Yosemite 2012 - Hike to May Lake

A view of Tenaya Lake at the start of the trail.

09/28/12 Friday

For our next hike, we decided to hike up to May Lake and possibly hike up Mt. Hoffman as well.

There’s three different trailheads for May Lake: one that’s up a road, one that is at the start of that road, and one by Tenaya Lake.

No water this time of year.

We opted for the trailhead just west of Tenaya Lake and had a hard time finding it. The only indication from Tioga Road is a “Horse Crossing” sign.

This part of the trail is actually the Old Tioga Road, or Great Sierra Wagon Road, that was built in 1882 to service a mine. It was 56 miles long and cost $61,000 to build!

Nowadays, it’s mostly used by horses on guided trips up to the High Sierra Camps.

Mt. Hoffman is in the background.

After 1.5 miles uphill on the Old Tioga Road, you reach a parking lot for the May Lake trail.

The 1.3 mile trail up to May Lake features lots of granite.

May Lake (9,270’) and Mt. Hoffman (10,845’).

By the time we reached May Lake, a little bit of weather was moving in, so we just started hiking up the granite slabs to the north of the lake and played it by ear.

The slabs are steeper than they look.

We thought about climbing Mt. Hoffman, but we approached from the wrong direction, so we kept hiking up until we felt like stopping.

Pretty rocks.

It’s interesting hiking up a vast area that’s all granite. We found chunks of white quartz on the way.

Clouds and wind and spots of sun.

We wound up hiking up about 1000’ to the saddle north of the summit.

Checking out the northwest side of Mt. Hoffman.

We ended up at about 10,200’, getting a view of the backside of Mt. Hoffman and its drainage into Yosemite Creek.

Ducking out of the wind to eat lunch.

Getting a snack before heading down.

Nancy works her way back down.

It was a knee-strainer hiking back down. The slabs are fairly steep and you had to pay attention to keep from stubbing a toe and pitching face-first downhill.

Stopping at May Lake to filter some water.

The Porcupine Flat campground doesn’t have any running water, so I had to filter a few quarts to take back home.

Made it!

As we came back down the Old Tioga Road, there was a lightning storm in the eastern part of the park. It was awesome listening to the thunder booming through the granite valleys.

Total hike, about 9 miles with 2000’ of gain.