Yosemite: Cathedral Lakes to Sunrise (2026)

Dates: June 13-14, 2026

When trawling the Yosemite permits availability in my free time, as one does, I saw there were permits open for this weekend (and the whole first half of June) just wide open a few weeks before and just decided to get permits for Cathedral Lakes. I had never been there before and have only heard great things about the location. My only hesitation was the prospect of huge swarms of mosquitoes that spawn in June —  I still have vivid memories of the swarms of mosquitoes my friends and I encountered at the Sunrise trailhead to Cloud’s Rest on Juneteenth two years ago.

The route I wanted to take was somewhat up in the air; I could just do a simple out and back from the Cathedral Lakes, or do this off-trail loop that I found online that goes around to the Matthes and Echo Lakes, with the opportunities to scramble up the Echo Peaks. A slightly larger loop could go all the way through the Sunrise Lakes and loop back along Tenaya Lake and back up to Lower Cathedral Lake to the Cathedral trailhead.

Day 1: Tuolumne Meadows to Upper Sunrise Lake (12 miles, +2,300 ft)

I decided to make a run-time decision after picking up our permits at the Tuolumne Meadows Wilderness Center to just go on the main Cathedral Lakes trail and probably loop back along Tenaya and Tioga. (We saw a woman hiking the PCT at this wilderness center that I would see again next week at Palisades when I ran Broken Arrow!) The ranger asked all the backpackers picking up permits if they had been backpacked in Yosemite before, and if so where they had been before and what was their favorite place. One mentioned Benson Lake and another mentioned Chain Lakes, and I made a mental note to look into these places for the future.

We first visited Lower Cathedral lakes, and along the trail we ran into another group of three hiking in the same direction as us. I didn’t immediately recognize them, but they vaguely recognized me -- they were Thomas and Emily (along with Thomas’s [? can’t remember perfectly] father this time) that we ran into last year along the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne! What a coincidence that we happened to be on the same trailhead on the same day again. I told them of our original backpacking plan, and they were following a similar route except that they had two cars and were going to exit out of the Sunrise trailhead. They offered to give me a ride back to Tuolumne Meadows if we wanted to do the same route, and we would eventually take them up on that offer.

There were some mosquitoes at the Lower and Upper Cathedral lakes but they were pretty mild. We saw a slack line setup on Cathedral peak as we first approached it earlier in the day, and when we reached Upper Cathedral lake we saw someone successfully cross the line. 

Slackline!

We continued along the JMT and first scouted out the Sunrise High Sierra camp as a place to stay for the night but the mosquito situation there was pretty gnarly, and we decided to push onwards to the Sunrise lakes. Still not great there, but better and as the sunset the bug pressure really dropped. My dinner was prepackaged Japanese curry and instant ramen with a bit too much water. I didn’t want to accidentally burn the curry in the pot. It would have been better without the excess water :). 

Day 2: Upper Sunrise Lake to Sunrise Trailhead/Tenaya Lake (4 miles)

The descent back to the Sunrise trailhead the next day was short and smooth sailing. We had a long break at the trailhead, swimming in Tenaya Lake and just lounging on the beach. It was nice to drive home early from a backpacking trip, as we were able to stop by Meadowlark Dairy on the way back for some ice cream.

Thanks Tommy and Jessica for joining me on this rather scuffed journey (and tanking the mosquitos), and thanks to Thomas and Emily for giving us a ride back to the original trailhead.

Emigrant Wilderness: Buck Lakes (2026)

Dates: May 23-25, 2026

A simple long Memorial day weekend outing back out in Emigrant Wilderness. By some coincidence and some changing plans for the days, every day had about the same mileage. We headed out around 6 AM, picked up a permit, and got to the Crabtree trailhead. As expected for a long weekend with good weather and no permit quota limits, the parking lot was packed.

Day 1: Crabtree Trailhead to Gem Lake (10.8 miles, +2,200 ft)

This first part of this trail was familiar, as I was just here last year at Bear Lake. Most of the trail was dry, with the occasional small patch of snow along the sides. There were two major water crossings, one knee deep at Piute Creek past Lily Lake, and a second one crotch deep at the West Fork of Cherry Creek before Gem Lake.

Headed out.

Water crossing.

We set up camp at Gem Lake and got a fire going for the backpacking TV. I had a Mie-goreng and a chicken packet for dinner; this was the first time I had Mie-goreng while backpacking and forgot that there was one sauce packet that was rather viscous. It got all over my fingers and was rather annoying to clean up. Gah. Thanks again Webster for bringing smores for the night. It was fun (and a little messy, but not as grief as the Mie-goreng) trying to get the perfect char on the marshmallows. The most distinct thing I remember of this campsite was the smell of the wild onions scattered all around. 

Relaxing at camp.

Stargazing.

Day 2: Day Trip from Gem Lake to Buck Lakes (10.8 miles, +1,000 ft)

Gem Lake was going to be our base camp, so we left all our sleeping gear and bear cans at our campsite. We did a day hike to Buck Lakes with reduced pack load, and intended to make a loop around along the parallel south trail. Once again this part of the trail was familiar as the Granite Dome loop I backpacked last year also touched the climb out of Buck Lakes.

One of the few larger patches of snow.

Snowman at Buck Lakes.

Buck Lakes on film.

Durston city.

Past Buck Lakes was a flooded meadow that other backpackers said was impassible, so we went off trail to go north around the lake and cut back to the original trail. We scouted around the lake/river and found an area about crotch deep that we could safely cross.

Detour along the southern part of the loop.

After drying off, we returned up the closer turnoff for another night at Gem Lake.

Day 3: Gem Lake back to Crabtree Trailhead (10.8 miles, +1,000 ft)

This was a pretty uneventful day; we hiked back along the original trail since we were unsure about the water crossing conditions along the south part of the original loop since it follows the river given the height of the crossings we faced the previous two days.

We had dinner at Backwoods Burger, not bad. Hard to go wrong with burgers and fries after a hike. Thanks to Christina, Jessica, Tommy, and Webster for inviting me along to their trip.

2026 Primavera Century

Date: April 19, 2026

This was my first organized ride, and first ever (imperial) century. The longest ride I had done before this was just over a metric century spread out over a day. I signed up several months before after being convinced it was the right distance to do by Lawrence, a friend I run with.

I had tried to ride my bike at least once a week, with a few longer rides in the months between signing up and the event day. I’m lucky to live near such nice biking hills and routes along the peninsula to get the climbing and mileage in. My priority was to get longer days in the saddle to prepare my butt for the soreness and the fatigue of climbing toward the end of an already long ride. I had a low enough set of gears that I could always just spin my way up hills.

The day before the ride I joined Lawrence’s usual group of riders for a shake out ride up to Skyline along the peninsula. I’m not sure I knew what I got myself; the ride ended up being one of the toughest ones I had done in awhile. We climbed King’s mountain road to Skyline, then down Skyline and La Honda Road and then back up Old La Honda and down La Honda again. I just spun on the uphills and caught back up with everyone in the re-groups at the top of climbs. My legs were okay afterwards but I did nearly run out of fuel by the end; I only carried one fig bar and I was ravenous when driving home. Hopefully this would not impact my century the next day.

Climbing King's Mountain Road

The next day I met Lawrence at Ohlone College to pick up our rider info and then we headed out right around 7AM.

Some notes from the actual ride:

• The weather was close to perfect, a little warm in the afternoon but when riding it wasn’t an issue. Good thing this ride wasn’t a weekend earlier when the Tierra Bella happened since it rained then.

Starting up Niles Canyon

• Palomares Road was a decent climb but not too bad in the cool shade of the morning. The descent from the top was beautiful; I could just let it rip.

At the top of the Palomares climb

First stop

• Altamont pass in the afternoon sun kinda sucked; it was never excessively steep but we’ve been riding for awhile and going uphill slowly with no breeze required some mental fortitude. Lawrence zoomed up and then came back down a little to me to add some more climbing. Crossing the bridge making the top of the pass was a great relief, and the downhill was nice.

Climbing Altamont

Lunch!

• Thanks to Lawrence for pulling a bit from Pleasanton to Niles, keeping me accountable to the pace and not letting up

Llamas!

• Climbing Calaveras North to South was a fun time with the nice grade

Calaveras Reservoir.

• At the Niles rest stop they only had spicy pickle juice, and while it was still good to prevent the cramps, I think it just a little too spicy for the moment
• The popsicle at the last stop after Calaveras was exactly what I needed
• One last hill at East Warren was surprisingly steep, one last punch in the rollers back to Ohlone College

I once again want to thank Lawrence for being a good (? 😅) influence on me, getting me to sign up for the full century to push myself and riding with me, and to all my friends who joined me on previous rides and rode the shorter route.