Yosemite’s Ghost of Grouse Lake

In September 1857, Galen Clark, the man who would become Yosemite National Park’s first park ranger, was on what he called “a long tramp” to Grouse Lake.  This was 33 years before Yosemite became a national park, and it was still very wild. 

Even today, Grouse Lake is a tough hike past Wawona in the park.  More than 150 years ago, it’s hard to imagine what it was like. On his trip, Clark took notes. It was those notes that documented the first ghost story in Yosemite. 

On that fall day, as Clark approached Grouse Lake, he heard strange sounds. It sounded like a dog whimpering or wailing, which is precisely what he first thought was the case. He did not see a dog, and brushed it off without much thought. 

Ghost of Grouse Lake

Later that night, he came upon an Ahwahnechee hunting party setting up camp along the lake. Clark walked over and joined them. As he walked along the shore, he heard the whine and whimper of what he again thought was a dog.

Once he got there, he asked the band of Indians if they had heard the sounds coming from near the lake. 

Clark would later write down what they told him.

“They replied that it was not a dog—that a long time ago an Indian boy had been drowned in the lake, and that every time anyone passed there he always cried after them, and no one dared go into the lake, for (the boy) would catch them by the legs and pull them down and they would be drowned. I then concluded that it must have been some unseen waterfowl that made that cry, and at that time I thought that the Indians were trying to impose on my credulity, but I am now convinced they fully believed the story they told me.”

Today, you can hike almost the same trail as Clark did to Grouse Lake, but I’d think twice before dipping my toes in the water.