Sorry, no pictures for this hike, even though the view from the top of Smith Peak is fantastic!

There are several trails to the top of Smith Peak from the road to Hetch Hetchy. I was camped at Camp Mather, for the Strawberry Music Festival and started the hike from there. The trail from Mather starts from the northeast corner of the camp and it's about a mile from the camp to the junction with the trail that comes up from the Mather Ranger Station. On the topo map, there are a number of trails, but the signs at the junction direct you to the trail that follows above the road for around 1/2 mile.

After this point, the trail goes pretty steeply uphill and just past where it levels out again, there's a short trail to a lookout point. This would be a nice short hike from Mather. Smith Peak though, is 6.5 miles and 3100 ft elevation gain away.

From here, you can see Smith Peak on the horizon. Shortly after the Lookout trail offshoot is another trail junction: one goes to the Hetch Hetchy trailhead, the other, the one to take, goes to the Cottonwood Meadow trail. A few miles later, Cottonwood Meadow is a large, very scenic meadow, and the first place to take care with trail finding. A bit past the north eastern edge of the meadow, the trail enters a marshy zone. Because the trail is relatively lightly used, the trail is not distinct through here. Several light tracks will probably be visible. You want to aim for one that goes more northwards. I took another one that petered out and ended up having to bushwack northwards to fortunately happen onto the main trail. From there, over a 400ft rise, you'll get to Smith Meadow. This meadow again has no distinct trail, but if you cut across roughly northeast, you'll get to the trail junction of the Cottonwood Meadow trail, which we just took, and the Smith Meadow trail, and the trail up to Smith Peak.

On the topo, the trail up Smith Peak looks pretty straightforward, but if you're not careful, you could take a side trail, as I did, that leads to a marshy area not marked on the map. As with the marshy area after Cottonwood, you can get into trouble. Best is not to miss the main trail; unfortunately, so many have that this wrong-way branch is easy to take accidently. If you decide not to backtrack, try the north side of the marsh; you might be able to find the main trail in that direction. Not knowing any better, I tried the south side and had to bushwack my way up the south face of Smith, though manzanita and assorted other brush

The view from the top is spectacular. The peak is rocky and unvegetated, and drops steeply away to the north and east sides. Views are to the Cathedrals to the south, and sweeping views of the northern and eastern peaks of the park, not to mention Hetch Hetchy itself, close to 4000 ft below.

On the way down, on the main trail, I saw no hint of the marshy area I had passed through on the way up, so the wrong-way spur took me way off the main trail. I decided to descend back to the road using the Smith Meadow trail down to the the Hetch Hetchy trailhead, making the calculated risk that I could hitch a ride back to Mather. This is not recommended -- several cars passed me and my thumb without stopping. Fortunately, a park ranger passed by and was willing to give me a lift. This trail is downhill all the way, dropping 3000 ft in 6.5 miles. I would not want to do this trail uphill.

All in all, it was about a 18 mile day -- 7.5 miles from Mather to Smith Meadow, 3 miles round trip to Smith Peak from the meadow, 6.5 miles back to the road, and I ended up having to tack on one more mile because the park ranger dropped me off at the park entrance, not all the way back to Camp Mather. Left at 8.30am, returned at 6.30pm, so 10 hrs on trail including assorted rest stops, two bushwacking sessions, and a short stop on the peak.