How to Get a Lyell Canyon (Donohue Pass eligible) Permit

Two bridges over the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne, then miles of open grass with the river running beside you and the Kuna Crest on your left. It is the least dramatic start to a famous trail imaginable, and that is the appeal — you walk into the wilderness at 8,600 feet without earning it, and the canyon takes hours to give way to the climb toward Donohue.

The trailhead is marked by a John Muir Trail sign south of the Dog Lake parking area, and it starts near the Tuolumne Lodge parking lot. A short way in you cross a bridge over the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne, then reach the Lyell Fork and the pair of bridges known as Twin Bridges — three miles round trip and, in the park's words, mostly flat.

Beyond that the John Muir Trail and Pacific Crest Trail run together up the open grassy floor of Lyell Canyon, with views of the Kuna Crest and Mount Lyell. NPS gives the canyon as 11.4 miles round trip with 300 feet of gain, which is why it reads as a walk rather than a climb. Yosemite's four-trail-mile rule from Tuolumne Meadows still applies, so the first legal camp is a way up the canyon.

Then it climbs. Donohue Pass sits at 11,056 feet on the park's southern boundary and is the highest point of the Pacific Crest Trail inside Yosemite. Cross it on a Donohue Pass eligible permit and one Yosemite permit carries you the rest of the John Muir Trail, with no Whitney stamp and no permits from the forests and parks south of here. Turn left at Ireland Creek instead and you can loop out over Ireland and Evelyn Lakes and back down Rafferty Creek, 22.2 miles with 2,150 feet of gain.