![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Chilnuanla Falls & Yosemite Valley
Today, Cade and I kicked off our fifth California swimming hole marathon by hiking to Chilnualna Falls in Yosemite National Park. This creek was one of the first swimming hole spots I had put on my list when researching our first trip back in 2017, but we didn’t end up making it to Yosemite that year or on any of our other trips for one reason or another. The closest we came was in 2018, but they closed the park due to the Ferguson Fire three days before we arrived, and we couldn’t get out of our vacation rental, so we ended up having to resort to smoky backup plans outside the park. This time, we booked hotels with flexible cancellation policies, as you never know what’s going to happen in California, but I’ll admit that a tropical storm is the last thing I would have expected. The original plan was to do Chilnualna yesterday and do the touristy stuff in Yosemite Valley today, but yesterday's forecast called for scattered showers and a high of 68 °F with the remnants of Hurricane Hilary passing through, so we swapped the days and did the valley yesterday. We were hoping the weather would be better today, since this was our last day staying in Oakhurst (near the southern entrance of the park in Wawona, where Chilnualna Creek is), but it was still partly cloudy and in the low 70’s.Chilnualna Creek boasts two sections of interest. The lower section near the trailhead features two swimming holes known as The Ledge and Honeymooners, and a short distance upstream from those (as the crow flies) is the Big Pot. I had marked another point of interest on Google Earth about a quarter mile upstream of the Big Pot, but it looked like it might be in the middle of a waterfall, so I was unsure if it would be accessible. The upper section of interest is Chilnualna Falls, which is a three-tiered waterfall about five miles up the trail. The uppermost tier features a large swimming hole at its base, and several teacup cascades above the main drop. It was unclear from pictures if the teacups were accessible, as the terrain around them looked pretty steep depending on the angle, but I was interested to find out. I knew we probably wouldn’t be able to hit all the swimming hole highlights of the creek in one day, so my main objective for today was to check out Chilnualna Falls. This meant we would probably have to come back another time to see everything on the lower section, but I still wanted to check out the Big Pot, as it had been the swimming hole that initially piqued my interest for this creek.
Before we get to Chinualna Creek, I’ll back up and do a brief recap of yesterday’s excursion to Yosemite Valley (I’m not dedicating a separate entry to it, since there were no swimming holes). We first went to Glacier Point and Sentinel Dome, which provide overlook views of the valley (we got rained on a little bit at the former). It was so cloudy that it looked like a river of steam was flowing through the valley. We kept having to wait for brief breaks in the clouds to get glimpses of Half Dome and Yosemite Falls.
Here are some pictures and videos from Glacier Point showing Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, and Nevada and Vernal Falls:
And here's a video from Sentinel Dome, featuring El Capitan and Yosemite Falls:
We then drove to the valley and stopped at the iconic Tunnel View, where you can see El Capitan, Bridal Veil Falls, and the Half Dome (except not so much yesterday, due to the clouds).
I was last in Yosemite on a family vacation in 2006, and the thing I remember most was the Mist Trail, which passes by Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall on the Merced River (and drenches you with waterfall spray, thus the name). The highlight of this hike had been the base view of Vernal Fall with a rainbow in the waterfall spray, and we were able to get the same view yesterday:
The trail is closed on weekdays this summer until 3:30 PM, but we got there around 4:00 PM and it was open, so we hiked to the base of Vernal Fall. We didn’t go further because we weren’t in the mood to get drenched.
We then returned to Oakhurst and ate at the Oakhurst Grill.
___
This morning, we checked out of Oakhurst and headed to the Chilnualna Falls Trailhead in Wawona. As soon as we started up the trail, we were immediately greeted by a towering series of cascades that was probably over 200 feet high.
There appeared to be an unofficial trail heading up toward The Ledge, but that wasn’t on today’s agenda, so we continued up the main trail, which bypassed the lower cascades in a series of switchbacks. There were two people sitting there, and a female companion of theirs was apparently returning from the main falls. They told us how far it was and seemed to be trying to dissuade us. They asked the woman if it was worth it, and she said there was a great view of “not the falls”. I had researched this hike pretty thoroughly and knew what I would and wouldn’t be able to see, so we continued on.
The switchbacks returned to the creek just above the Big Pot, although it wasn’t easily visible from the trail.
We had to backtrack a short distance to find the side path to it.
The creek was running strong for late August (based on what I’ve read), and the tub was kind of churning, although it appeared reasonably safe to enter. However, the water was 54.5 °F, the air temperature was in the upper 60s or low 70s, and the sun was mostly behind clouds, so I decided it would probably be best to return on another year with more typical water levels.
We noticed more cascades just downstream as we headed back to the main trail, and the creek quickly dropped out of sight and rounded a bend on its way to the Ledge.
Next, I wanted to check out the point of interest a quarter mile upstream. On Google Earth, it looked like a waterfall with a tub in the middle. I found a faint path through the woods and came to a rock that offered a decent view of it. The creek dropped about 10 feet into a large tub, and then about 20 feet over a steep slide into an even larger tub that was filled with boulders.
The tub in the middle of the falls looked nice, but there was no way to safely access it without ropes.
From here, the trail seemed to drag on forever until we reached the main falls, although we did get some decent views of Wawona Dome and the bottom tier of the falls.
The trail switch-backed for a while until finally skirting across the cliff to where the brink of the falls dropped into a deep chasm formed by a rock peninsula. There was no way to see the waterfall without getting dangerously close to the edge (but we had seen the full view of it from a distance on the way up).
Just above this was the middle teir, which was about 30 feet high.
Here is a video of the bottom and middle tiers of the falls:
The trail bypassed the middle tier in a single switchback and came back to the brink of it. The top tier with the swimming hole was a few hundred feet upstream. Its overall height was probably close to 100 feet.
The creek spilled into several teacups before cascading over a final drop of about 40 feet into a swimming hole.
We settled down in front of this pool and scarfed down the pastries we had bought at Bee's Bakery this morning. It may have just been the appetite I had worked up from hiking 5 miles with a 2400 foot elevation gain, but my s’mores muffin was freaking delicious. I immediately wished I had bought more pastries. The sun had been out at least half the time when we were hiking up, but it was overcast at the swimming hole, and the sun would pop out for less than a minute at a time between long periods of cloudiness.
I had been curious to see if the teacups above the final drop were accessible, and from a distance it looked like they weren’t, as the rock face appeared too steep. However, my muffin gave me a little extra energy, so I scrambled up the granite to see if I could get a closer look. It looked more navigable up close (although still somewhat treacherous). There were three tubs that looked big enough for swimming, plus a few smaller ones.
The bottom tub above the main drop had a log over it, but I didn’t get close to it due to its proximity to the edge.
The next two tubs above that one looked like legit swimming holes. The middle one was slightly elongated and had a waterfall about 10-15 feet high spilling into it.
I would guestimate the middle tub was about 25 feet long by 8 feet wide. If the water were deep enough, then a jump off the side would be possible (although the edge is somewhat rounded, so a running start might be necessary).
The top tub was the highlight from a swimming hole standpoint. It was a near perfect circle about 20 feet in diameter with a 15-20 foot waterfall spilling into it.
The river-right side was slightly under-slanted and had a perfect rock diving board perched about 15 feet above the water. I didn’t get in to check the depth, as I had left my diving mask at the bottom of the falls, and I was alone (Cade didn't follow me up), but the rock diving board would be a perfect jump if the water were deep enough. I scrambled all the way to the top of the rock face, and the creek became uneventful shortly above this. There were a few smaller tubs (some deep-looking) where the creek emerged from the woods and started to flow over the exposed granite, but the big round tub with the diving board was the last significant cascade/swimming hole upstream of the falls. Even though I didn’t get in, I would have been all up in it if the sun had been out perpetually.
Here is a video of the top tier of the falls, including the teacups:
I scrambled back down to the base of the falls where Cade was waiting. I felt like I needed to at least get in the creek once. The water was 56.5 °F here, which was slightly
I decided I wanted to sit on a large overlook near the middle waterfall and eat a cliff bar before heading back down. Cade gave me a head start while he packed his stuff, and I sat there and admired the epic view.
Cade caught up just as I finished eating, and we hiked the five miles back down to Wawona. It was long, but it was easier going downhill and didn’t seem quite as long as coming in. The sun decided to be an ass and come out perpetually now that we had left the swimming hole, or perhaps it was always shining on this area, and the swimming hole just had more cloud cover. We heard the family catching up with us, and we sort of picked up the pace to avoid the shame of being passed by a family with kids who started hiking out after we did. We barely beat them back to the parking lot. After that, we drove to the mouth of Yosemite Valley and up the north side to the town of Buck Meadows (about 1 hr and 45 minutes from Wawona), where we checked into the Yosemite Westgate Inn and got burgers next door at the Lucky Buck Café. They were pretty good after all the exercise we had gotten.
In summary, Chilnualna Creek would be a great swimming hole destination in hot, perpetually sunny weather. Today’s hike offered some great views, but the cool, overcast weather made it disappointing and uninviting from a swimming hole standpoint. The increased flow and freezing cold water did not help. Chilnualna Falls was swimmable, but the creek picked up a few more tributary streams between there and the lower swimming holes, making the Big Pot a little too rough. Even though I didn’t really get into any of the pools today (other than the base of upper Chilnualna Falls for a few seconds), I’m thinking the best swimming hole would be the uppermost significant tub above Chilnualna Falls. It was large in diameter, appeared deep, and had a perfect rock diving board (if the water under it is deep, which I didn’t check). I would like to revisit Chilnualna Creek in a more typical year, so I can do a proper exploration of the Big Pot, and also check out The Ledge and Honeymooners. Even though hiking all the way to Chilnualna Falls is kind of a drag, the payoff would be worth the effort in nicer weather, so I would consider going back up there again as well.