cathedral

Cathedral Lake
August 8-9, 2004

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Hwy 140 is a beautiful road, it follows the Merced River all the way into the park. I wish I had gotten up even earlier to take pictures but I promised to meet Duane around 9:00. I then turned on Hwy 120 and climbed out of the canyon and into the high country of Yosemite. I stopped for a few seconds at Olmstead Point where you can see the climbers on the back side of Half Dome and in the other direction see Tenaya Lake nestled in its granite basin. A little further at Tuolumne Meadows and the Cathedral Lake trailhead I met hikerduane.

The hike into Cathedral Lake is only 3.5 miles and climbs 1,000 feet or so. It's along the John Muir Trail and is visited quite often. I didn't have much trouble getting a reservation for a wilderness permit, though, since we were going in on a Sunday. There was only one other party camped at the lake that night with us and they were at the south end. And thanks to Duane for picking the permit up for us on Saturday we were ready to go on Sunday :)

The first mile or so of the trail is quite steep in spots and you climb 600 feet in no time at all. Then it flattens out, thank goodness, and there are you get good views of Fairview Dome. After a small creek once again you start to climb but the switchbacks don't last too long. Finally you start to catch glimpses of Cathedral Peak.

Cathedral Peak can be seen from a distance from Hwy 120 but is so much more magnificent up close. John Muir wrote about it many times... "Yonder, to the eastward of our camp grove, stands one of nature's cathedrals . . . about two thousand feet high . . . thrilling under floods of sunshine as if alive like a grove temple, and well named "Cathedral Peak" . . . From every point of view it shows marked individuality. It is a majestic temple of one stone, hewn from living rock, and adorned with spires and pinnacles in regular cathedral style. The dwarf pines on the roof look like mosses. I hope some time to climb it to say my prayers and hear the stone sermons."

Muir got his wish later that summer, when he scaled the west face of the mountain and took in the expansive views of the Yosemite high country. He would later write that his climb of Cathedral Peak was "the first time I have been at church in California."

I decided a few months ago to try to find a weekend this summer to get up to Yosemite and do an overnight backpack trip. It's really not far of a drive from where I live, about 2 hours to the park entrance, 3 hours to Yosemite Valley, and 4 hours to Tuolumne Meadows. But Sequoia & Kings Canyon NPs are closer so I usually skip the crowds and driving and just go there.

Hikerduane, a guy I knew through Backpacker.com, said he'd meet me in Yosemite for a trip so we decided to do Cathedral Lake. I'd heard many a good thing about this short but very sweet trip...

So on Saturday evening I drove up to Mariposa which is about 20 miles west of Yosemite. The foothills of the Sierra were beautiful in the afternoon light and I stopped a few times to take pictures of the oaks. I stayed the night at a KOA near there... It was an okay spot, it was nice to have a shower in the morning, but that kind of commercialized camping does not hold much appeal for me. So I got up early in the morning before most of the other campers then headed over to the park.

To get to Cathedral Lake you leave the main trail and hike down a short spur trail through several meadowy areas filled with wildflowers. Here we passed a park ranger and we chatted a little bit. He told us about having to patrol the Hetch Hetchy Dam at times because of the threat of terrorists striking it. I hadn't realized the concern that the NPS has there. I got the feeling that the ranger enjoys his time out on the trails much better than the patrols at the dam, who wouldn't?

At one time there must have been a couple of lakes in the basin where Cathedral Lake is but the upper one silted in and is now an expansive meadow. Cathedral Lake sits just a ridge below this meadow and is rimmed by Tresidder Peak on the south and Medlicott Dome on the north. We walked to the north end of the lake and found a good campsite a short distance from the lake and under the canopy of lodgepole pines.

Shortly after sitting our stuff down and embarking on lunch the park ranger came by with a couple of other people. Turns out it was the Superintendent of Yosemite NP, Mike Tollefson, and his wife! I think I had seen Mike a few times, back when he was Superintendent of Sequoia & Kings, but it was nice to be formally introduced. I gave them each one of my homemade cookies I had brought, white chocolate and pecan :)

We took the rest of the afternoon pretty easy. We hiked across the wide granite expanse on the northwest side of the lake to where we overlooked Tenaya Lake. There we could see the little bitty cars on the tiny highway far below. We also saw some mountain lion scat up there...

We both went swimming for just a short time in the lake, it was pretty chilly! Then we walked around the lake a few times, once in late evening. We saw a few very fat marmots, found a snow bank and I threw a snowball at Duane, and marveled at Cathedral Peak and its reflection in the lake as the sun went down.

Back at camp we made burritos for dinner and they turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. Mission fajita sized tortillas fit perfectly into the bottom of my bear canister and we filled them with black beans from Fantastic Foods made a little spicier with taco seasoning, Spanish rice from Uncle Ben's, cheese, and salsa in packets courtesy of McDonalds. We then played a couple of rounds of gin rummy and then called it a night.

In the morning I saw 2 deer right down at the shore of the lake. Duane made us pancakes for breakfast with a topping of his homemade strawberry preserves, it was very yummy! Another deer walked right through our camp as we were packing up to go.

We made it back down to the trailhead by 11:20 or so and decided to head over to the market for a sandwich. Then we parted ways, Duane heading east over Tioga Pass and then south to Bishop, and me heading west and then south to home.

On the way home I stopped at the Mariposa Grove. I'm kind of sorry I did! It's a sequoia grove turned Disneyland :p Even Giant Forest and Grant Grove manage to provide some visitor comforts without being too commercialized. But the Mariposa Grove with its trams and loads and loads of tourons was too much for me. Good thing there are 66 other groves that are in a much more natural condition...

Anyway, it was a great weekend, and Duane is a great guy to hike with and has lots of good stories to tell. He was a little disappointed that there didn't seem to be any fish in Cathedral Lake, but hopefully he'll be catching some in the next few days as he's hiking on the east side into Dusy Basin and Evolution Valley :)