Buena Yosemite: Bridalveil Creek and Chilnualna Creek

Yosemite National Park

DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6  |  DAY 7  |  DAY 8

Brown line for day 1. Click for interactive map

Petr had a delightful trip around Yosemite last year and planned a new delightful trip around Yosemite for this year too. He planned a large loop out of the Ostrander Lake Trailhead off the Glacier Point Road. The return would be via Mono Meadow Trailhead, a short road walk from the start. It is a narrow road with no shoulders and typically low National Park speed limits that no one feels remotely obliged to obey. But it's short. Daniil got invited and could invite others and that ended up just me. We know Petr because he's the sawyer and cook extraordinaire who has been on/in charge of all the best Bigfoot trips.

We got ourselves up and out early to pick up our permit at the wilderness center at the Wawona Visitor Center only to find we had to wait until 8AM for them to open to actually get it. We wandered through the covered bridge and around their collection of cabins (no pictures taken) for half an hour. Then, having assured the rangers we were deeply committed to keeping our food either in arm's reach or locked away in an approved bear canister at all times and burying our bodily waste 6-8 inches deep and carrying out everything else, we headed out for the trailhead. But first we stopped at Glacier Point (pictures taken) for a little look around, leaving our start more like 10AM than the early one we were hoping to get.

Some mileages, a wilderness sign with many regulations printed, and a bear box mark the start of the trail at Ostrander Lake Trailhead.

We launched ourselves into the rather devastated footprint of an old fire, apparently the 2017 Empire Fire, as we made a generally flat traverse through the Bridalveil Creek drainage. The damage wasn't complete. Some places, the charred tree trunks still standing were topped with little green tufts. Most places, the charred trunks were topped with breaks.

Some lesser burned spaces and some greater burned spaces along the trail.

A bumblebee works among the fireweed flowers.

Spurry buckwheat makes a diffuse mass of white flowers over the bare, dry ground.

We came to a well signed junction. The left trail continuing on to Ostrander Lake was a wide highway with all it's travel and the sign on it boasted a lot of destinations considering it only goes to Ostrander Lake. (Well, it does have a connector back to the right trail and Strava heat indicates some well established routes from the lake to Horse Ridge.) We took the right trail, an obvious trail of more constrained width.

Breaking off onto the lesser used trail.

The crossing of Bridalveil Creek.

Once we crossed Bridalveil Creek itself, we started to climb. When we passed the cutoff trail back to Ostrander Lake, it was even thinner than the one we were on. From there, it was increasing dead trees, whitethorn Ceanothus, and views.

Greater fritillary on a west coast Canada goldenrod.

Lupine also thrived in the sunny spaces.

The pinewoods Horkelia is a new flower to me.

Yosemite Valley, or at least its edges, comes into view again.

The view southeast-ish shows it's not all dead trees.

We found ourselves on a wide, often rock surfaced, ridge. After a short while, the trail finally dropped down the other side. Eventually, the burn stopped. We made our way through stands of trees and meadows to Chilnualna Creek.

Back along the ridge and the trail.

There's still green in the lower stretches of the Chilnualna drainage.

There's still a little more Ceanothus to scrape past on our trail.

It's still not all Ceanothus. Scarlet gilia trumpets in many stages.

Plenty of downed trees near the junction with a trail to Wawona, but no recent burn.

Through one patch of meadow near Turner Meadow.

The hot afternoon had taken a toll on the water supplies and so we detoured a short way down the next trail, a more direct route to Wawona but seemingly little used, to try our luck at a stream marked seasonal that was indeed flowing well.

The water remained, but the Sierra tiger lilies were just about gone.

Then on to the next junction, where we traveled through the outer reaches of the 2017 South Fork Fire as we turned to climb along Chilnualna Creek. It had some lovely spots of flow when we could see it.

Through another stretch of meadow.

The forest looks scruffy, but not so burned, as we turn toward Buena Vista.

Chilnualna Creek.

And I do believe I may be getting old and was definitely slowing down these two youngsters. Well, one's not quite a youngster. We were making horrible time on the climb to our destination for the night at Buena Vista Lake. It was getting late and I was getting tired as we hit the crossing of Chilnualna Creek, which could make a good camp if there's a good spot. A rock held in large flats of dirt and a fire ring from some past user on the far side, but there was no water at our crossing. Not a spec.

This didn't sit well with me since I had just been happily photographing the water. The wide, rocky crossing looked like a good candidate for underground flow through loose rocks. I looked around with an eye that seems to always get it wrong and pointed at a large rock saying I would look over there. Daniil found this an interesting idea and went bounding off to see. He didn't make it to the rock before announcing that there really was water. And so we made camp. While poking around later, he found the game was rigged and there was water not far downstream too.

Continue on to the next day ⇒




*photo album*

©2025 Valerie Norton
Published 12 Nov 2025