Hiking the Merced River Canyon – with a pup!
Talking to my parents yesterday on the phone I realized how amazing my California spring has been. For California March did leave us much like a baby lamb frolicking among the wildflowers – Sorry snowy Michigan! This is most obvious (and literal, if you bring your own lamb! ) when you look at the crazy amazing wildflower displays along in the lower Sierra.
California spring is in the air as you travel into Yosemite from the El Portal Entrance, with massive fields of orange poppies along the hillsides. If you are visiting Yosemite for the waterfalls right now, I must urge you to stop and hike here outside the park. And since you are outside the park feel free to bring your dog… Or, as Curtis & I did, your friend’s dog!
As I briefly mentioned in my previous post (attempting) identifying wildflowers we ended up picking our hiking route based on the dog-friendly factor, even though there are multiple more rustic hiking trails in the El Portal area. I had mapped out several different possibilities including the Hite Cove Trail and the Merced River Area BLM land. Though consider yourself warned, those nice rustic trails are BUSY this time of year. A small busy trail can be stressful with a large dog in tow.
Hiking Incline Rd, Merced River Canyon & Sierra National Forest
Trailhead: West of El Portal take the Foresta Rd bridge over the Merced, then immediately turn left onto Incline Road. The narrow Incline road goes past many nice looking forest service campsites, then turns to gravel before you reach a gate. Park here and start hiking past the gate.
Distance: About 4.5 miles out and back (2.25 miles each way). The trail is really a service road that runs parallel to the North side of the river, which ends at where Hwy 140 crosses the North side Merced to via a small aluminum bridge to avoid a landslide that happened a few years back.
When Curtis was helping find out locations for a wildflower hikes he forwarded an email from the local Sierra Foothills chapter of the California Native Plants Society (CNPS), which listed Incline Rd as one of their first wildflower hikes of the year. I can see why the CNPS would love this hike – it does have an amazing variety of wildflowers but is still wide enough for a large group to hike and discuss without blocking the trail or crowding someone into a poison oak patch. Which happen to be two big pluses when you have a dog along too!
Additionally this trailhead was far less crowded than the popular Hite Cove trail, which makes sense since it is parallel to hwy 140. Why get out of the car for the same scenery? Because you need to stop going upwards of 50 mph to actually look at the wildflowers and enjoy them! Those colored hillsides look much more impressive once you leave the dashboard behind. Besides, it is too curvy throughout this stretch to really have a good focus on anything other than the road.
As far as I know the wildflowers are still blooming, and probably will until late April/early May – there is still time to hit up Yosemite wildflower season! I love the following quote my Ralph Waldo Emerson (“The earth laughs in flowers”) because it is true how a simple flower, both on your kitchen table or on the trail, can brighten up a day. Simple & Beautiful!
See more photos from our hike in the gallery below:
Hello! I am a 30-something outdoors-lady, backpacker, and resident of Groveland, California - 
i hope to visit this area this coming sunday from the east coast. when does it get busy? tks
ron
The trails will have some people on them, but they shouldn’t be too busy – not like the summer crowds in the valley. With the wildflower trails you don’t want to start too early in the morning because the flowers won’t have opened up yet from the night before, so it might be best to wait until 9am or latter. Enjoy your hike!
Hello, thank you so much for awesome blogs about the hike/trail where you can take your dogs to. I am planning my trip end of April to Yosemite and found your information very helpful. Thanks! Ella ;)
Not sure you’ll see this in time, but we are planning on going tomorrow (July 1st) and I’d love to take my dog. I’m hoping we can find a spot for her to play in the river. Do you know of a good area?
Oh, well I did not see this in time – but I bet you must have found some good spots to go swimming with your dog. When we were with Odie dog he went for a swim just before the confluence of the South fork of the Merced (Hite Cove area) and the the branch of the Merced that follows HWY 140, but there were so many other places he wanted to jump in too.
Love your blog. Am in yosemite now and am too having a difficult time finding dog friendly trails. Will be going to the surrounding areas. Do you have a list of the better hikes around the area that are ok for dogs?
Depends on where you want to leave the park. Right now any on the exits on the Western side of the park (Big Oak flat, El portal, & Wawona) are super hot. If you want to go that way I think swimming with the dog is a good option. If you have access check out Mapmuse – but I would suggest either Rainbow Pools off of Hwy 120 (little hiking, more swimming) or Hite Cove off 140 where the swimming holes are only ~.5 miles in but offers more hiking if you want.
If you can I strongly recommend instead going up Tioga Rd and out the pass on the East side to get some amazing views, cooler weather, and great dog friendly areas. Any of the many trails out of Saddlebag Lake area are dog friendly – The Gardisky Lake trail or the trail to Green Treble lake out of the sawmill campground are awesome – or if you are willing to drive just a bit further north check out Lundy Canyon for all day hiking.