The Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne and Falls

The Morrison Creek crossing, and a helpful iron Yosemite trail sign. Note the trail in the upper right.

Morrison Creek

The Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne and Falls, June 2004

Switching back into the forest, the trail began another plunge of 1500 feet down to the canyon floor. Counting all the ups and downs, it is more like nearly 2000 feet of loss over about 2 miles. Meanwhile, we had a new obstacle coming up: the crossing of Morrison Creek. No dry-footing across that stream at that time of year. Actually, it was nice to take off my boots and wade across for all the pounding my feet were getting that day. And for the amount of water passing through the ford, it was surprisingly easy to get across the creek.

Below is roughly where the trail begins to bottom out. On the far left Morrison Creek reaches the Tuolumne River. At bottom center (obscured by near trees) the trail levels out a bit and crosses between the rocky hill (left of center) and the canyon wall (right of center). Just above center in the bushy area, you can just make out a small group of trees that surround a small pond, which we will soon see. Above that are the trees near the river where we camped. Still a long ways to go yet before we reach bottom.

With boots back on, it was back to the trail and downward ho! Now the hike became a bit tedious despite the fine views. We were without a doubt leaving the evergreen pines behind in favor of the scrub and oak of the transition zone. Now there would only be pines near water while everything else was bush, oak and other dry related trees and flora.

The canyon junction of Pate Valley. At roughly mid picture there is a trail that plunges down from the green area (top center) to Pate Valley.

One good thing was that Pate Valley was in sight, which meant it would be not too long before we were in camp for the rest of the day. The next good camps were well up the canyon, so there was no point in pushing on that day, even if we felt like it. Which we didn't. Meanwhile, we plodded ahead because there was no rest till we got to where we were going.

At this point the trail was less a shaded-forested path, and was more a hot exposed wide dusty horse beaten serpentine tread-way with plenty of high horse-steps. I was looking forward to stopping.