Backpacking the Hetch Hetchy Loop

Yosemite was wild this year. We were keeping our fingers crossed until the day we arrived that we'd be able to find some useful hikes to complete in the park. As usual, the park delivered. This episode covers the first part of our trip in the park where we backpacked the Hetch Hetchy Loop. To us, the loop looked like a perfect one-night and two-day loop but most people we met on the trail were out for 3 or 4 days. The route starts at the Hetch Hetchy resevoir trail. We went clockwise so we turned off onto Miguel Meadows road and then headed toward Vernon Lake where we stopped hiking after about 12 miles. We spent the night at Vernon Lake and then did a longer 16.5 mile day through Tiltill Valley and Rancheria Falls before getting to experience crossing Wapama and Tueeualala Falls in a high snow year. It was an exhausting second day but the kind of experience we look back on with so much fondness. Let us know what you think!
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We are Kelly & Michelle of Drive Hike Repeat. A few years ago we decided to try to hike every mile of every trail in every National Park. There are about 9200 miles of trail in the current 63 National Parks and we are over 34% done.
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[@LABoyko]

Well done. You hit Wapama at the right time. Was on that bridge several years ago in mid September and the falls was reduced to a trickle. Early season hikes are not easy: colder, wetter and far more mosquitoes. The upside is the longer hiking day

[@drivehikerepeat]

We got really lucky with mosquitos given the standing water, maybe because it was also still freezing at night. This trip is definitely going to live on in our memories!

[@nationalparksprincess3216]

You are over in my area! I was lucky enough to visit in February and then spend a day over in Hetch Hetchy in May. Between the road damage and high flow year, the park not doing reservations was a huge mistake. I really don't know what they were thinking, the reservations had made visiting the park so nice the last few years. Your hike in the Hetch Hetchy backcountry was, of course, beautiful, Yosemite never disappoints, especially when you get up away from the crowds 😊

[@drivehikerepeat]

Totally agree about the reservations. We had been in 2022 when they were required and it was SO much nicer. Hetch Hetchy was really amazing this year with the water and wildflowers.

[@nationalparksprincess3216]

@drivehikerepeat We locals actually got to visit in the summer with the reservations. If we have another good year of water, we will have to try for early April before the crowds. I'm so happy you still had a good time this year. The water and flowers in Hetch Hetchy were amazing!

[@cyruscrossan]

I've always wanted to explore hetch hetchy when I lived in NorCal, never made it though, this has made me want to get back out there when I can. It's always tough to determine two or three days. I did a 25ish mile backpacking trip in the Trinity Alps a few years ago in 2 days and honestly, a third day would have been amazing to just hang out by the lake and rest up before descending.

[@drivehikerepeat]

We are routinely TERRIBLE at relaxing so we tend to choose to shift the relaxing to the end when we can get town food. Some big advantages to the Hetch Hetchy area is that the snow melts there a bit earlier than the higher elevations and it’s usually less of a popular trailhead so you can get itineraries out of there more easily. If you go back, enjoy!