This post is part of the “Backpacking Yosemite” Series. If you haven’t done so yet, please start reading the overview post:

So It Began…

This was the first hike on our backpacking trip through Yosemite. Well, actually, this is not even Yosemite yet. The start of our trail is the middle of Forest Route 1N14, which leads straight to Lake Eleanor. The trail head is thus part of the Stanislaus National Forest. However, we’d enter the Yosemite wilderness during the hike, so all wilderness regulations applied.

We were coming from San Francisco, so we stopped at the Groveland Ranger District Office to get our wilderness permit. We also needed a bear canister, which we rented at the Big Oak Flat Information Station ($5 per week, details here). Because of that detour, we were also charged the Yosemite park entrance fee ($35 per car for 7 days, details here), but that was alright because we wanted to enter the park on the next day anyway.

A Bumpy Ride

We had a rental car for our trip. It was perfectly fine, but not the right choice for this area. It turned out to be only accessible via gravel roads, partially in quite bad conditions. We would have been better off with some kind of SUV and felt very sorry for our city car.

The gravel roads to Cherry Lake

However, we eventually made it to the trail head. No one else was there. We began moving all our food into a bearproof foot locker. Locking away your food is required by federal law and not doing so will result in a fine of up to $5,000.

One of about 2,000 bearproof metal food lockers

After filling up our backpacks, we started hiking towards Lake Eleanor, a reservoir that was formed as part of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir system, constructed to supply water and power to San Francisco.

Through Burned Land