Fourth of July. For many our nation's day of independence. For me my one coveted day off from teaching summer field- it pays to make it count! The 4th has the Eastern Sierra region become a zoo of people out climbing, hiking, camping, and hot pooling so packrafting was probably going to be a particularly appealing option. The two things most likely to still be in condition this late into a weak snow year were the West Walker River (a 2hr+ drive from Bishop for a 11mi roadside run of III-IV described as being "continuous whitewater but remarkably featureless") or the upper Tuolumne River (a 1.5hr drive where I could bite off a piece of the 32mi IV-V+ wilderness run). Both runs approached near minimum flow but the Tuolumne held higher hope of having water. Looking into the Tuolumne further in Google Earth I could guess the top 2.5mi of the run would be manageable (potentially with a few portages) and make a pretty tidy little trip. Trip reports claimed that the best paddling is in the upper miles so that seemed compelling enough to try it as a low flow packraft trip.
We stayed the night before at Benton Hot Springs, which was taken over by a large group of friendly but crusty hot spring folks. The key to pulling this trip off would be to get in the Yosemite entrance gate before it opened at 8am to avoid the inevitable long lines and parking challenges so we left Benton nice and early. The backroad drive from Benton to Lee Vining was a new one for me and I found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable and scenic stretch of sparseness. We stopped into The Mobil for a tasty mountain of a breakfast burrito before driving up to Tioga Pass. The entrance station was already manned by 7:30am but we got through instantly. Tuolumne Meadows was already filling up fast and it was clear that the park was going to be overrun with rock climbers and hikers. I was feeling better about the decision to float the river but was worried we would find a trickle. Somehow organizing gear and ourselves took a while and it was nearly 9am by the time we set off on the Pothole Dome trail.
We hiked up the perfectly sloped side of Pothole Dome facing the road and enjoyed the view as we traversed slickrock towards the river. Marmots and glacial features entertained us along the short one kilometer approach. We intersected the river one bend up from the end of Tuolumne Meadows, finding it disturbingly shallow. Guess we will see what happens downstream! The air was thick with pollen and mosquitoes as we suited up and inflated.
A couple minutes of paddling past deer grazing leisurely brought us to the loud sound of water falling over a granite horizon line. We got out to scout; three discrete granite drops ending at a calm pool. It looked like a pretty clean rapid to me but Sara felt intimated at first. I ran it, then she ran it cleaner. It was not all that bad at this flow so I had high hopes for the rest of our run. As it turned out this ended up being one of the cleaner rapids of the run unfortunately.
A short and shallow paddle brought us to the next scoutable rapid I thought might be a portage from aerials. We walked the long distance through this long and complicated maze of a rapid. I decided to run it, flipping in a pretty obvious place with not enough water and too much rock. I then ran Sara's boat through, somehow managing to pivot on a shallow rock at the edge of a drop, fall vertically backwards, and somehow land upright in the boat. It was one of the most bizarre things I've done in a packraft. I left the last two drops for Sara to run as they seemed the cleanest. Sara had a minor flip but emerged with smiles.
The next kilometer consisted of read-and-run granite slides and occasional small bedrock falls to drop. Both were a little scrape-y and thin. They were fun but double the flow would be much more enjoyable. The granite here has enormous feldspar crystals to fist size, which seemed to make the slides less smooth than they would otherwise be.
This section ended in a broad meadow near Dingley Creek where the river meandered shallowly. We passed dangerously close to the Pacific Crest Trail where hikers felt cool taking pictures of us without asking. We might as well have been deer; we were part of the landscape to them. I wondered if deer share the same disdain: "Sure take your Instagram photo without asking me a-hole." This was a nice scenic little interlude with many Tuolumne landmarks like Cathedral Peak forming the skyline beyond delicate purple shooting stars and other late season meadow flowers.
The second bedrock section began with a few long slides that were clean and fun (if again scratchy). After a boulder garden that led to a mini-gorge where some basalt plug lined the river. The next rapid looked read-and-run but admittedly had a lot of water billowing against a sharp turn and a couple choice rocks in the way. It went fine for me but Sara flipped and got a little shaken up, needing help getting out and portaging the last section. A couple awkward drops and more boulder garden bumper boats brought us in sight of the PCT bridge above Tuolumne Falls. We ran the last little drop below the bridge (one of the cleanest) before taking out above a Class IV-V+ section starting tens of meters beyond.
We converted to hiking mode and walked the PCT back to the first gorge. Rather than take the long hike to Lembert Dome on the trail, the low flow allowed us to cross at the first bedrock section and regain the Pothole Dome trail, which made the hiking quick, reasonable, and mostly unpeopled.
View below the bridge: maybe another time or maybe not
Trail view from near Dingley Creek
Back to the car. Escape the park. Shake at Mono Cone. Decide extra driving and low flow didn't justify a West Walker encore. At the flow we had the trip felt really silly at times. Formidable rapids instead had scrape-y drops and slides. It was still fun, still beautiful, and got us away from the masses. I'm not sure I'd consider anything we did fun enough to justify a return at higher flow or a longer trip, but the version we did would make a great short little packraft trip for some people comfortable with these style of rapids. Thanks to Sara for joining and for the pictures of me.
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