Tenaya Canyon and South Fork Tuolumne River (Flip Flop)

When: 2017-10-14 to 2017-10-15

Another year, another trip to Tenaya Canyon. It seems as though this is turning into an annual event; for Tim and Francisco, this is the third trip while it was my second. Along the way, we met up with Ian and Tony who were own their own hike down Tenaya. For the following day, Tim pointed us to the South Fork Tuolumne River (Flip Flop) canyoneering route.

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Tenaya Canyon

Making good time, we arrived at the bowl earlier than last year. Rather than lounge around, waiting for the sun to show up, we decided to keep moving.

Francisco at the granite bowl.

Tim and Ian descending teh granite bowl.

As a testament to the higher water levels and morning temperatures, we ran across a largely frozen river rolling down the granite bowl.

Francisco about to cross frozen water.

A closer look at the ice.

Anything is art, these days.

May look like a face of some sort.

Tim crossing more water.

Eventually we found the Lone Boulder off in the distance and made a beeline up a granite slope toward it. This time around, we started from lower near the creek bed, which made the incline slightly more annoying. Once we crested the hill, we would make our way down to the more impressive granite wall descent.

Tim and Ken posing, before descending.

This is where I slowed down: the big granite descent. At this point, Ian and I were passed by another group.

Ian and another group descending the large granite slope.

Near the end of the descent, I found it helpful to cut right toward a grove of bushes rather than continue down the slab. If anything, for something to hold on to for the just-in-case scenario. Everyone else, though, seems to have made it down with much less worry.

View of the lower section of the granite wall.

At this point, there was some nontrivial pain in my right knee, which slowed down my progress considerably. This would haunt us into the night, where we would be doing the wooded portion of this hike in the dark--again.

Looking back at the granite wall descent.

Tony on the first rappel.

South Fork Tuolumne River

For the most part, and mostly due to lack of pockets with a wetsuit, the phone stayed in the bag for the majority of the trip.

Tim looking down one of the many smaller drops.

View of the drop offs.

At some point, we saw that there was no sane way to navigate down the next few drops without more risk than we wanted to take on. Because of this, we decided to reverse our route for a little bit and head up a slope which had us on the service road used for the approach and exit.

Francisco and Tim evaluating the situation.

Thanks for Tim and Francisco for planning the weekend, and Tony and Ian for joining us through the day of Tenaya Canyon. After this experience, I believe that we'll be having more adventures in the future that will be able to take advantage of a wetsuit.