The moon is looking down into the canyon, and how marvelously the great rocks kindle to her light! Every dome, and brow, and swelling boss touched by her white rays, glows as if lighted with snow. I am now only a mile from last night’s camp; and have been climbing and sketching all day in this difficult but instructive gorge. It is formed in the bottom of the main canyon, among the roots of Cloud’s Rest. It begins at the filled-up lake basin where I camped last night, and ends a few hundred yards above, in another basin of the same kind. The walls everywhere are craggy and vertical, and in some places they over lean. It is only from twenty to sixty feet wide, and not, though black and broken enough, the thin, crooked mouth of some mysterious abyss; but it was eroded, for in many places I saw its solid, seamless floor.

John Muir 1918

This trip follows our tradition of picking unusual trips with outstanding qualities.

In the case of the Tenaya Canyon descent this includes, the history of John Muir's epic first traverse of the gorge, phenomenal views of Half Dome and Mt. Watkins and the pleasure of finishing in Yosemite Valley. And of course going downhill all the way helps too.

History

The depths of the deeply incised gorge cut by glaciers and the Merced River seem destined for tales of horror and epic adventure.

In the early 1980 white men arrived in Yosemite Valley and of course conflict with the native Ahwahneechee inhabitants. Attempts to remove the locals (who did not want to be removed) turned violent and the favorite son of Chief Tenaya was shot. In his anger Tenaya cursed the men saying

“…You have made me sorrowful, my life dark; you killed the child of my heart, why not kill the father? You may kill me sir captain, but you shall not live in peace, I will follow in your footsteps, I will not leave my home but be with the spirits among the rocks, the waterfalls, in the rivers and in the wind; wherever you go I will be with you. You will not see me, but you will fear the spirit of the old chief, and grow cold.”

John Muir was the first to explore the depths and immediately ran afoul of the curse when for “the first time since [he] touched foot to Sierra rocks,” he fell and was knocked unconscious. He was saved from a long tumble by some bushes and after a long night escaped by some of the most daring mountaineering he had ever attempted.

In more recent years the Park Service has been plagued by tourists attempting to hike the canyon and they have erected a sign saying;

This is not a trail
Travel beyond this
point is dangerous
without climbing
equipment. Return
to Tioga Road

So to make this a safer pleasurable outing we take climbing equipment, know the route and offer our respects to Chief Tenaya.

Route

The route follows large rock slabs and where there are short steep cliffs these are descended by rappel or a lower. We do the descend in the fall when the river flow slows to a crawl but there are several pools of cold water to swim. There is one short 4th class section where we employ the use of a rope to descend, but most of the route is non-technical mountaineering or perhaps better described as technical hiking.

Itinerary
We meet at the west end of Lake Tenaya on Highway 120 in the Tuolumne High Country at 7.00am and we aim to be pick up in Yosemite Valley at 6.00pm