In July, 1999, I did a five-day backpacking trip into northern Yosemite with my friend, Gerald Brito. Our plan was to go in from Twin Lakes near Bridgeport and make a big loop around Sawtooth Ridge including a lot of off-trail hiking. I had seen much of the area many years before when I did a couple of three-day trips. One I did by myself in 1973 which I described here in a post called "Solo Sierra Adventures 1". I did the same loop in the reverse direction in the late seventies with my friend Alberto Lens. Those were such great adventures in beautiful country that I wanted to see it again and for Gerald to experience it too. This time I wanted to extend the trip further into northern Yosemite with more off-trail hiking.
We started out driving east in the evening after work. We stopped for dinner in a little restaurant in Sonora and around midnight found a turnout near the top of Sonora Pass and put down our sleeping bags in meadow. In the morning we continued on to Bridgeport and Twin Lakes and paid to park at Mono Village. We shouldered our packs and started up the trail to Barney Lake. I had hiked here many times before, but still the beauty of the forests and meadows amazed me. After passing Barney Lake, the trail climbs steeply with lots of switchbacks, and our pace slowed. Gerald was having a bit of a hard time and when the slope eased near the junction with the trail to Peeler Lake, he wanted to stop at a flat spot along the trail. We set up camp and spent the night there. Soon after we had stopped a Yosemite ranger came up the trail and talked with us for a while. He was on his way to a long loop into the back country similar to what we had planned. He was obviously in a lot better shape than we were and hurried on up the trail.
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On the trail in Robinson Creek Canyon
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Passing Barney Lake
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The next morning we continued up the trail, passing the junction with the Mule Pass Trail and going on up to Snow Lake. There we took a break and ate some lunch before going a short distance up to Rock Island Pass. Here we entered Yosemite Park, and left the trail, heading to the left, cross country, contouring around the head of a canyon. After about a mile, we crossed another saddle and got a view down to Rock Island Lake at the end of a wide green meadow.
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| First view of Rock Island Lake |
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Meadow leading to Rock Island Lake
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We picked a nice campsite near the shore of the lake and the rest of the afternoon wandering around this beautiful spot. We saw another hiker pass by on the far shore of the lake, but other than that we saw no other people and it felt quite remote. I climbed up on the ridge just east of our camp and got a good view of our surroundings. My original plan had been to get down into Slide Canyon, head downstream to Doe Lake, and then cross into Matterhorn Canyon. From my viewpoint, it looked like a long way to go in our three remaining days. I decided that it would make more sense to do a much shorter route going upstream in Slide Canyon, which would also allow us to check out the slide for which the canyon is named, something I had been curious about for a long time.
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Early morning at Rock Island Lake
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In the morning we headed east through a gap in the ridge and descended into Crazy Mule Gulch. We headed upstream into wide meadows at the head of the gulch, then headed east again down increasingly steep slabs into Slide Canyon. It began to look too steep for us to continue, so we split up to search out a better way down, me to the right and Gerald to the left. As I searched, I suddenly heard the call of a coyote sounding quite near. It made the place feel even more wild. I found a little gully that we could get down and went back to tell Gerald about it. At the bottom of the canyon, we were suddenly swarmed by millions of mosquitoes. We found a rocky spot where they were slightly fewer and quickly ate a bit of lunch. Then we made our way upstream in the canyon passing through many spots where the mosquitoes were worse than I had ever experienced. They were driving us crazy and we were getting tired, but all we could do was to keep going on.
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Heading into Crazy Mule Gulch
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In Slide Canyon, looking back at the steep slabs that we had descended
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Finally, we saw that we were coming to the beginning of the slide. I had been across a lot of talus fields in the past, and I had figured that this was just going to be another that wouldn't be too hard to cross. We headed into it and soon discovered that this was not going to be so easy. The boulders kept getting bigger until they were the size of houses with deep gaps between them. We tried to find a path where we could step across the gaps, but it was like an impossible maze. We backtracked a bit until we could find a way across to the east edge of the slide and worked our way through the forest along the edge where the slide had pushed its way up against the side of the canyon. After a lot of work, we made it past the slide and found a nice little meadow where the mosquitoes weren't too bad and we decided to camp there. Gerald did a little fishing while I enjoyed the evening light.
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On the slide
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Third night camp spot just past the slide
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In the morning, we headed up through the forest looking for the trail east of Mule Pass. We found the trail and headed east up the canyon. I had remembered this area as being especially beautiful, and we weren't disappointed with the flowery meadows and views of Sawtooth Ridge on one side and Finger Peaks on the other. At the top of Burro Pass, after a strenuous climb, we got a view of our route ahead and it looked even more strenuous. We had to drop into the head of Matterhorn Canyon and then steeply up to the much higher Matterhorn Pass.
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Approaching Burro Pass with Matterhorn Peak ahead
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View from Burro Pass toward Matterhorn Pass
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After a lot of hard work we made it to the top of Matterhorn Pass and took a break. The west side of the pass is steep rocks but not technically difficult. The east side is about 100 ft. of sheer cliffs. I had been over the pass a couple of times before by way of a gully to the south. I took a brief look in that direction but found no gully. After a rest, I looked a little further and found it. Getting into it was quite scary for me. There was a short stretch across a down-sloping rock at the edge of the cliff that made me quite uncomfortable with heavy pack on my back. Once we were in the gully, it was class 3 climbing down but it didn't bother me.
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Gerald climbing down the gully on Matterhorn Pass
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At the bottom, we found a spot to camp at the edge of a snow bank and enjoyed the evening with a great view down Spiller Creek Canyon. The next morning, we left our packs in camp and climbed Matterhorn Peak. It was a long slog up steep sandy slopes where it is two steps ahead and slide back one. But it is well worth it for the amazing view at the top.
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Our last camp below Matterhorn Pass
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Me on Matterhorn Peak, looking south
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Back at our camp, we packed up and headed across to the top of Horse Creek Pass. Gerald got ahead of me and we lost each other for a while among the rocks trying to find the best way down. On several of our trips together we got separated and it always bothered me quite a lot. From my days in the scouts I had learned that staying together is important when you depend on each other. Anyway, we found each other and headed down big snowfields into the canyon of Horse Creek.
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Heading down from Horse Creek Pass
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We stopped for a lunch break along the creek and then continued down. I was looking for places that I remembered from before, but didn't find much. The canyon had changed a lot since my first trip there. I think there had been a fire shortly before my first trip, and lots of willows and other vegetation had grown up since then that hid the places that I remembered. The canyon seemed endless, and every time it looked like we were near the bottom, more canyon appeared below. We were very tired by the time we reached the bottom, and then got lost for a while trying to cross the creek just a short distance from the parking lot.
We made it home, driving late into the night, but it was one of the best trips that we ever did. I have always liked trips with lots of adventure. It can be a lot of fun when the difficulty is near the edge of being scary, but not so far as to be really dangerous. This trip had plenty of difficulty, but I never felt like our survival was threatened.
