The Best Water Show in Town

So here I was - having just gotten back from a week in Yellowstone, consumed with the need to get to Yosemite. Why?

Yosemite is like home, and I felt a great need to see it. But what is more, while in Yellowstone I didn't have the opportunity to take any "Walkabouts", just short hikes of up to 7 miles. I felt the need to push my body.

But where to go? Yosemite Valley is notoriously busy in summer. Campfires turn the valley into a smoke-filled hell, the Valley's beautiful views ruined.

My preferred jump-off point in summer is Tuolumne Meadows. At about 9,000' elevation the snow is deeper and melts later than in the valley. Fewer people visit Tuolumne Meadows, making for a more laid-back experience.

This year we had been blessed with extra snow and a long, cool spring, which meant that rivers and waterfalls would be just about peaking in Tuolumne Meadows. My favorite water show here is the 18 mile round trip hike to LeConte Falls. This routes first 5 miles are relatively level - winding through granite bedrock, coniferous forests, and wide meadows dissected by the lazy (at this point) Tuolumne River. The final 4.5 miles drops 2,500', here the Tuolumne is anything but lazy as it changes - first to roaring river, then cascade, to waterfall - back again to cascade...and so on, an ongoing shuffling of water display that never fails to take your breath away.

Yes, with lots of melting snow and trails just opening up this would be the pick.

I got up at 3:00 a.m., had a big breakfast, packed my day pack and left, getting to the trail head at 7:00 a.m. It was a bright blue, cloudless day. Expecting swollen rivers, I brought my hiking poles and waterproof boots.

It was a good thing I did. Delaney Creek (which I usually wade through in fall) was raging. There was a sturdy log conveniently located that allowed for crossing. Other streams weren't as endowed however, and my boots and poles came in very handy, making it possible to use partially submerged rocks as "bridges".

It would seem that the extra heavy snow year had kept some people away, because I found uncommon solitude on this popular trail, encountering only 4 people during the 6 miles from Tuolumne Meadows to Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp, and no one from there to LeConte Falls. Though I knew that the river and falls would be more impressive than usual, I really wasn't prepared for the incredible roar of the water, its thunder reverberating through my body. Here I was, enjoying some of the best scenery on earth, prime time, and in solitude. Money can't buy anything better.

Topping out of Glen Aulin, I look down the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, the beauty so surreal, so perfect, I find that I can't hold back the tears. This, to me, rivals Yosemite Valley, certainly Little Yosemite Valley, and yet relatively few Yosemite visitors even know that it exists.

On the way to LeConte I pass California Falls and quite a few cascades and other falls. It's after 1:00 p.m. and I have to be back to my car by 8:00 to drop off some DVDs at the Evergreen Lodge store, so I pick up my pace and run to Waterwheel Falls.

LeConte is fascinating. The cascading, roaring water hits "pockets" in the sheer granite and shoots back up, making for a festive, happy water show.

After enjoying a late lunch I head back, running. About 3 miles from my car I enter a clearing next to the lazy Tuolumne and surprise a couple skinny-dipping on the other side of the clearing, right next to the trail. I turn my back long enough for them to get their clothes back on, then continue and get to my car by 7:00 p.m.; dog-tired and very hungry, but refreshed and satisfied. A hamburger and coffee at Bucks Meadow makes the perfect end of a fine day.

Credit: I had long mistaken LeConte for Waterwheel Falls. I want to thank bill-e-g and qumqats on the YosemiteNews forum for enlightening me.

P.S. The first few seconds of the video clip shows one of the many falls along my route, then fades to a pan of LeConte Falls.