south fork of the merced preview

Adventures have been left and right since the Royal Gorge, from vacationing at Ed and Suzanne's in Sacramento on one end of the comfort spectrum to our epic on the South Fork of the Merced.

The Merced River drainage falls west out of Yosemite on it's way to the Pacific Ocean. We drove in to the area and spent an afternoon swimming and playing around in Bear Creek, the site of my epic adventure earlier in the summer.

Smiles had by all:

photo by Mefford Williams


photo by Shanna Powell

The much lower water level allowed us to literally crawl into the waterfall and climb up inside a pothole behind and to the right of the veil.

photo by Toby MacDermott

On July 7th we set shuttle and drove into Yosemite to put-in at the only legal put-in within the park's boundaries, leaving one car down at the take-out: the confluence of the South Fork and the Main Merced.

Our trip down the South Fork would turn out to be quite an adventure. Stay tuned for Shanna's version of this overnighter turned double overnighter extravaganza.