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.