Trail-Fork Sign Tempting You Away from the Lyell Canyon Trail

Another non-Lyell-Canyon Fork

You'll reach this fork about a mile and a half into the hike, near the bridge over Rafferty Creek. The left fork will keep you on the Lyell Canyon trail; this one will divert you uphill to Tuolumne Pass, a variety of high-country lakes, the Vogelsang and Merced Lake High Sierra Camps, and ultimately to Yosemite Valley. These are all worthy destinations, but going to any of them is a considerably more strenuous hike than Lyell Canyon. Besides the extra couple thousand feet of elevation gain required to reach any of these targets, the nearest attraction on this route (Tuolumne Pass) is more than six miles (nine kilometers) from the Lyell Canyon trailhead.