Yosemite's Less-Crowded Hike Offers Two Crystal-Clear Lakes And Gorgeous Mountain Scenery

Traffic jams, people-packed hiking paths, and unbookable campsites have all become regrettable hallmarks of Yosemite National Park during peak season. It's one of the most-visited national parks in the country, according to National Geographic, after all. But what if we said there were still places you can go to escape the streams of hikers in this incredible cut-out of Cali's Sierra Nevada? Cue the Cathedral Lakes Trail, a route that knits together two alpine lakes as it crosses jaw-droppingly beautiful sections of the Yosemite high country. Bingo!

This 9.6-mile route whisks you 9,600 feet above sea level. For long sections, it actually dovetails with the famous John Muir Trail, a 211-mile thru hike that's attempted by around 1,500 folks each year. The Cathedral Lakes Trail isn't totally deserted, but it is not within the Yosemite Valley (the most crowded part of the park), so it generally stays far less trodden than other day hikes in the area.

If all that's got you packing the poles and waxing down the boots, then you'll need to plot a course for the Cathedral Lakes Trailhead. It sits on the stunning and underrated Tioga Road, a seasonal highway that typically opens in late spring or early summer and closes in October or November. You're looking at a drive of about an hour from the Mammoth Yosemite Airport in the east, or around four hours from the larger Sacramento International Airport.

Aside from being neatly situated outside the crowded Yosemite Valley (which features the bucket-list Panorama Trail, winding past waterfalls and forests), the Cathedral Lakes Trail has another great selling point: it culminates in not one, but two utterly gorgeous bodies of water perched high in the Sierra Nevada. To get to them, you'll need to first conquer a long ascent that dips in and out of the forest, crossing meadows and open fields under the gaze of craggy mountains. About 3 miles in, the trail splits. One way leads southwest towards Lower Cathedral Lake, while the other meanders straight south towards Upper Cathedral Lake.

The majority of hikers will opt to check off the lower lake first. Prepare to be wowed there — one past visitor on YosemiteHikes.com says, "Lower lake is something else. With a view to Tenaya Lake on one side, and a backdrop of Cathedral Peak on the other, the lake is stunning." When still, the glinting waters reflect the outline of the surrounding mountains magnificently here. This spot also offers a refreshing (but bracingly cold) swim spot before pushing on with the hike.

You'll need to return to the fork in the trail and venture on for around an extra mile to reach Upper Cathedral Lake. Sierra Rec Magazine says this is where the route really starts to get that wilderness, out-of-the-way feeling. Here, the higher waters are set under the jagged top of Cathedral Peak.

Many past hikers who've completed the Cathedral Lakes Trail agree that the good views come at the finish. But when they do get good, they get really good. As one reviewer puts it on AllTrails, "Views at the end were nothing short of a fairytale." The catch? To enjoy that fairytale, you'll have to complete a gradual ascent of over 1,600 feet in what's already high-altitude terrain to the finale of the path.

Allan Shields' "Guide to Tuolumne Meadows Trails" from the 1960s describes the veritable amphitheater of summits that are in attendance at the end. They range from the aforementioned outline of iconic Cathedral Peak to the northeast, around to the serrated massif of the Echo Peaks to the southeast. Many of these mountains clamber up to over 10,000 feet in elevation, creating a dramatic framing for the ultra-clear lake waters cradled below. 

If you're lucky enough to have a Yosemite wilderness permit, you could also opt to push on even deeper into the forest from here, since the Cathedral Lakes Trailhead is a gateway to some fantastic multi-day hike options with even more incredible scenery. Possible extensions go up to the marsh-encircled Echo Lake, or even all the way across to the Yosemite Valley via the underrated panoramic peak of Clouds Rest.