Adventure 008, Hike 019 - McGee Lake to Murphy Creek Trailhead

Capture California, the Game-2012

Adventure: 008, Hike 019 – McGee Lake to Murphy Creek Trailhead

Team: Thing One, Thing Two

Date:  June 21, 2012

Location: Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite

Hike Info:

Trail: Murphy Creek Trail

Distance: 7.6

Duration: 3:26

Elevation Rise: 1,129'

Description:
We hit the trail around 7 to start our outbound journey. The trail skirts along McGee Lake for its length, about a third of a mile, pleasant walking. Thing Two took off about 10 minutes before Thing One. Even at a 3 mph pace, Thing One is not catching Thing Two. Refreshing forest.








Thing One crosses a creek and start on uphill. Finally Thing One catches up with Thing Two and in a nick of time. Thing Two has the toilet paper. Found a really wonderful place off trail—should have created a waypoint. The logs formed a good seat.



From this point, we climb 8-900' to the May Lake/Murphy Creek trail junction. While not steep, it is continuous. Most of the time , a climb like this is not bad. But today we are fighting a scourge of diminutive Dracula's which want our blood. But Deet works better than mirrors or trying to drive a tiny silver dagger through a mosquito's heart.



We reach the top, now it is all downhill, following Murphy Creek to Tenaya Lake. We stop about a mile and half from Tenaya Lake for a picnic lunch. The usual—pepperoni stick, crackers, jerky and peanut butter/nutella. Good meal.



Murphy Creek is no Tuolumne River, but a small creek. The trail takes us through forests, inter-weaved with long slabs of granite. We get to Tenaya Lake at 11:30, not in time for the first shuttle. We waited for about an hour and when the shuttle did not stop—we are not at a designated shuttle stop. So we walked another half a mile to the east end of the lake where the shuttle picked us up and lets us off at Lembert Dome, close to our car.