Chowchilla Mountain

Chowchilla Mountain tops out at 6,906 feet in the low Sierra country just south of Wawona, a few miles from Fish Camp. Almost nobody comes here to bag the summit itself — the draw is Chowchilla Mountain Road, the historic route that climbs over its flank on what was once one of the main ways into Yosemite from the south.

A stagecoach-era road

In 1869, Galen Clark organized a stock company of eight men to build a wagon and stage road from Mariposa to his own way station at Clark's Station, now Wawona. Completed in 1870 at a cost of roughly $12,000, it ran as a toll road until Mariposa County took it over as a public highway in 1917. Stagecoaches later run by the Washburn brothers used it to reach Wawona. The route crests at Battalion Pass, around 5,600 feet, on grades reported as steep as 16 percent.

Hiking or driving it today

The road survives as a rough dirt track — Forest Route 5S090 — still favored by high-clearance and 4WD travelers, and by hikers and mountain bikers walking sections of it near Fish Camp for the quiet and the views back toward the park's southern boundary. One documented stretch, the Harris Cutoff approach, covers about 6 miles at a moderate grade, climbing from roughly 3,400 to 4,800 feet. It is not a maintained National Park Service trail — there's no posted trailhead or mileage signage, and conditions shift with the season and recent grading, so treat it as a backcountry drive or an out-and-back walk on an old road rather than a formal park hike.