Yosemite Creek,

Tioga Pass Road to Yosemite Falls

River Description

Yosemite is a fun creek with the unusual factor of a long downhill hike into Yosemite Valley at the end. The hike out is two miles on a good trail, but from the top of Yosemite Falls to the valley floor is about 2,500 feet of elevation drop. Save some energy and have a good system to carry your boat.

Put-in: From Yosemite Valley drive out highway 120 to the Tioga Pass road and then up to the Yosemite Creek. There is a pretty big parking area 100 yards past the bridge. Topozone Map , elevation is 7440 feet.

It is best to have your gear all ready and do a fast put-in, so as not to attract unwanted attention. There is also road access to a campground two miles downstream of the Tioga Pass rd. Topozone Map

Take-out: There is a trail bridge (elevation 6580 feet) 250 yards above the actual Yosemite Falls, so there is no problem about knowing when to exit the creek. Also, there are plenty of pools and eddies above and below the bridge so that a swim here would not be catastrophic. After you take out at the bridge, you will need to chat with the many hikers and answer their questions. Then you can walk over to the falls overlook and be a tourist yourself for a little while. After relaxing and enjoying the scenery it is time to hike down the well maintained trail. Topozone Map

Yosemite Creek goes through a variety of terrain and character. It starts at around 7,500 feet elevation and drops to about 6,600 feet elevation at the top of the falls. Immediately below Tioga Pass road, this creek is just plain tiny! It is tight and not much wider than a boat till side streams start feeding it. It is silly to boat it there, but I liked it anyway. By the time you get to the old Tioga Pass Road bridge two miles downstream, the flow has increased to more respectable dimensions. Much of the creek is technical and rocky but not overly steep. There are a number of gorges that are class 5 and depending on flow or other factors may or may not be runnable. There is one beautiful section of steep bedrock slides and pools. There are also some long sections of meandering class 1.

Logs can be a problem at any point along this creek and the number of logs probably varies considereably from year to year. Expect to do numerous portages around logs. Portages are mostly pretty easy along this creek and are usually at river level. The creek is not down in a deep canyon but rather flowing through a moderate valley, with only occasional small gorges of impressive or congested drops.

When you do boat this creek, please leave a comment on the bottom of this page with the date, flow at Pohono, approximate number of logs, and that sort of info.

Paul Martzen