The parking area here is the Rush Creek Trailhead — the doorway to the high lakes above: Agnew, Gem, and on into the Ansel Adams Wilderness. It's one of the great backpacking gateways of the Sierra, and even as a day hike it has a real payoff: climb the switchbacks about two miles and you're looking down on Agnew Lake in its granite bowl.
Fair warning, as promised: this trail does not believe in warming up. It's sustained, open, sun-exposed switchbacks from the first step, climbing beside the old tram line the whole way. Fit hikers love it; casual strollers should stick to Gull Lake or Parker.
Two rules if you walk it. Stay off the tramway tracks themselves — the structure is over a hundred years old, it is not a staircase, and it is still part of a working hydroelectric system. And carry more water than you think you need; the grade plus the altitude plus the sun is a three-way tax.
Even from the lot, though, take a second to just look at that line stitched straight up the canyon wall. Every timber of it went up by hand and mule and stubbornness, more than a century ago. Boone's been holding this story all day, and here it is.
Photo: Pacific Southwest Region 5 · Public domain