Rancheria Trailhead info

[paul]

I am curious as to how early anyone has been into the Rancheria Trailhead, and what year it was when you were in there early so I can correlate to to snowpack. Also, how was the road and any other info that seems pertinent. Thanks!

[balzaccom]

Do you mean the Hetch-hetchy trailhead to Rancheria Falls? We've done it in March..with good weather. Then again, we got snowed on over Memorial Day on another trip

[Wandering Daisy]

I do not think the Hetch-Hetchy trailhead is officially called Rancheria. Rancheria Trailhead is down new Courtright/Wishon Reservoirs. The road to the trailhead goes pretty high in elevation. I recall in high snow years, although we could get to Courtright July 4th holidays, campgrounds still were closed due to snow. We used to go down there to rock climb.

[paul]

My bad - I didn't know there was another trailhead that could be confused with the one near Wishon that I am thinking of.

[maverick]

Paul,

A planned a trip to Tehipite Valley via RT back in 2006 for May, which I scrubbed and went to Yosemite, the road to Wishon Reservoir had opened 4/27, with 0-1 ft of snow at Sno Park, also a lot of clear spots was reported.

[paul]

Thanks, Mav - which Sno-Park do you mean?
From what I have heard, the road to Wishon Dam is usually opened for the trout opener on the last Saturday in April. What I'm trying to figure out is what sort of chance there is of the road being clear all the way to the Rancheria Trailhead - or to the end of the paved portion of the road - at that time. Would save me about 900 feet of ascent. In the end I know I'll have to wait and see when I get there, but hoping for enough info so that I can make a guess based on the snowpack info as I get close to the time.

[giantbrookie]

As noted by Mav, the opening of Rancheria is dependent on the opening of the road to Wishon Res. Usually you can access Rancheria as soon as the road to Wishon is open. The reason is that the road to Wishon crests out quite a bit higher than the reservoir (ie the high point btw the Dinkey Creek crossing and Wishon Res). Because the Rancheria kickoff pt is not hugely higher than Wishon it is highly likely that when the road to Wishon opens the road to the Rancheria trailhead will in fact be clear. In heavy snowfall years the road to Wishon will be closed well into May. As of right now we're trending kinda dry but it's still way too early to tell.

[paul]

Thanks, GB - been so long since I drove in there that I forgot about that descent into Wishon. Looking at the map, seems like the high point on the way in is about 7100, so around 600' higher than the top of the dam.