Backpacking from Tenaya Lake to Yosemite Valley is one of the premiere multi-day hikes in the United States, and also one of the most sought-after for permits. Throughout the hike you get to walk among towering granite rocks, feel the mist of several of Yosemite’s majestic waterfalls swim in alpine lakes, and smell the fresh coniferous forest, all while mostly hiking downhill (if starting from the North).  While on the hike, you’ll get to experience multiple Yosemite bucket list locations including Clouds Rest,  Half Dome (from multiple angles), Vernal Falls, and Yosemite Falls (if you return to the backpacking campground).

This trek also allows you to summit Half Dome “the easy way.”  Well…, not exactly the easy way, you still have to climb it haha,  but adding Half Dome to a multi-day Tenaya Canyon trek drastically reduces the intensity of reaching the top of Half Dome. Half Dome as a day hike is 16 miles and 4,800 feet of elevation gain.  However, if on the route we did backpacking from Tenaya Lake to Yosemite Valley, you could camp at Sunrise Creek 2 weeks and do a one day 5 mile, 1,400 feet elevation gain hike on one day of your multi-day trek (or many other customizations if that’s too short). 

This was my third attempt backpacking this epic route in Yosemite National Park. 

In 2018 wildfires canceled my trip to the park at the last minute. Then in 2019, my friend Charlie and I made it to Yosemite, but there was record snowfall which changed our plans. We ended up backpacking the Hetch Hetchy loop, which was similar to Yosemite Valley, except purposefully flooded, to supply San Francisco with water.  Hetch Hetchy turned into much more of an adventure than we anticipated because we got lost in unexpected massive snow drifts.  But if you’re interested in a more secluded, less traveled backpacking loop in Yosemite National Park, I recommend giving that trip report a read.

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Permits

The permit system for Yosemite National Park is a bit more complicated than standard for NPS permits due to the extreme popularity of many of several of the hikes within Yosemite. 

The major points to consider for Yosemite Permits are:

1. Day Hiking Half Dome and Wilderness Backpacking are 2 different permits
1. Although, you can combine Half Dome with a Wilderness Permit (like we did)
2. Half Dome Day Hiking Permits open up for preseason lottery for the entire month of March before the hiking season.
3. Lotteries for scoring wilderness permits open up 24 weeks before your anticipated start date. 

Our Experience with applying for permits

Our goal was to score permits to combine Half Dome with a backpacking trek through the canyon.    

Our ideal route was winning the lottery to hike from Cathedral Lakes to Little Yosemite Valley (the entirety of Yosemite/Tenaya Canyon) while throwing in Half Dome on the second to last day.  

We applied to the lottery 5 times. 

We lost 2 lotteries and were successful (ish) 3 times.  

2 of our winning lotteries weren’t exactly what we wanted. 

One was just day hiking Half Dome. The other was the route we wanted, Cathedral Lakes to Little Yosemite Valley, but from Monday to Friday, which was going to be a PTO killer and not ideal.  We purchased both permits in case we couldn’t get anything better. 

On the last attempt, we lucked out and scored permits from Sunrise Lakes to Little Yosemite Valley over Labor Day Weekend!   Sunrise Lakes is one trail entry point closer and shaves off about 10 miles from the overall trek.  The big win here though, was that we would be hiking over a 3-day weekend.  We canceled our other 2 permits, and they went back into the reservation system.

Cancled and unclaimed permits can be reserved on a first come first serve basis.  You can also use a service like Outdoor Status to get automated notifications when sold-out permits become available. If your dates are flexible, you never know when a popular permit could randomly open up

Transportation

Backpacking Tenaya Lake to Yosemite Valley is a point-to-point hike with different entry and exit points.  Therefore, if you don’t have 2 cars, you will need to use a taxi or bus service.

If driving, there is a parking lot at either end of Tenaya Lake, and roughly halfway along it.  There’s also some additional parking along the shoulders of the road.  The ideal parking spot is at the south end of the lake, closest to the Sunrise Lakes Trailhead.  

In Yosemite Valley, there are many more parking options, but you will need to make sure to camp in a designated overnight parking area near the backpacker’s campground. 

A few weeks ahead of the trip, we booked tickets on the Yosemite Tuolumne Meadows Hiker Bus. It picked us up in the Yosemite Village at 8 am and took about 2.5 hours to get to the Tenaya Lake Trailhead.

Another option is the YARTS 395/120 E Bus. Tenaya Lake is not an official stop on the route, but is possible by request.    

The last option is hitchhiking, which is fairly uncommon/popular in the US, but doable.  You might just be waiting a while for pickup.  

Day 0 – Flying into Fresno

We arrived in Fresno in the evening and got a hotel in the area before getting last-minute supplies (fuel + snacks) and heading out to the park in the morning. Whenever you’re in Fresno gearing up for some major hiking, some restaurants I highly recommend are Dog House (get the tri-tip steak sandwich) and House of Juju (in my personal top 5 burger list). I try to go to both every time I visit.

Day 1 – Picking up Permits in the Yosemite Valley

With our permits we couldn’t actually start backpacking until Sunday of Labor Day Weekend, so we had time to sleep in, grab some breakfast, and get our last-minute shopping in. 

We arrived at Yosemite National Park Saturday afternoon via Tunnel View and it was hazyyyyy and hot!   There had been a lot of wildfires and accompanying smoke in the area. And it seriously smelt like a campfire and BBQ outside.  

We picked up our permits and then headed to the backpacker’s campground.  The backpacker’s campground is available for one night the immediate day before and after your wilderness permits (not including Half Dome Day hiking permits), which is clutch since it’s about a 3-hour drive back to Fresno from the valley. It costs $8 per person in cash, which we didn’t realize upon arrival, but we luckily had to make it work.

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Day 2 – The Trek Begins from Tenaya Lake!

The hiker bus picked us up in the Yosemite Village at 8 am and took about 2.5 hours to get to the Tenaya Lake Trailhead. We finally started hiking at about 11 am. 

It was a very moderate and peaceful hike to start.  We made it to Sunrise Lakes in about an hour and a half and then stopped for lunch.  While shuffling some of my packing around, I accidentally left my stove behind… Luckily Ian had his and we made lunch. 

Sunrise Lakes looked like an awesome spot to camp,  but it was so close to our starting trailhead, and not on our timeline for this trip. Maybe next time from a Cathedral Lakes start!

When we picked up our permits, the park ranger told us that water was scarce and most creeks were dry. They recommended packing more water in than we usually did.  Many of the waterfalls in the park also had unusually low flow for this Labor Day Weekend. 

As we passed day hikers that had gone to Clouds Rest we asked them how the water situation was. They all confirmed there was one trickling stream that would be hard to fill up on.

Because of water concerns, we decided to cook our dehydrated meals ahead of time at lunch and eat them cold later on, just in case we never saw water again.  We took our time at Sunrise Lakes, enjoying a nice view with lunch followed by a chilly alpine swim.  

After lunch, we pushed on to Clouds Rest.  And it was intense, just like camping 😉

The 360 views from Clouds Rest were incredible.  Laffy Taffy Granite waves in every direction. 

We stayed at the top for about 2 hours, watching the sunset. 

As it darkened, we could see forest fires in the distance. 

We poorly judged the time it would take to descend down the switchbacks to our campsite and ended up hiking about half of it in the dark with headlamps.  Also, unfortunately, Molly sprained her ankle while hiking down.

Day 3 Part 1- Hiking Half Dome

Molly’s ankle got more swollen overnight, and unfortunately, she made the tough decision to skip out on Half Dome to not make her ankle worse. After all, we still had a big hike to get back to civilization without Half Dome. 

We didn’t find out until we got back several hours later due to no cell service, but while the rest of us were hiking to Half Dome, 2 small black bears came and wandered around our camp while Molly was in her tent.  We had all our food properly stored, and after a few minutes of sniffing around, they left.  Molly said it was a scary experience. 

We set off for Half Dome shortly after sunrise, around 6 am, to beat both the summer heat and the crowds. 

Transferring to our light daypacks filled with water and snacks for the Half Dome hike, we flew down the first part of the trail.  We got to the base of the initial Half Dome ascent about an hour later.

The stairs reminded me of the hike up to Mordor but with much prettier scenery and golden hour light shining down. 

We arrived at the cables portion of Half Dome around 7:30 am. The crowds were light and the weather was beautiful,  not too hot yet.  

We put our gloves on (BRING GLOVES) and began the ascent.  The cables can be slippery and hard to get a good grip on, even with no moisture in the air or precipitation.  There’s also a pile of leftover gloves people leave in case you forgot some, but you might be risking getting some nasty hand fungus, who knows how long those have been there and how many terrified sweaty hands they’ve touched. 

The cables section was not what I was expecting physically.  It was much more of an arm workout than a leg workout.  Because of the large spacing between the footholds, you pull yourself up the mountain with your arms rather than climbing steep steps.  I had to rest many times on the way up because my arms were burning out. 

But eventually, we made it to the top and the views were incredible! 

We hugged it out and cracked open some breakfast celebratory beers.

The hike down was lot easier than the way up, but also scarier in my opinion.  I flipped back and forth between my descent strategy depending on the steepness (going face first or in reverse (most people go in reverse the whole way).  It had also gotten much more crowded by the time we were descending, and so we did a lot of passing people on the way down, which was the worst part.  

Just take it slow!

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Day 3 Part 2 – A change of plans 

When we got back from Half Dome to our campsite from the night before, the sky was orange and smelled like a potent campfire from the nearby forest fires.  We packed up camp and pushed on toward our last campsite in Little Yosemite Valley.

The remainder of the hike from Half Dome back to the valley was almost entirely downhill.  This is why we chose to backpack from the northern part of the canyon down.  You shave a ton of elevation off of doing Half Dome as a day hike, and also mostly descend the backpacking trail once past Clouds Rest (and if you add on Half Dome). Backpacking the other way around would be brutal, and not enjoyable for the average backpacker in my opinion. 

By the time we got to the Little Yosemite Valley Campsite, Molly’s ankle was really hurting.  She wanted to finish up the hiking today and get it out of the way, rather than having it potentially swell up even more overnight like it did the night before.  We discussed splitting the group in 2 with Ian and Molly heading down a night early and Mike, Taylor, and I sticking with the original plan, but we did not want to split the group up.

So we pushed on.  It was all downhill back to the valley, so couldn’t be too bad, right?

The distance really took a toll on all of us. Our feet and knees were hurting. We weren’t originally planning on having a 14-mile day (including Half Dome no less).

As you approach Nevada Falls, there are 2 trails you can take to get back down to the valley, John Muir and the Mist Trail.  The Mist trail is more direct but is much steeper and can be slippery from the waterfall mist, which didn’t sound great for descending.  Taking the John Muir Trail instead adds an additional 1.5 miles, but is much more moderate.  

I felt this section of the John Muir Trail was one of the most scenic parts of our entire hike.  We were gifted with beautiful views of Half Dome and Nevada Falls from a side vantage point at Clark Point.

Once at Clark Point, there’s again a trail divergence with 2 ways to get down to the Valley.  One way leads down to Vernal Falls but includes over 600 steep and uneven steps, whereas the other direction continues down the John Muir Trail with 10+ switchbacks.   Since Vernal Falls was reported to be a trickle, and Molly’s ankle was hurting, we continued down the John Muir Trail. The difference in distance between the 2 routes is about .5 miles. 

We eventually made it down and crushed some pizzas in the village. 

Summary

Hiking Tenaya Lakes to Little Yosemite Valley with the Half Dome Valley is one of the premier backpacking routes in the US National Parks.  By starting at the north end of the canyon, once passing Clouds Rest (and not including Half Dome), almost the whole trek is downhill through the beautiful Yosemite/Tenaya Canyon.  The permit lottery is very competitive, but once secured, there’s a lot of flexibility and customizations you can make to this route.  

With more time you may consider starting at Cathedral Lakes and camping there one night, and then Sunrise Lakes one night.  With even more time, you could add on Illiouette Falls via the Panorama Trail to your descent back down into the valley or as a side day trip. 

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Backpacking Tonquin Valley takes hikers deep into the heart of untamed and serene wilderness in Jasper National Park. While this route can be done as a very long day hike, turning it into a multi day backpacking trip gives hikers a chance to fully enjoy the pristine alpine waters, towering peaks, and lush meadows that make the Tonquin Valley one of the hidden gems of Jasper.  Additionally, the Toqnuin Valley is the world’s second largest dark sky preserve, so the stargazing is phenomenal. This complete guide to backpacking Tonquin Valley in Jasper National Park goes over the transportation logistics of the point-to-point trail, how to secure backcountry permits, and a full trip report of my experience completing the hike. 

Map of Backpacking Tonquin Valley Trek

Are Permits Required for Backpacking Tonquin Valley?

If camping overnight, backcountry permits are required from Jasper National Park. Parks Canada uses a reservation system for securing permits. Reservations for Jasper National Park open in March for the 2024 season; see here for exact dates.  Be prepared to book for your desired dates as soon as the reservations are made available, backpacking Tonquin Valley is one of the most popular multi day treks in Jasper National Park and they can fill up in minutes. 

How to get to Tonquin Valley and Taxi Service Information

Backpacking Tonquin Valley is a point-to-point trek, so you either need to have 2 cars at the start and end or use a mountain taxi service, there is no shuttle service. Hitchiking is another option, but the road is not well trafficked, so you could have a long wait; we didn’t see anyone on the drive out.  

There are 2 main options for taxi shuttle services to Tonquin Valley: Caribou Cabs and  Mountain Express Taxi.  We used Mountain Express Taxi; they had excellent customer service and I would definitely use them again. They charged a flat rate of $100 CAD to pick us up at the Cavell Lake Parking Area (where we left our car) and shuttle us to the Portal Creek Trailhead to start the trek.

What’s the best direction to do Tonquin valley?

It really depends!  This trail is quite moderate as far as backpacking trails in Canada go.  Starting from the Astoria Trailhead gives a more gradual ascent over the first 25 km of the trail, with a final descent to the Portal Trailhead on the last day.  I did it the opposite direction starting at Portal the Portal Trailhead because I like to get elevation out of the way at the begining of my hikes when I’m fresh. 

When is the best time of year to backpack Tonquin Valley?

The official season for the Tonquin Valley is end of June to end of September. Late summer (mid-August to mid-September) is ideal to avoid the mosquitoes and black flies. Additionally from mid-July to mid-August is one of the best times to see the wildflowers bloom in Tonquin Valley (This is when we decided to go). In late September to Early October Toqnuin Valley experiences Larch Madness, where several sections of the valley transform into a gorgeous sea of yellow larch trees for about 2 weeks. 

What are the best backcountry campsites in Tonquin Valley?

There are seven backcountry campsites in the Tonquin Valley to choose from, and all require advanced permit reservations. I think Maccarib and Amethyst are best campsites for views. Each campsite has the same basic facilities: picnic tables, bear boxes for food storage, and pit toilets. Below is a brief description of each of the campsites:

Backcountry Camgrounds in Tonquin Valley 

Portal – Secluded, tucked away in dense woods

Maccarib – Nestled in the tress but with excellent views

Amethyst – Very exposed, very close to Amethyst Lake and has gorgeous views of the Ramparts Mountain Range. About the halfway point of the route

Clitheroe – Dense tree cover with limited views of the Ramparts

Suprise Point – Exposed campground with Nice views of Amethyst Lake and the Ramparts; off the main trail

Switchback – Medium tree cover with some mountain views

Astoria –Secluded, tucked away in dense woods high above Astoria River

Trip Report

After the popular Skyline Trail was booked for the days we were looking to backpack we landed on the Tonquin Valley not knowing too much what to expect.  (At the time, there wass a lot less info posted online about Tonquin than Skyline.) Tonquin Valley didn’t fail to blow my mind and it’s one of my favorite backpacking trips I’ve done in Canada. Tonquin Valley is known to have a lot of bugs and can be very muddy but I guess we got lucky, or maybe it was the cooler temps, because there weren’t any bugs and the mud was manageable.

On the drive to the trailhead we saw a bighorn sheep on the side of the road!

Day 1

We started at the Portal Creek Trailhead. The climb is very steady throughout the first chunk of the hike approaching Maccarib Pass.  We climbed a little over 700m (~2250ft), but over a 15km (~9mi) period.  That’s only about 250ft. of elevation of gain a mile, which is nothing. The rest of the hike was practically all downhill after Maccarib Pass.

Our campsite for Day 1 was at the Maccarib campsite. We stopped for lunch at the Portal campground, which was nice, but Maccarib was so much better.  It’s about 19 km to the Maccarib campsite from the trailhead, but definitely worth the extra push on day one.

It had been smoky for the past week while we were in Canada due to forest fires in BC, but once we made it to the pass, we were welcomed with majestic views of the valley.  This was the first moment of our trip we saw clear mountains without grey haze.  It was a beautiful spring-like day and we took some time to soak it all in.

Clouds were starting to cover the tops of the mountains.  We could see that is was pouring in the direction of the Maccarib campsite. We were still a few miles away, and the clouds were moving perpendicular to the direction we were hiking, so we decided to sit on a bridge and see if we might be able to dodge the rain.

Speaking of the bridges, I’ve never seen so many bridges in a meadow environment. Jasper takes really great care of their trails and I was happy to not be walking through mush.

The mountains slowly started to disappear in every direction as the storm rolled in and it began to downpour as temperatures dropped. We threw on our rain gear and decided we might as well push on to the campsite, to try and stay warm by moving.

I don’t think any of us looked around the entire trip to the campsite.  All of our heads were down, trying to dodge puddles and keep our faces dry.  I didn’t have any rain pants or gaiters, so I got soaked fast.  What made my pants and boots so wet was actually plants brushing up on my legs, not the rain. After about an hour and a half we arrived at a raging creek.  To our surprise, there were bear poles towering over some trees on the opposite side of the creek.  I actually we wished we still had more hiking to do even though we’d already done 12 miles.  I didn’t know how we were about to set up tents in this weather.

Step one was to cross the creek.

There was an obvious path on the other side of the creek but the water was too high to cross and stay dry.  There was also a path that looked somewhat like a trail off to the left.  We took the side trail hoping for a bridge, to no avail.  So now we are standing there trying to determine how to cross.  There were some rocks about an inch under the flow, all the way across, but one slip and our feet would be soaked.  Naomi went first, slipped on step number two, and actually fell into the creek getting her sleeping pad soaked.  So now Eric and I were not looking forward to our attempts.  I kept my feet dry for a few steps and eventually gave up and trudged through the creek, soaking my boots.  Eric followed right behind with the same approach.

All but 2 campsites were taken and everyone had their tents set up and were nice and dry inside. We found a patch of evergreens and huddled underneath to try and get out of the rain.  Evergreens actually do a pretty good job at blocking out most of the rain. It was cold and raining, but we decided to hold out under the trees for a little while hoping for the rain to slow.

At this point we’re all shivering and my teeth began to chatter.  Standing outside in the cold rain was starting to turn into a dangerous situation and we had to make some survival decisions.  I was worried one of us might catch hypothermia and we needed to get dry quick, but it was still raining hard…

This was the worst moment of my life.

I’m not exaggerating.  Eric said this was the worst thing he’d ever experienced as well.  Naomi got caught in a blizzard on Mount Fuji, so she one upped us and said this was the second worst moment of her life.  Looking back, some funny things happened during all of the rain and memories were made but getting caught in freezing rain is definitely something I hope never happens again. Snow would have been so much better.

It was pretty hard to think, being so cold, but we managed to come up with a plan to get a tent set up:  Naomi and I would hold the rain fly up as wide as we could while Eric assembled his tent underneath.  We then grabbed some dry clothes, formed a pile of our soaked clothes under the tent’s vestibule, and the three of us gathered in Eric’s small two-man backpacking tent. It was pretty uncomfortable, and the ground was ice cold, but I was happy to be dry and warming up.

The three of us were in the tent for over 2 hours. A TWO MAN TENT. Eric had one episode of the office saved on his phone, so that passed about 20 mins of time.  The rest of the time was spent sitting on each other’s feet, huddling for warmth, complaining, and laughing at how terrible this situation was.

Eventually the rain stopped and it was time to set up my tent.  The rain brought in some much cooler temperatures than the nice spring weather we experienced only a few hours ago.  Everyone started emerging from their tents and offered their condolences to us having to endure the rain. We also learned that the side trail did actually have a bridge, we just didn’t go far enough… smh.

I guess everyone had better weather apps than me.  One couple had a Garmin with satellite weather access and warned us that the new weather prediction called for night temps in the upper 20’s F.  Last time I checked it was the mid 40’s…  HELLO WINTER.  Luckily, we were prepared for cold temps.

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Day 2

We awoke to fresh snow on all of the mountains around us.  Totally unexpected for the middle of August, but very cool! Our next campsite was only 6 miles away so we took some time to try and dry out our gear before putting everything back in our packs.  It hailed/snowed lightly during the early part of our hike.

The view around Amethyst Lake was spectacular.  This mountain might just be my favourite view from all of my two weeks in Canada:

A photogenic marmot posed for us right off the trail.

We passed a sign that said Switchback Campsite was in 3 km.  I was pretty sure the campsite was before the actual switchback started but we never saw a campsite sign so we pushed on.

This is an intense switchback. We were very happy to be going down instead of up, that’s why I recommend starting from the Portal Creek Trailhead like we did.

We were all starting to wonder if we missed our campsite. This was the longest 3km ever, and we were going down, how had we not made it?

Well, eventually we ended up at the Astoria campsite, 3 km had turned into 10.  Somehow all three of us missed the Switchback campsite sign?  I guess it’s possible, but I have a feeling the sign had fallen down or was missing.  We didn’t miss signs for any of the other campsites along the way.  So be on the lookout if you’re camping at switchback!

There was only one tent pad left at Astoria when we arrived and we didn’t have a permit for this campsite.  We debated staying at Astoria for the night and doubling up our tents on the pad, but it was still pretty early in the evening and we didn’t want to screw over anyone who actually reserved the site. We decided to end the hike early and finished the entire hike around 9pm. (Still before sunset since we’re so far north.)  

Unfortunately, we had no place to stay, and lodging is always full in Jasper and the surrounding areas unless you book well in advance. We did find a place to stay, and It was quite an adventure, so I’ll save that story for another post.

In the end, we hiked 15 miles on Day 2.  It was tough, but exhilarating, with fantastic views the entire day.  Each time we hiked around one mountain, we were rewarded with a whole new view of the Canadian Rockies. If I do this trail again, I’ll definitely go the same direction, but I’ll camp on night 2, like we originally had planned.   This is a very doable backpacking route, and non-technical.  I’d recommend it to anyone, even first-time backpackers. Just know your limits and take extra time, it’s a long hike.

Let me know if you have any questions and I’d love to hear your experiences from the Tonquin Valley! Drop a comment below.

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Helpful Links for Tonquin Valley 

1. Trail map
2. Tonquin Valley Backcountry Guide
3. Jasper Permit Reservation

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