into a bear canister—although regulations still dictate you must have a canister—as well as drinking water and pit toilets at some camps. However, you can camp at endless alternative locations—many equally scenic—between the High Sierra Camps. If you wish to complete the entire loop, you will hike the final day of Trail 15 and the first 5.15 miles of this hike as your third day.
I prefer hiking the loop in a counterclockwise direction because, this way, on your first day, when your pack is heaviest, your hike is along the shortest stretch, 5.15 miles to Sunrise High Sierra Camp (versus 7.2 miles to Vogelsang High Sierra Camp) and you are at lower elevations. However, the grade to Vogelsang is more gradual. If you are short on time but are a strong backpacker, you could cut out a day by spending your first night at Merced Lake High Sierra Camp, a lengthy 15.1 miles, but the 10 miles past Sunrise High Sierra Camp are relatively easy, having only about 600 feet of gain and about 2,700 feet of loss.
Overnight visitors require a wilderness permit for the Sunrise Lakes Trailhead (as described) or Rafferty Creek to Vogelsang Trailhead (walk in reverse of description), issued by Yosemite National Park. Pick up your permit at the Tuolumne Meadows Wilderness Center, located in the parking lot a short way down Tuolumne Meadows Lodge Road or at another of the Yosemite permit-issuing stations (see “Permits”).
Maps
This trail is covered by the Tom Harrison Tuolumne Meadows map (1:42,240 scale), the National Geographic Trails Illustrated #309 Yosemite SE map (1:40,000 scale), and the USGS 7.5-minute series Tenaya Lake, Merced Peak, and Vogelsang Peak maps (1:24,000 scale).
Best Time
If you plan to stay at the camps or eat your meals at them, note that they are only open from around mid-July through mid-September. Those camping will want to take this hike after the snow has melted—the beginning of July is generally a safe bet, though late June is fine in lower snow years. During June and July the mosquitoes can be quite prevalent, and if you want to avoid them, wait until August. Lakes are near their optimal temperatures mid-July–mid-August, so if you want to minimize mosquitoes and snow and enjoy dips in the lakes, then early August is best—but of course, don’t expect solitude during these peak backpacking weeks. September is cooler but still a beautiful month for hiking, and permits are considerably easier to obtain once Labor Day weekend passes; just bring warmer clothes and check the forecast to ensure no early snow is expected.
The trail begins on Tioga Road at the Sunrise Lakes Trailhead, a large pullout at a highway bend near Tenaya Lake’s southwest shore. It is located 30.7 miles northeast of Crane Flat and 8.7 miles southwest of the Tuolumne Meadows Campground.
You will complete your hike at a trailhead parking area along Tuolumne Meadows Lodge Road. To reach this lot from Tuolumne Meadows Campground (the only campground in the area), drive 0.6 mile northeast on Tioga Road, turning right onto Tuolumne Meadows Lodge Road. Follow this road 0.4 mile—the parking area is on the left and the trailhead is obvious just to the right of the road.
If your party has only one car, a shuttle bus makes it possible to get a ride back to your original trailhead. During the summer season, these buses run every half hour, plying between Olmsted Point and Tuolumne Meadows and stopping at all the popular trailheads in between, including the aforementioned parking areas. Before starting your hike, check the schedule for the shuttle’s last run; you don’t want to walk the approximately 10 miles back to your vehicle. Note that the shuttle buses charge a fee, so be sure to carry cash. There are pit toilets at the trailhead, but the closest water faucets and flush toilets are at the Tuolumne Meadows Visitor Center (for those coming from the east) or at the Crane Flat store or White Wolf Campground (for those coming from the west), so be sure to fill your water bottle before reaching the trailhead.
At 180 feet, Tenaya Lake is the park’s deepest, and it has only been filled with a few feet of sediments since the last glacier retreated about 15,000 years ago.
Trail Description
From the trailhead parking area, ▶1 take a trail that heads east, passes two small spur trails that depart to the right (south), and soon crosses the usually flowing outlet of Tenaya Lake. Just beyond this crossing you reach a trail junction. The trail left goes northeast along Tenaya Lake’s eastern shore (0.2 mile). ▶2
You veer right on a trail that heads south for an additional 0.25 mile along Tenaya Creek before turning to the southeast as the trail gently ascends in sparse forest over a little rise and drops to a ford of Mildred Lake’s outlet. Like the other streams over the next 2 miles, this crossing can dry up in late summer or early fall but requires a sandy wade (or wobbly log balance) in early summer. Beyond the Mildred Lake stream, the trail undulates and winds generally south, passing several pocket meadows browsed by mule deer. At 1.4 miles, the trail then begins to climb in earnest through a thinning cover of lodgepole pine and occasional red fir, western white pine, and mountain hemlock. As your trail rises above Tenaya Canyon, you pass several vantage points from which you can look back on its smooth, steep granite walls, though you never see Tenaya Lake. To the east the canyon is bounded by Tenaya Peak; in the northwest are the cliffs of Mount Hoffmann and Tuolumne Peak.
Now on switchbacks, you see Tioga Road across the canyon and can even hear vehicles, but these annoyances are infinitesimal compared to the pleasures of polished granite expanses all around. Your route ahead is steep—few Sierra trails ascend 1,000 feet in just 1.1 miles. The trail is also, in places, annoyingly rocky, reflecting the many half-buried boulders and partially submerged slabs with which the trail construction crew had to contend. At least these switchbacks are, for the most part, mercifully shaded, and where they become steepest, requiring a great output of energy, they give back with the beauty of a fine flower display, including lupine, penstemon, paintbrush, larkspur, buttercup, and sunflowers such as aster and senecio. Finally the switchbacks end and the trail levels as it arrives at a junction on a shallow, forested saddle (2.55 miles). ▶3
Straight ahead leads to Clouds Rest and beyond (Trail 18), but you turn left and first contour east, cross a low gap, and descend north through broken forest to lower Sunrise Lake (3.0 miles). ▶4 The western shore of this lake sports a number of small campsites, the first under forest cover, the latter smaller and more open in flat patches between slabs. Steep exfoliating slabs dominate the cross-lake view, while heath species, including red mountain heather and western Labrador tea, decorate the lakeshore. Climbing from this lake, you reach a crest in several minutes, and from it you could descend cross-country an equally short distance north to more isolated, island-dotted middle Sunrise Lake. The trail, however, veers east and gains a very noticeable 150 feet as it climbs to upper Sunrise Lake, the largest and most popular lake of the trio (3.55 miles). ▶5 Campsites are plentiful along its north shore, away from the trail and reached by crossing the lake at its outlet.
With 1.6 miles remaining to Sunrise High Sierra Camp, you skirt the edge of the flower-filled meadow ringing the lake, diagonal up a slope, and soon find yourself in a shallow gully that you follow south across dry, gravelly soils. At a broad pass you can look back to Mount Hoffmann or ahead to see the Clark Range head-on, piercing the southern sky. From the gap, which is sparsely clothed with mountain hemlocks, whitebark pines, and western white pines, you begin a shallow descent, still on decomposing granite and hopefully catching a glimpse of a Clark’s nutcracker, the gray-and-white relative of blue jays that frequents the timberline country. The grade increases and you descend south into denser cover. Veer east and then north to make a steep descent to the Sunrise backpackers’ camp, complete with a water faucet, pit toilet, food-storage boxes, and ample (if crowded) campsites. From near the pit toilet, a use trail leads northeast to the Sunrise High Sierra Camp. An overnight stay at either camp gives you an inspiring sunrise over Matthes Crest and the Cathedral Range.
Continuing down the main trail below the campsite leads to a T-junction with the John Muir Trail (JMT) (5.15 miles). ▶6 Turning right takes you to Yosemite Valley, while you head left to traipse the length of L-shaped Long Meadow. A verdant green early summer, the grasses assume a yellow hue as the water table drops and the grasses dry. As the meadow pinches to a close, you reach the next junction, with the Echo Creek Trail. Here, the JMT continues straight ahead to the Cathedral Lakes and on to Tuolumne Meadows, while you turn right on the trail signposted to Merced Lake (6.0 miles). ▶7 You immediately ford Long Meadow’s creek, a sandy-cobbly wade at high water, when all good balancing rocks can be submerged. This trail quickly switchbacks up to the top of a forested ridge, about 200 feet above the meadow. It then descends, mostly through moist, dense hemlock-and-lodgepole forest alongside a small seasonal tributary of Echo Creek. Crossing this twice, you emerge onto expansive slabs and then momentarily reach the west bank of Echo Creek’s Cathedral Fork (7.2 miles).
From your trail beside the Cathedral Fork, you have fine views of the creek’s water gliding down a series of granite slabs. The sloping landscape limits camping options, but a determined small party will certainly find some sandy patches that suffice for a night’s sleep. After nearly a mile of delightful streamside walking (though slow because the trail is quite rocky), the trail veers away from the creek at 8.05 miles and descends gently along a shelf well above it. Even in late summer these shaded slopes are watered by numerous rills, which are bordered by still-blooming flowers. On this downgrade the trail crosses the Long Meadow creek (8.9 miles), ▶8 which has found an escape from that meadow through a gap between two small domes high above your trail. The creek fans out where it crosses the trail, leading to three separate crossings at high water; the first and last can be navigated via logs, while the middle one is a cobble-bottomed wade under high flows, yielding to a rock hop later on. All three will have insignificant flows in late summer. The route then levels out in a mile-long flat, in part burned, section of this valley, where the wet ground yields wildflowers all summer but also many mosquitoes in early to mid-July. Beyond this flat “park” the trail descends more open slopes, and eventually you can see across the valley the steep course of the main fork of Echo Creek plunging down to its rendezvous with its western Cathedral Fork. Still along the Cathedral Fork, your trail levels off and passes good campsites immediately before you take a bridge over Echo Creek (10.55 miles). ▶9 Note that the largest campsites are some distance south of the trail and not visible until you trend southwest off the trail.
Beyond the bridge, your trail leads down the forested valley and easily fords a tributary stream, staying well above the main creek. This pleasant, shaded descent soon becomes more open and steep, and it encounters fibrous-barked juniper trees and butterscotch-scented Jeffrey pines, while the river cascades and plummets steadily downslope in the gorge below. After briefly diverging from the river, the trail drops to another bridge (11.7 miles), beyond which it rises slightly and the creek drops precipitously, so that you are soon far above it. Then the sandy tread swings west and heads diagonally down a slope, where a dense growth of huckleberry oak, chinquapin, greenleaf manzanita, and whitethorn merge together to form a continuous expanse of “brush.” Across it the views are excellent of Echo Valley, a flat interruption in the otherwise descending Merced River canyon below. On this slope you arrive at a T-junction (12.3 miles), ▶10 where right takes you 2.7 miles west to a junction with the JMT along the so-called High Trail, while your route turns to the left.
You immediately drop into a lush forest draw, replete with beautiful big red firs decorated with vibrant chartreuse lichen. A short while later, you return to dry, brushy slopes and complete your descent to the Merced Lake Trail junction in Echo Valley, 450 feet below your last junction (13.0 miles). ▶11 A few quite small campsites are near the junction, but the abundance of downed trees from past fires severely limits options; it is best to hold out and continue at least partway to Merced Lake.
You go east (left), immediately crossing the many-tentacled Echo Creek on a trio of bridges, and then pass through a lengthy burned-but-boggy area. Ascending on slabs, the trail continues east above the Merced River’s gushing cascades and pools. If you were to head north to explore some areas with gently sloping slabs and small glades of lodgepole pine, you will find delightful camping for a small group, but note that you won’t be terribly close to water. Continuing along a stretch of trail immediately above the roiling river, you shortly reach Merced Lake’s west shore (14.3 miles). Don’t camp here because there is no flat ground 100 feet from trail and water, but rather continue along the north shore. You reach the large camping area a little beyond the end of the lake (15.0 miles) and the Merced Lake High Sierra Camp buildings soon thereafter (15.2 miles). ▶12
While day three isn’t the longest, it easily has the most elevation to gain, about 3,075 feet. Fortunately, by now your pack is lighter and you will be feeling a little more acclimated to the high elevation. You begin with an easy warm-up by hiking level east, often beneath stately Jeffrey pines, soon reaching the Merced Lake Ranger Station and an adjacent trail junction (15.95 miles). ▶13 Note that there are camping options in the direction of the river as you traverse these flats. At the junction you turn left and abruptly exit forest cover and labor up a decidedly rocky trail, broken by only short, forested stretches. The mostly unseen creek descends a gorge to the north; you rarely even have the tumbling water to distract you as you struggle upward, ascending 850 feet in the mile to the next junction, where you leave Lewis Creek and turn left onto the Fletcher Creek Trail (16.95 miles). ▶14
OPTION: Alpine Alternative
▶14 An alternate route to Vogelsang High Sierra Camp is to continue straight on the Lewis Creek Trail. It is 0.7 mile longer and has about an additional 600 feet of gain and 600 feet of loss. In addition, it is a more forested walk, lacking both the arrestingly expansive slabs lining stretches of Fletcher Creek as well as the meadows you encounter near the Emeric Lake junction. On the plus side, both Bernice Lake (reached by a 0.5-mile spur trail) and Vogelsang Lake sit at the boundary of the alpine zone, with view-rich, but smaller and often windswept, campsites nestled among timberline trees.
From the junction you descend on short switchbacks to a bridge over Lewis Creek. Just 150 feet past the bridge is a reasonably good campsite, although toppled trees occupy some of the flat real estate. The trail then enters more open slopes as it climbs moderately on a cobbled path bordered with proliferating bushes of whitethorn and huckleberry oak. Just past a tributary 0.5 mile from Lewis Creek, you have fine views of Fletcher Creek chuting and cascading down from a notch at the base of a granite dome before it leaps off a ledge in free fall. The few solitary pine trees on this otherwise blank dome testify to nature’s extraordinary persistence. You switchback up at the eastern edge of these slabs, but, time permitting, you should drop your pack and seat yourself for a break in the middle of this never-ending rock. At the notch your trail levels off and you soon reach the Babcock Lake Trail (18.55 miles), ▶15 which leads to the deep, forest-ringed lake in 0.5 mile; for most people this lake, often buggy and with an abundance of dead trees due to recent bark beetle attacks, won’t be worth the detour.
Cascades along Fletcher Creek
Onward, you walk 0.6 mile through flat, marshy forest, passing springs and small meadow patches brightly colored with flowers. Turning a little west, the Fletcher Creek Trail breaks out into the open and begins to rise more steeply via rocky switchbacks. From these one can see a little to the north the outlet stream of Emeric Lake—though not the lake itself, which is behind a dome just to the right of the outlet’s notch. If you choose not to take the alternate route up the inlet to Emeric Lake (see the Option), at least pop briefly to the river’s edge and imbibe the beauty of the stream-polished rock and smoothly flowing water. The trail continues along Fletcher Creek, soon reaching a long meadow guarded in the west by a highly polished knoll and presided over in the east by huge Vogelsang Peak. Fletcher Creek runs through the meadow in a reasonably broad, deep channel—a narrow log is present for nimble hikers, while others will prefer to wade through the sandy creek.
When you come to a scissors junction (20.55 miles) ▶16 at the north end of the meadow, you can detour along it 0.45 mile to Emeric Lake and its collection of campsites or veer right, the route to Vogelsang High Sierra Camp. Straight ahead leads to Boothe Lake and Tuolumne Pass; campsites at Boothe Lake are the most sheltered in this vicinity, sporting lodgepole pine clusters. The trail to Vogelsang (the route described here) ascends a shallow trough beside the much-diminished Fletcher Creek. Forest walking yields to increasing slabs and small meadow openings as the elevation increases; a few final switchbacks across an open slope take you to a junction at the edge of the High Sierra Camp (22.85 miles). ▶17 The backpackers’ camping area is straight ahead, in the direction signposted for Lyell Canyon and Ireland Lake; you will see the use trail to the left after just 0.1 mile. You could alternatively detour to Vogelsang, Townsley, or Evelyn Lakes for additional camping options. Vogelsang lies nearly in the alpine, with campsites in sandy patches between slabs and stunted whitebark pines, while Townsley sports barely a tree. At Evelyn Lake, you can camp beneath whitebark pines at the edge of the expansive lakeside meadow.
OPTION: Emeric Lake
If you wish to camp at Emeric Lake—and it’s a fine place—there is an off-trail shortcut to the lake, following the outlet creek’s west side upward from its confluence with Fletcher Creek. First cross Fletcher Creek at a safe spot (do not attempt this in high water), and then climb along the outlet creek’s west side and camp above the lake’s northwest or northeast shore; camping is prohibited in the lakeside meadows—instead head to the flat patches of trees you spy because these proclaim that the ground is slightly higher and drier. The next morning circle the head of the lake and find a trail at the base of the low granite ridge at the northeast corner of the lake. Follow this trail 0.4 mile northeast to a scissors junction alongside Fletcher Creek, at which point you’ll rejoin the main route at ▶16. If you prefer to remain on trails, you can follow Fletcher Lake Trail to this junction and then follow the spur trail to the lake.
Day four, your last day, is the easiest; it’s one of the shortest legs, and almost all of it is downhill or level. You begin by dropping slightly as you traverse north across slopes to Tuolumne Pass (23.65 miles). ▶18 From the pass you head north 1.4 miles through a large, linear meadow, speckled with boulders and home to a healthy population of lumbering marmots and ever-alert Belding’s ground squirrels. I must always laugh at the “fledgling” ground squirrels—the young old enough to be allowed outside their burrows but still far too curious, only remembering to be scared and retreat when you are a step away; they then nearly trip themselves in their hurry to disappear underground. You have views north to the Sierra Crest between Tioga Pass and Mount Conness and views back to cliff-bound, dark-banded Fletcher Peak and Vogelsang Peak cradling the Vogelsang area. Where the meadow pinches to a close (25.05 miles), ▶19 the Rafferty Creek Trail enters an open lodgepole forest and continues a viewless 0.5 mile to a second, smaller meadow, which you skirt on its western perimeter. Beyond the meadow the trail descends its namesake creek, crossing a few small tributaries; you are almost always walking in open, dry lodgepole pine forest interspersed with broken slabs. Only the larger cones from a western white pine occasionally shake you to attention as you amble down to a junction with the JMT (28.55 miles). ▶20
Turning left, the route ahead is almost flat as you traverse west to another junction (29.2 miles). ▶21 Here, straight ahead continues around the southern perimeter of Tuolumne Meadows, including access to the Tuolumne Meadows Campground, while you branch north (right) on the route of the John Muir Trail. Walking at the edge of a narrow meadow, you reach two bridges across branches of the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River, a wonderful place to spend the last hour of your hike. If it is late in the day, Mounts Dana and Gibbs glow on the eastern horizon, catching the late sun, while trout dart along the wide Lyell Fork.
Past the second bridge, the JMT leads over a slight rise and descends to a junction with a trail, to the right, that ascends parallel to CA 120, eventually leading to the Gaylor Lakes (29.8 miles). ▶22 You stay to the left, and after a brief walk downstream, you bridge the Dana Fork and reach a T-junction with a spur trail that trends north (right) to the Tuolumne Meadows Lodge parking lot (29.85 miles). ▶23 Rather, you turn left and continue downstream, paralleling the Dana Fork until your path sidles back toward a road (30.1 miles). ▶24 A 70-foot-long spur trail leads across the meadow to the road and a large parking area, where you may have left your car and from where you can catch the Tuolumne Meadows shuttle bus. Of course, if you are a purist and wish to truly complete the High Sierra Camps Loop, then continue west to a crossing of Tioga Road, immediately beyond which is a parking area at the base of Lembert Dome and the Glen Aulin Trailhead, an additional 1.05 miles.
| ||
▶1 | 0.0 | Start at Sunrise Lakes Trailhead |
▶2 | 0.2 | Right at junction with Tenaya Lake perimeter trail |
▶3 | 2.55 | Left at Sunrise Lakes–Clouds Rest junction |
▶4 | 3.0 | Lower Sunrise Lake |
▶5 | 3.55 | Upper Sunrise Lake |
▶6 | 5.15 | Left at John Muir Trail–Sunrise Lakes junction |
▶7 | 6.0 | Right onto Echo Creek Trail in Long Meadow |
▶8 | 8.9 | Long Meadow outlet creek crossing |
▶9 | 10.55 | Upper bridge along Echo Creek |
▶10 | 12.3 | Left at upper Echo Creek (High Trail) junction |
▶11 | 13.0 | Left at junction in Merced canyon at base of Echo Creek |
▶12 | 15.2 | Merced Lake High Sierra Camp |
▶13 | 15.95 | Left onto Lewis Creek Trail |
▶14 | 16.95 | Left onto Fletcher Creek Trail |
▶15 | 18.55 | Right at Babcock Lake Trail |
▶16 | 20.55 | Right at scissors junction near Emeric Lake |
▶17 | 22.85 | Left at junction near Vogelsang High Sierra Camp |
▶18 | 23.65 | Tuolumne Pass |
▶19 | 25.05 | North end Tuolumne Pass meadow |
▶20 | 28.55 | Left at John Muir Trail–Rafferty Creek Trail junction |
▶21 | 29.2 | Right at Tuolumne Meadows perimeter trail junction |
▶22 | 29.8 | Left at junction with trail to Gaylor Lakes |
▶23 | 29.85 | Left at junction with trail to Tuolumne Meadows Lodge |
▶24 | 30.1 | Finish at Lyell Canyon Trailhead (Dog Lake parking area) |
MILESTONES