Snorkeling

A dirt road skirts the town of Briceberg (population 9) then parallels the river for five miles until it ends at Railroad Flat campground and a road blockage.  The dirt road then continues for 2.7 miles to what we call “the baby Merced” but is officially called the North Fork.  This road once served the gold mining and timber industries as well as a passenger train to Yosemite. 


The hike to the baby Merced offers a challenge we accept every visit.  By July the baby river is dry. But by then the waterfalls in the main stream (shown yesterday) have been tamed and the pools below it are home to rainbow trout, large-mouth bass, and blue trout.  The river trail is an ungroomed, mostly dirt, loose shale and sand trail that follows the mostly unshaded banks of the river. The temperature during our hike 95- F (35-C).  It wasn’t even a question of would we swim. 

Extra: the return trip headed back upstream.