Need a good over night backpacking trail in YOSEMITE

What distance do you do? Five miles per day, ten miles per day, fifteen miles per day?

On the Yosemite National Park website, there is a list of most of the major trails in the park, and it shows which ones have the wilderness permit reservations booked up. You don't absolutely have to have a permit reservation, but it often helps if you are trying for a weekend or a popular trail. Otherwise, you can simply go to any of the wilderness permit stations and ask what is available within the daily quota.

Let's see. There is the Old Secret Lake, the New Secret Lake, and about a zillion others.

If you are looking for a simple one day hike in, overnight, and one day hike out, you won't have such a tremendous selection.

–B.G.–

depending on difficulty i can handle 10miles a day.

we'll be going monday night so i doubt ill need the reservation.

Porcupine Flat to North Dome.
Tenaya Lake to Sunrise to Mildred Lake.
Tuolumne Meadows to Nelson Lake.
Yosemite Creek to Ten Lakes Basin.
Bridalveil Creek Campground to Ostrander Lake.
Tioga Road: Mono Trailhead to Mono Pass or to Parker Pass.

–B.G.–

Hi,

I live in the Bay Area too. If I had just one night, and wanted to hike to a lake, I'd go to Desolation Wilderness in the Tahoe area. It's a short drive (3-3.5 hours), and has a TON of lakes surrounded by charming granite. It almost doesn't matter where you go in Desolation.

Granite Lake in Mokulumne Wilderness, or Chewing Gum Lake from Gianelli Cabin trailhead in Emigrant Wilderness are two other great places for quick overnights.

Get the "Sierra North" book, which will explain the trips, how to drive there, etc.

Yosemite in the summer is a zoo. Without advance reservation, you are unlikely to get a permit for a very scenic trail there. And on a 2-day trip, you would spend most of your time on the road fighting Yosemite traffic.

– Elizabeth

For my favorite place in Yosemite, it goes like this. I walk up to the permit station and tell the ranger that I would like a wilderness permit. They turn to make sure that their map is open and oriented, and then they ask where I want to go. I tell them "……Lake." The guy kind of blinks for a second, then stares at the map for a second, and then asks where it is. With my finger, I point to the lake on the map. Then he asks where I will be starting from. I show him the starting point. Then he stares at the map again and says that there is no trail to that lake. My response is "Exactly." Two minutes later I have my permit and I am heading off to the car.

–B.G.–

Not really very helpful to the OP….

There are a lot of great hikes in Yosemite. WE've got about fifteen of them on our site. If you want solitude, you may have to hike more than 10 miles. But there are day hikes right in the Valley where you won't meet anyone else!

If I were going right now, I might look at Nelson Lake, Polly Dome Lakes (a couple of different options to choose from there) or illilouette Canyon. Those are all destinations that usually still have some room on their quotas, and all are lovely.