Halebopp wrote:First off let me say sorry to be such a newbie, but I have no experience with Yosemite.
My friend and I want to plan a 5 day or so backpacking trip at the end of this coming May. We want to go 12-15 miles a day. I have no idea what the best routes to take would be,
I'm thinking about the same thing but I'm looking at the end of October. Looks like we both will have the same problem: Uncertainty about if there will be snow or not. If I know there would be snow I could plan for it and take skis. The troble is that in May you could be hiking in slush in the lower elvations and hard ice-like stuff higher up. In my case (October) It will likely still be clear of snow but I'd have to have a good "plan B" for what happens if we wake up one morning to find 4 feet of new powder.
If you are new to Yosemite, what you should expect with early season backpackiing, and by "early" I mean June 1st. is that there will be "snow melt" meaning high creeks to cross and ankle deep mud in the trails and swarming clouds of mosquitoes. Snow can turn an easy on-trail backpacking trip into a cross country navigation exercise. I walked over Cathedral pass once when it was covered with 20 feet of snow in June.
If you plan for snow and plan a route that is safe (i.e. without the potential to fall 1,000 feet onto rocks if you slip on the ice.) then snow is nice. I'm looking forward to the snow season. Some ideas are the Snow Creek trail out of Mirror lake. It stays mostly clear or when there is snow the roads become trails. You can hike/ski on any snowed over road. The problem is just the un-certainty so it is hard to plan.