Wawona Dome 6897′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 5:20
Distance: 11.0 miles
Elevation Gain: 3600′
Crux: Class 2
Trailhead: Chilnualna Falls, full services in Wawona area
I had one last day off in 2020, and felt like I should spend my last bit of free time in this miserable year in my favorite place- Yosemite. My hands were fairly beat up from some Valley cragging the week before, so I was looking for a new summit without technical climbing. A few storms left much of the Valley scrambles coated in ice, and the higher summits had not so insignificant avalanche risk. So after looking at park maps, I settled on a snowshoe to the summit of Wawona Dome. Located near the southern entrance, Wawona Dome serves as the backdrop to the Wawona area and sits just above Chilnualna Falls, probably the most popular waterfall in Yosemite outside of the Valley. Despite this, the dome is infrequently climbed, with most visitors flocking to the Valley or the high country, passing the magnificent piece of granite as they head for adventures further north. I was guilty of it myself, with this being my first trip up the Chilnualna Falls trail, traveling through an interesting little town in the park complete with a school, library and grocery store to reach the trailhead lot. There was only two cars at the trailhead as I started up, quickly reaching a lower series of cascades in a small granite amphitheater.
The trail left the creek and joined a stock trail, a sign indicating the upper Chilnualna Falls was a bit over 4 miles away. I didn’t have a good idea how deep the snow was (and how slow I’d be moving) once above the falls, so I quickly pushed on up the trail, passing a pair of hikers along with a solo older gentleman early on before passing a series of down trees. Wawona Dome would occasionally poke through breaks in the forest, but for the most part the trail switched back up through the forest and away from the creek.
I started to hit the first patches of snow about halfway up the trail, with more consistent coverage the higher I climbed. When I was a few hundred feet below the falls, the trail began to cut more aggressively back towards the river crossing some mildly exposed granite steps to the base of the upper falls.
The snow coverage was now 100%, but the trail was well bootpacked seeing plenty of traffic since the storm the prior weekend. I took my first short break of the day just beyond the falls, taking under 2 hours to reach despite the mixed conditions. As I climbed the trail to just above the take off of the upper falls, the footprints in the snow ended and the snow deepened considerably. I stopped to put on snowshoes, then quickly reached a three way junction I had seen on my map.
My goal was to try and follow the trail as best I could over several small creek crossings before cutting cross country to the summit. Despite the deep snow, the trail was actually fairly easy to follow, the path of least resistance through the manzanita and brush. The stream crossings were tricky, rock hopping on rocks covered in a foot of snow with awkward snow shoes. The first one was uneventful and I lost the trail at the second, finding the narrowest spot to cross and hopping across, hoping the snow on the other side was covering something solid.
Feet dry, I set upslope through the forest. Despite the prominence of Wawona Dome from below, the summit itself is quite nebulous, completely tree covered and only with about 60′ of prominence from the connecting higher ridgeline. So unlike my usual cross country travel where I just needed to head upslope, this required some course correction and side hilling to keep from heading up the higher ridgeline to the north. The snow north of Wawona Dome was the deepest of the day with drifts up to my knees in places. A bit more traversing brought me to a notch on the ridgeline with a flagged wrapped on a tree branch, a summer peakbaggers route being somewhere nearby. Once at the notch the summit was obvious and I continued another 100 yards up thinner snow coverage to the high point. If there was a cairn or register, it was buried deep in snow, and the views were obscured by trees at least partially in all directions. I had made good time from the top of the falls only taking about an hour, and continued down the dome towards the cliff bands below. After dropping about 100′, the improved views began to feel less worth the effort that would be needed to climb back up to the summit, so I reversed course and found a semi-dry rock for another break.
The views were best to the southwest towards Devil Peak with a blanket of Tule Fog across the central valley, and the coastal range in the far distance. To the south were some of the taller summits near Raymond and White Chief Mountains. It was a bit cold to linger for too long, so I started back the way I came, following my snow shoe tracks not only to keep from getting lost, but for the ease of travel along the broken trail. I was able to reach the top of the falls in only about 30 minutes, passing a small group of people eating a late lunch and quite surprised to see someone descending from the snows above.
I took my snow shoes off when I made it through the narrow granite steps and picked up the pace as the snow coverage quickly dwindled, a decent amount having melted just since that morning. I didn’t pass another hiker the rest of the day, clipping through the forest with great afternoon light on Wawona Dome above. I paused briefly at the lower falls to consider looking for climbing options in the surrounding cliff bands, but hunger won the day and I continued the remaining distance to the car.
Leaving the park, I stopped in Oakhurst for some wine at Idle Hour for NYE and headed home for dinner.
