Sierra in May

Add the Golden Trout wilderness at the southern end of the Sierra to your list as well.

Suggest posting on the High Sierra Topix board.  That group focuses on the Sierra and you’ll likely get several early season suggestions.

Thanks on both suggestions, Steve. Golden Trout sounds early-season perfect, but trailhead access by public transportation may be a challenge. I’ll look into it.

Current snow levels, after this last series of storms, will be down below 6,000 feet.  The challenge you face is connecting your public transport to those lower elevations.  You could consider a North Rim of Yosemite Valley trip…and hope for warm weather to melt out most of the snow.

Hetch-hetchy is another option, but there is no transport to the trailhead.  You might get lucky with your thumb there. There are also trails west of the main attractions of both Yosemite and SEKI, but again, tough to get transport to them.

We like hiking the closed fire-road during the spring, which lead to all sorts of nice locations that are mobbed by car campers later in the season, but you won’t be able to get a bus to any of those…

<p style=”text-align: left;”>For east side trailheads in the Sierra there is the Eastside Sierra Transit Authority bus (runs M-F) from Reno, which connects with Yarts, or south of Mammoth there is usually easy hitching (though May will be tougher than Jul/Aug).  The Lone Pine chamber used to (and might still) offer reasonably priced shuttles to Cottonwood/Horseshoe meadow for Golden Trout wilderness access.</p>

Many thanks, Paul and Steve.

Paul, the mentioned fire road is near Hatch Hetchy?

Seems like YARTS to Yosemite Valley and try to string together North Rim and South Rim hikes, and/or maybe thumb-it to HH — all permit permitting. With the new 60/40 system I’d guess I have a decent chance of gettin in somewhere. I’ll call the ranger to confirm. Still considering your suggestions on Golden, either with some hitchhiking and maybe a long walk down a road in hopes of getting picked up, or the shuttle options from Lone Pine.

Forest service roads are outside Yosemite, in the Stanislaus National Forest