Merced River Trail

Photo ALbum

Nearly a year after we first entered COVID shutdown, Grandma H, Laura, Zephyr and I ventured to the Merced River Trail at the end of the Briceburg Road off of HWY 140. Normally, we breeze right past this location on our way to Yosemite and none of us had ever actually hiked this section of the river. It turns out that late February during a very dry year is actually the perfect time to explore this old Yosemite Railroad grade that is half great gravel road and gentle single-track that picks its way around rockfalls that occurred in the past 75yrs since the railroad's demise. The trail goes all the way to the confluence of the N. Fork Merced for a round trip hike of about 5.5 mi, but seeing that there were so many newts to discover in Hall Gulch, we only made it to a recent small rockfall about 1.5 miles from the parking lot. I bet this area has spectacular wildflowers in really wet years!

The trail also walks past the remnants of the Mountain King Mine, and I for one could not tell just how extensive the operation had once been a century ago. There are several interesting accounts of miners dying by asphyxiation in the mine shafts due to failure of a water flume that powered an air blower used pump fresh air deep into the workings.