by Epic Steve » Fri Nov 22, 2013 3:34 am
I haven't had time yet to follow all the links posted in this thread and my memory is probably a bit rusty, but I worked in Yosemite Valley from April 1984 – June 1999 and lived in The Valley for about the first half of that period.
I hiked up and back down Indian Canyon once and another time I hiked up and then came down via the Upper Yosemite Fall trail. I don't remember it being a particularly difficult cross country route, even carrying a fairly heavy day pack. However, I was in my early twenties at the time and was in great condition. Plus I already had a lot of off-trail experience, including technical rock climbing and general mountaineering, so obviously that affects my perception of the experience.
First of all, I don't remember there being much (if any) poison oak. Maybe a little right at the bottom of the canyon, but it's rare to find poison oak much higher than the floor of Yosemite Valley (4,000 feet).
I started by taking the trail that goes from Church Bowl to Lower Yosemite Fall. Only a couple of minutes from Church Bowl, when the trail passed behind the Yosemite Medical Clinic (which I think has been renamed to something else now, but I'm not certain), I left the trail and scrambled over some well-settled talus to the right of Indian Creek. After a short distance, the drainage narrowed and became more of a "canyon," which gradually steered my route closer to the creek.
Initially, there was no sign of an old trail, but as the canyon narrowed and steepened there was really only one possible route, still on the right side of the creek. Just as I reached some large boulders (or small cliffs perhaps? - I don't quite remember) and was wondering how I would surmount them, I came to a couple of galvanized steel ladders that were cabled (or bolted? - again, my memory is a bit hazy) to the granite.
I wondered why the ladders were there, but shortly after that, I found a fat old telephone cable that was lying on top of the ground and would frequently disappear underground and then reappear on the surface. This continued for almost the entire length of the canyon, so obviously the ladders were installed to aid installation/maintenance technicians that worked on the telephone cable.
Shortly after climbing the ladders (which were steep, but less than vertical and maybe 15 - 20 feet tall or so), I came to a place where the walls of the canyon dropped steeply into the creek and the only feasible route was along a fairly level ledge above the creek. I recall the ledge as being dirt-covered granite, about 20 feet above the creek. It was narrow enough that I probably wouldn’t have risked crossing it, except that there was a steel cable installed to use as a hand railing, which I found adequately reassuring.
I don’t remember exactly what came next, but I think it was just easy scrambling up a moderate talus slope through fairly open oak woods. But as I approached the confluence of Lehemite Creek and Indian Creek, the oak wood turned into a forest of large cedars and pines and the terrain became a bit more rugged.
Crossing Lehemite Creek was a bit tricky and I had to take a moment to puzzle out my route first. But again, there was a steel hand cable that helped (although I seem to recall the cable being awfully high and having just enough sag/flex to make it still usable). I don’t think falling into the stream at that location would’ve been disastrous – just unpleasant and inconvenient. But I don’t remember which month of the summer it was or what the snowpack was like that year. I do remember that it was much easier the second time I hiked the canyon, because the water was significantly lower.
After passing that obstacle, I crossed Indian Creek to the left (west) bank and the rest of the route was straightforward, mostly on pretty stable but steep talus, with a lot of bay trees around, initially. I recall the smell of bay leaves permeating the air on that section. At the very top, the canyon just petered out into a fairly unremarkable drainage in the middle of a pine forest. A few minutes later, I found the trail that parallels the north rim of Yosemite Valley.
I apologize for all the “I THINK I remember” moments, but for what it’s worth, I hope all of that helps!