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Yes It is permissible, as long as you are using a different permit to cross over Donahue Pass and camp on Illilouette creek the first night. Even though it might be have a mile farther use the bridge so you don’t miss the Illilouette falls overlook. Elizabeth Wenk has an excellent discussion in her updated Yosemite National park trail guide.?

It should be okay as long as you don't double back on the first day and camp on the JMT somewhere.

I have a feeling that these kind of questions will come up more often with only the Happy Isles pass-through permit having a Donahue exit now.

In 2020 when I did the JMT from Happy Isles, I originally had a Glacier Point to Little Yosemite Valley permit with Donahue exit, but lucked out a few weeks before my JMT started and got a HI pass-through permit. I was planning on doing a HI to Nevada Falls day hike the day before to get that part of the JMT out of the way.

Although it's a bit further down the trail than the no camping zone (maybe an extra mile), there is a great area to camp with a great view of the area and Mt Starr King at 37.69329, -119.53328.

Thanks everyone for your advice I really appreciate it. ?

If i’m seeing this correctly …I need to hike about 1 mile on the Panorama Trail… Then make a left onto a spur trail and hike approximately one more mile until I’m allowed to look for established campsites.

Yosemite‘s published map has a orange arrow …I can’t find the name of the spur trail but it looks like I need to follow it until I cross a brook …then I should be good to go to find a established campsite!

So, at the trail junction where you need to keep to the left, it is all chaparral. The first place that is open enough for camping is at the red circle. the white part in the circle is an? open spot with some granite slabs.

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On Sun, Mar 27, 2022 at 03:57 PM, <shubillpete@...> wrote:

Hello Yosemite Experts,?

I am just wondering if it is possible to use a Happy Isles to Illilouette Wilderness Permit to access Tuolumne Meadows??

Potential route would be:?

Day 1 - Happy Isles to Panorama Trail Junction to the first permissible campsite on the trail that hugs the west side of Mt Starr King (the Yosemite TH map shows that this route is permissible for the Happy Isles - Illilouette permit)?

Day 2 - Backtrack the Mt Starr King trail to JMT, then proceed up to Cathedral Lakes.?

Day 3 - Cathedral Lakes to TM, and pick up my next permit at TM.?

I have a Lyell Canyon (Donoghue Pass Eligible) JMT permit, so this would basically be a work around for covering the HI to TM leg.?

Someone on another forum suggested that I might be potentially be in violation of my HI to Illilouette permit if I backtracked to the JMT after the first night.?

My understanding was that as long as you enter the correct TH and sleep in the correct first night location, the rest of the trip is fair game on any route (with the exception of "special conditions" routes, such as the Donohue Pass quota system for JMT permits).?

I would be grateful for any insight!

Thanks to all for the great advice and campsite photos …it’s invaluable info for me as there was very little specific info & trail reports about getting to the?Illilouette campsites!!

I know the mileage from HI to the JMT Panorama Trail Junction. ?How many miles would you say it is from that junction to the?Illilouette campsites?

I think the comment

“Yeah I got same permit for Yosemite hike I was planning with my son. Found out you are not allowed to backtrack unless finishing your hike that day. Only way to connect back up to jmt is to go all the way around via red peak and Merced lake”

misses an important point. The rule

“贬颈办别谤蝉 may not backtrack from one trailhead to another trailhead on any night of their trip (either partially or fully) unless exiting at their entry trailhead to end their wilderness trip”

specifies backtracking to a trailhead is what is forbidden.? I was plotting a route from Cathedral Lakes to the Pohono Trail, and realized there was no permissible place to camp near Illilouette Falls, even though that had a bunch of great scenic appeal. But to do the Falls, some backtracking would be necessary. As long as the campsites are in permitted areas, and the trip doesn't hit another trailhead, then no rule has been violated.

Enjoy the hike!

I believe that "backtrack" sentence from the Trailheads map may be the single most poorly written and misinterpreted? statement in all of the Parks posted information on permits and trailheads.? I have puzzled over it for years, and looked into it a number of times, and have determined to my own satisfaction that it does not have anything to do with where you can hike to on trail, in wilderness, after your first night on the trail.

I first noticed it when I was iin a fairly lengthy correspondence with Ed Dunlavey, at the time the chief Wilderness administrator for the park, about the then-newly proposed Donohue quota*.? In looking over that proposed rule, I had stumbled across this "backtracking" language and was puzzled by its odd wording.? I'll spare everyone the grammatical details for the moment, but if you think about it, the modifying phrases "from one trailhead to another", "on any night"? and "either partially or fully" really do not add anything to the meaning of the statement.?

?

les that is revised at least yearlySO I dug further, looking for an interpretation, or reiteration somewhere in the permit literature.? I determined that it appears nowhere else.? SInce at least 2015, I have not seen it or anything like it in any permit application page, on any permit, in any statement anywhere in the process of getting or learning about Yosemite wilderness permits.? Most importantly, neither this statement nor anything like it appears in the Superintendents' Compendium, the book of actual rules that is revised annually, and is where a rule actually is made a rule.? If the back tracking rule is actually a rule, violation of which actually has consequences, I wondered why in all the various statements of of rules, conditions and requirements you go through in the permit process, it appears only on this map that many people, including rangers, are not even aware of?

? So I raised it with Ed, and he literally did not know what I was talking about.? He was not aware or either the specific quote from the Trailheads map, nor any rule involving "backtracking" but explained that once a hiker has complied with the first night camp requirements, "We don't tell anyone where they can and can't hike to or camp in wilderness".?

Since that time, I have asked a few rangers about it, and until recently, none of them were familiar with the specific entry, although all referred to the lines and arrows? on the trailheads map, but all said the same thing: once you comply with that first nights camp location, you can go anywhere you can get to on any trail in wilderness.?

Then, a couple of? weeks ago, in a conversation with a ranger at the Wilderness Center, I found one who knew exactly what I was talking about, and who took the time to look at the map with me and go over the paragraph word by word.? ANd guess what: the lights finally went on.

It turns out that the "backtrack" rule has nothing to do with where you can go on the trail in the wilderness.? "Backtracking" according to the ranger, means exiting wilderness from your starting trailhead after your first night and then reentering at another trailhead. ? Go ahead, reread this last sentence two or three times:? I had to have him repeat for me.? The example he gave was this:? You have a Mirror Lake permit to the Snow Creek Trail, but you really want to hike from Happy Isles.? You start out at Mirror Lake and? hike some of Snow Creek, camp legally for the night, but at some point you backtrack, part or all the way to Mirror Lake, exit the Wilderness,? and cut over to Happy Isles (yes there is a trail that connects the Valley Loop around Mirror with Happy Isles, bu tit is not in WIlderness) you then start up the Mist or JMT and Happy Isles to LYV.? Bzzzzzzt! You just voided your permit, but thank you for playing.?

Now, granted, there are a zillion ways that this rule could be stated better, but it fits leaving wilderness at one trailhead and reentering at another? a lot better than hiking back along a section of trail and taking off in another direction.? Just think of what that would prohibit.? Every side trip you can think of, including several I have done since and talked to rangers about, including two years ago, when on a Lyell non-Donohue Permit, I camped the first night at Lyell Base camp, second day hiked up and tagged Donohue Pass, camped at Lyell Headwaters,? and dropped back down to the Lyell Canyon trail - backtracking several miles to the Ireland Lake trail, then up to Vogelsang, Merced Lake, LYV Sunrise and exit at Cathedral Pass TH.? Went over it with a ranger to make sure I was OK tagging Donohue.? No Problem.including the backtrack, once I had passed that four mile arrow for the first camp.?

I don't see any meaningful difference in backtracking to LYV and then Sunrise or anywhere else on the HI/Illilouette permit.? But don't take my word for it:? its always well to inquire.? That can be done by simply putting in your HI/Ililouette/Sunrise/Tuolumne itinerary and see if you get pushback.? I don;t think you will, but because there is not always perfect transparency among rangers, and certaily less than perfect correspondence between the rules as written and as descibed on websites, YMMV.?

?

?

That’s fantastic to know …thanks to all of you for taking the time to explain your take on this!! I will feel 100% now leaving Happy Isles ….I think I stumbled into a group of “Hiker Scholars Extraordinaire” here.

I’ll report back after my Sobo JMT this August!

Cheers

Bill

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That makes a lot of sense, and is what I assumed they were referring to with the “from one trailhead to another trailhead” language, which is one of the cardinal sins of wilderness permits. It would have been pretty strange to specifically prohibit “out and back” hikes.

Here's the camp I mentioned above at 37.69329, -119.53328:

?

[img]https://live.staticflickr.com/940/43940432862_93ac82d181_6k.jpg[/img]

[img]https://live.staticflickr.com/1831/30120330128_f955e42146_5k.jpg[/img]

(I can't promise these sunset colors of course :) )