Help planning a Yosemite Wilderness trip via Hetchy Hetch

The Lake Vernon Rancheria Falls loop would be nice then, a more reasonable mileage for five days than 88 miles I’d think. Otherwise you could extend by heading over Rancheria Mountain and down to Pate Valley instead of past the falls and among the lakeshore and then up the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne to view the countless great water features the river forms as it heads down canyon. A return then might be yarts plus a hitch from the 120 Big Oak Flats rd. a sign could help. Hetch Hetchy is tough for anything with it being a dead end.

www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/hetch-hetchy-area-trails.htm

A Plan B could be check the trailhead availability and grab a permit for a trailhead offering other choices. The north boundary country can be reached from any number of Tuolumne Meadows trailheads and great loops would head you right back. I’d say pull out the map and eyeball a route from there. 

ETA: I just looked and there’s gobs of great trailheads with availability waiting to be snagged. Get out the map, match with what’s open and plan a terrific loop.

“Bus back to your car” isn’t happening. No public transport goes out that dead end.

Another alternative for a boundary area is a trailhead out of Beasore Rd, head over Chiquito Pass, or Isberg etc and make a loop through that area. That’s Sierra NF and I’ve no clue how their permits are done; okay it’s rec dot gov and both Chiquito and Isberg (Ansel Adams Wilderness) have a lot of availability. But the headwaters of the Merced is both awesome country and not that popular. There’s a Tom Harrison Map. Yes it’s the same Ansel Adams Wilderness that extends around Mammoth etc. it’s a big place. There’s also an out of print book by Ginny Clark.

Thanks for the replies, I will look at the options you provided! For the question regarding Beehive, I have never been to that part of the park/wilderness so I wanted to check it out for the first time. I am going with a buddy who recently had his first kid so I decided to reel in my ambitions and do a nice 4 day trip around the Laurel Lake and Lake Vernon trails as I have seen those listed as alpine lakes. Is the Morraine Ridge trail north of that area worth checking out? I was planning to head through Rancheria Falls but am not committed to visiting that area unless it should not be missed.

Wapama Fall is a spectacle, Rancheria Falls isn’t memorable, unless you count the bears that are second only to Little Yosemite Valley in their human food skills.

I’ve only gone that way to access the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne before they opened Tioga Rd so I can’t say about the route in the loop past there.

Kudos ion your trailhead choice then! I’ve got one for this summer in the same vein:,Ten Lakes.

It might be worth getting Elizabeth Wenks book on Yosemite hiking as it’s got route descriptions for just about every trail in the park and more. It would probably have some answers for whatever catches your eye in the map.

No it’s specifically a Yosemite National Park hiking guide, now in its 6th edition. It was first compiled by a Jeffrey Schaefer. The same publisher as Sierra north though. it’s available in a variety of formats, paperback, kindle and also Apple Books. 

It’s awesome. And for your totally right on desire to explore places in the park you have not been it’s encyclopedic coverage of the park: I e every trail in it, will give you a great push for that endeavor.

It’s 708 pages: gobs of info.

I’m looking ahead to a south boundary route. Something that will start in Sierra National Forest, Ansel Adams wilderness off Beasore Rd and head north into the park. Maybe Isberg Pass, maybe Chiquito.