High Sierra Topix

Hey Everyone,
I've been reading the board for a while know and noticed how help full and knowledgeable everyone is around here. And I was wondering if any one has any information about Nelson Lake in Yosemite out of Tuolumne meadows backpacking area. I'm headed up there next weekend and I was wondering if anyone knew how about the this area. I was mainly hope to find out how difficult the trek is from Elizabeth Lake to Nelson Lake. From what I've been told about the trail is that its not maintained and it may require some x country hiking. So if there's any one out there with any information about this area I'd greatly appreciate hearing about it.

Thanks
1Adam12

I've never been to Nelson, but I've done quite a bit of off trail hiking in that area. Nelson was on the planned route of the one of the options I was considering for my one big trip of the year. There certainly is no maintained or official trail there (one of the big reasons I had considered staying there for a night). It will be certainly involve cross country travel and quite a bit of it at that to reach the lake.

When visiting this area I took the the eastern branch of Unicorn Creek
to the lakes west of Johnson Peak, climbed Johnson Peak (class 2)
the went down to 10400ft on the eastern side and climbed to the pass
above Reymann Lake and then on to Nelson Lake.
Here is a site that has pictures of someones trip from Sept-2006,
which will give you some ideal of what the terrain looks like.
http://www.stanford.edu/~sgolde/Photo/Yosemite09082006/


If dont get straight to the site remember Sept2006 and click on
the that trip date.

I see the site is not working. Type in "reymann lake and nelson lake"
and click search and you should get a site that reads "Yosmite Sept 2006" l
linking you to a sanford edu site.

I hit Nelson Lake coming in from Matthes Lake, just off the trail coming over from Cathedral Lakes to the Sunrise HSC. I left the trail here:
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=37. ... &layer=DRG
and followed the stream up to Matthes lake…about an easy 1.5 miles x-country. Good fishing, and the next day spotted the pass (center of the Stanford picture), http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=37. ... &layer=DRG
and worked my way up and over…class 2 – 3 maybe….mostly slab granite with a short talus patch on the far side.
Good fishing at both - saw nobody else…very scenic.

Back in '68 there was a significant user trail up from Elizabeth lake and down Echo Creek. Can't remember which side of peak 10294 the trail goes but there shouldn't be any problems although it was the first of many trips my exwife said she wouldn't go there anymore.

mike

oldranger wrote:Back in '68 there was a significant user trail up from Elizabeth lake and down Echo Creek. Can't remember which side of peak 10294 the trail goes but there shouldn't be any problems although it was the first of many trips my exwife said she wouldn't go there anymore.
mike

It would be interesting to see if there is still a visible use trail today. In the 60's and 70's so many more people were hiking off trail than today. I can't count the number of old use trails from that era whose tread has vanished or been overgrown. Even "unmaintained" trails shown on maps have disappeared in recent years. For example, there are two such trails shown on the USFS Kaiser Wilderness topo that really don't exist. A couple of weeks ago I walked a "cutoff" trail shown on Harrison's map that allegedly cuts a big corner off of the route to Seville Lake from Marvin Pass. Nothing there except an occasional cairn (did save myself quite a bit of distance, though).

I was there a couple years ago and there is a significant use trail. It gets a little faint just before the lake. This was the trip my husband and I chose a very long time ago to be our first "official" off trail hike. Nice area, have fun.

I just wanted to tell everyone thank you for all your help and replies. I'm really looking forward to my trip next week, hopefully the trail will still be visible enough to follow most of the way to Nelson Lake. If not I'll just have to use my navigating skills and make my own trail.

Thanks Again,
1Adam12

The old route between Elizabeth and Echo creeks was well eroded and I doubt that significant portions have disappeared. Though sometimes it it difficult to discern a trail from a small dry creek bed.

GB, I'll bet that trail to seville is still there though I admit there are a couple of places where the trail zigs and logic says zag. Also the trail does kind of disappear in a couple of the stringer meadows.

This is crazy I remember in the 80s tracing old trails in the Roaring River country that hadn't been used in 40 years now I'm talking about old trails I used almost 40 years ago!

mike